Bevis Marks is a short street in the ward of Aldgate in the City of London.
The street name has been known as ’Bewesmarkes’ (1407), ’Bevys Marke’ (1450), ’Bevesmarkes’ (1513), ’Bevers-market’ (1630), and ’Beavis Markes’ (1677), prior to Bevis Marks (since 1720).
The antiquarian John Stow believed the name to derive from the Abbots of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, in whose ownership this part of the city was until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. At that time, their possessions were passed to Sir Thomas Heneage, a gentleman of the Privy chamber in attendance on King Henry VIII. He is commemorated in the name of nearby Heneage Lane.
Bevis Marks is mentioned several times in Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop as the street where solicitor Sampson Brass has his offices.
Bevis Marks is home to the Bevis Marks Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in the United Kingdom still in use.
