Pudding Lane

{{Short description|Street in the City of London}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2017}}

{{Use British English|date=July 2017}}

{{Infobox street

| name = Pudding Lane

| image = File:Pudding Lane - geograph.org.uk - 1027462.jpg

| caption =

| location = London, England

| postal_code = {{postcode|EC|3}}

| direction_a = North

| terminus_a = Eastcheap

| direction_b = South

| terminus_b = Pedestrianised to Lower Thames Street

| known_for = Origin of the Great Fire of London

| completion_date =

}}

Pudding Lane is a small street in London, widely known as the location of Thomas Farriner's bakery, where the Great Fire of London started in 1666. It runs between Eastcheap and Thames Street in the historic City of London, and intersects Monument Street, the site of Christopher Wren's Monument to the Great Fire.

Farriner's bakery stood immediately opposite the location of the present Monument, on the eastern side of Pudding Lane. The site was paved over when Monument Street was built in 1886–87, but is marked by a plaque on the wall of nearby Faryners House, placed there by the Bakers' Company in 1986.{{cite journal|last=Gerhold|first=Dorian|date=2015|title=Where did the Great Fire begin?|url=http://lamas.org.uk/images/documents/Transactions66/001-008%20Where%20did%20Great%20fire%20begin%20low%20res.pdf|journal=London and Middlesex Archaeological Society Transactions|volume=66|pages=1–7}}

Pudding Lane was given its name by the butchers of Eastcheap Market, who used it to transport "pudding" or offal down to the river to be taken away by waste barges. There was a wharf at its lower end called Rothersgate (from the "rothers" or cattle that were landed there), and it was also known as Rother Lane.{{cite book|title=A Dictionary of London Place-Names|last=Mills|first=David|year=2010|publisher=The University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=9780199566785}} Another name for it was Red Rose Lane, from a shop sign that once hung in it.{{cite book|chapter=Billinsgate warde|title=A Survey of London. Reprinted From the Text of 1603|last=Stow|first=John|editor-last=Kingsford|editor-first=Charles|year=1908|location=Oxford|publisher=Clarendon Press|chapter-url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/survey-of-london-stow/1603/pp205-211}}

Pudding Lane was one of the world's first one-way streets.{{cite web |title=One-way streets are a surprisingly old (and dangerous) idea |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/05/one-way-streets-are-a-surprisingly-old-and-dangerous-idea/ |website=The Spectator |accessdate=14 December 2018 |date=2 May 2015}} An order restricting cart traffic to one-way travel on Pudding Lane and 16 other lanes around Thames Street was issued in 1617, an idea not copied until Albemarle Street became a one-way street in 1800.

The nearest Underground station to Pudding Lane is Monument, a short distance to the west. The closest main-line railway stations are Fenchurch Street and Cannon Street.