Return to A Selection of Objects The Lonsdale-Little Lonsdale Street area was a centre for vice and prostitution in the late nineteenth century. This unusual collection of French wine bottles, perfume bottles, oyster shells and gambling pieces may be the material culture of a brothel.
The tenants of the premises in the nineteenth century generally appear to have been legitimate businesses. However, Mrs. Bond’s store and Morris Cohen’s Furniture Mart were fronts for brothels.
The 1850s building at No 60 Lonsdale Street was demolished to make way for a car park some time in the 1960s. However, the backyard area was found to be intact in 1987-8 when the archaeological dig was conducted. The listed objects, and many others, were found in three pits (a cess pit, a general rubbish pit and a bottle pit) in what had once been the small backyard.
Source, Justin McCarthy; Archaeological Investigation, Commonwealth Offices and Telecom Corporate Building Sites, June 1989, Volume 1.
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