Astley's

Astley's is the shared name of a tobacconist's shop opened on London's Jermyn Street in 1862 and the pipes sold under that shop's name. The brand is an example of a business built on selection rather than production: Astley's never carved pipes in a workshop of its own at any point, but instead had the best English manufacturers of the day make pipes on its behalf.

An Astley's pipe, then, is really a body made by another workshop that passed Astley's own standards.

The Shop and Its Address

The address was 109 Jermyn Street. From the second half of the nineteenth century onward, Jermyn Street was one of the streets where London's pipe and tobacco trade was concentrated; the Charatan shop also operated on the same street. The mix of goods in the window changed over time: in the shop's early period meerschaum pipes predominated, while in later years classically shaped briar pipes took the central place at the counter.

Records indicate the business was in the hands of the Bentley family from the 1930s onward. The shop closed at some later point; sources do not consistently agree on the exact closing date. The brand name was subsequently bought by Mordechai (Moty) Ezrati, who also owns the James Upshall brand.