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Café Rouge, High Street, Hitchin

Originally constructed as a draper & tailor shop by John Thompson, the building was completed in 1834. It was built on the site of an earlier shop and dwelling which was owned by the Lucas family who were brewers and maltsters (one of whose daughters John Thompson had married) who were Quakers from the earliest days of the movement and in whose house the first Hitchin Quaker meetings were held. The Thompsons were good friends of Mathew Arnold, Link poet and son of the famed Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby school. Mathew Arnold is known to have visited the house on several occasions. The Thompson family sold the building in 1902 and it was later acquired by the Hepworth tailoring chain and used by them until 1986. It has been occupied by Café Rouge for some ten years. The upper floors are now occupied by a chinese restaurant.