The St. James’s district of London is known for its gentlemen’s clubs, aristocratic residences and craft specialists including tailors, milliners and perfumers. Recently joining them is the 175-year-old British jeweler Hancocks & Co., which last month relocated its showroom from a shop within the Burlington Arcade in the Mayfair district to a renovated Georgian townhouse on St. James’s Street.
The 2,000-square-foot site has increased the shop’s retail space tenfold, the company director Guy Burton said, calling the move a “full circle” moment that returned the jeweler to its 19th-century glory days.
Hancocks opened in 1849 on Bruton Street in Mayfair as a jewelry, silverware and gemstone merchant. “From the descriptions we have, it was actually kind of a similar vibe to this,” Mr. Burton said during a tour of the new showroom, designed to resemble a private home, with antique-inspired furnishings, paneled walls and working fireplaces.
He described the three retail floors as galleries, named after previous Hancocks locations.
On the ground floor is the Sackville Gallery. Hancocks was on that Mayfair street from 1916 to 1970. The gallery showcases “a bit of everything,” said Mr. Burton, including signed vintage jewelry, antique tiaras and Hancocks’ own designs.
