Place Name
Sir Andrew Judd or Judde (1492 – December 4, 1558) was a leading City merchant, former Lord Mayor of London and six times Master of the Skinners’ Company. Born in Tonbridge, Kent, as a young man he headed to London and was apprenticed in about 1511 with the Skinners’ Company which ran the London fur trade. He went on to amass a great fortune from the export of fur and wool to the continent. Wanting to vest this wealth for the benefit of his hometown, in 1553 he obtained a charter from Edward VI to found a school there, at the same time, buying 30 acres of pasture land known as ‘sand hills’ just to the south of St Pancras. The rents from the land were to provide funds for the new school. Upon his death, only a few years later, the Skinners’ Company took over the management of the estate and around the turn of the 19thCentury, perhaps spurred on by the rapid development of neighbouring Bloomsbury estates, starting developing it. A number of its streets were named either after Judd himself, or localities in or close to Kent. This street was built from 1808 by James Burton, William Mitchell, and Francis Oxley. The Skinners’ Arms pub dates back to at least 1839. Judd’s family arms can be seen carved into ceiling ornaments of Skinners Hall following a generous contribution from him in about 1556 for its renovation.
