The house of the French refugee

London has been seen as a place of safety for hundreds of years. 

The Huguenot silk weavers who settled around what is now Christ Church Spitalfields in the 17th Century were Protestants seeking refuge from persecution in France.

In 1685 Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes which had given French protestants considerable rights in what was ostensibly a Catholic country. They fled to England bringing their skills and starting a whole new industry in the shadow of The City.