Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. Horsemonger Lane jail.

1841		County Chron., Surrey Herald 26 Oct. 3/4: He had since been in the ‘Stone Jug’ (Newgate), the ‘Horse’ (City Bridewell), the ‘Lane’ (Horsemonger Lane Goal), [and] the "Steele’ (House of Correction).
1856		H. Mayhew Great World of London II 82: The cant or thieves’ names for several London prisons or ‘sturbons’ [...] is as follows:– [...] Horsemonger Lane Jail – the Lane.

2. Drury Lane Theatre, London.

1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1880		G.R. Sims ‘Forgotten — A Last Interview’ Ballads of Babylon 91: Whenever the Lane tried Shakspeare, I was one of the leading men.
1899		Reynolds’s Newspaper 8 Jan. 2: Brady, senior, conformed more or less to the social code of ’the Lane’. He got drunk.
1905		Sporting Times 18 Mar. 1/5: Why the Mister Funny-cuts that made my ticket out tumbled somehow that I was on in the ballet at the Lane, an’ he goes an’ puts it down that I’m suffering from ‘pantomime poisonin,’ that’s all.
1908		Bexhill-on-Sea Obs. 31 Oct. 5/5: ‘Couple of seats at the Lane?’.

3. Leather Lane, a large street market (London EC1).

1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 394/2: I can then go into the lane (Leather-lane) of an evening, and make 1d. or 2d. extra.
1911		G.R. Sims Off the Track in London 147: The Italians are not great patrons of the Leather Lane market [...] But they come to the Lane for fish, fruit, and vegetables.

4. Petticoat Lane Market (Middlesex St, London E1), thus laner, an East Ender, a Cockney.

1853		Bell’s Life in Sydney 26 Nov. 2/7: ’I am a Jew what travelled has from Poland to the Lane, / And s’elp mine heart, I vish the ’Chapel I could see again’.
1855		W. Phillips Wild Tribes of London 57: Among the groups that now crowd the Lane, several figures arrest our attention. [...] men who have travelled from all corners of the earth to trade, and trade in Petticoat-lane.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 128/1: ‘Yes, and I’ll take this bundle down the lane’ (meaning Petticoat-lane, because there is a sale for anything there).
1865		T. Archer Pauper, Thief and Convict 145: Cheap bedding, picked up at second-hand, ‘down The Lane,’ by which is meant Petticoat Lane, sometimes known by its more genteel name of Middlesex Street.
1879		‘Autobiog. of a Thief’ in Macmillan’s Mag. (London) XL 500: We used to break it [i.e. silver-plate] up in small pieces and sell it to watchmakers, and aftewards to a fence [...] down the Lane (Petticoat Lane).
1880		R. Rowe Picked Up in the Streets 153: Mostly we went to the Lane a-Sundays, Poll an’ me.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 6: I was invited to sing at a big Benefit Concert [...] So the Sunday before I started for the Lane, the professional’s emporium, and there for a few bob I got black pants, white vest and sparrow-tailed coat.
1894		Mirror of Life 1 Dec. 11/4: [T]he diamonds which had been so conspicuously worn by the ‘laners’ in the front of the boxing stage.
1895		L. Stuart [perf. Vesta Tilley] The Little Madmoiselle 🎵 ‘She’s no Frenchy - Liza Jane - she’s dysy from the Lane’.
1904		H. Champion ‘Yer ’At Don’t Fit Yer Very Well’ 🎵 One Sunday morn I said to my wife Rose / I’m going down the Lane to buy myself a suit of clothes.
1911		G.R. Sims Off the Track in London 147: Totally different from the other ‘Lane’ – the one in the East End – is this.
1925		E. Jervis 25 Years in Six Prisons 133: They will always fetch money ‘down the Lane’.
1935		X. Petulengro Romany Life 127: I told my mother of the wonders of the Lane.
1938		L. Ortzen Down Donkey Row 37: Goin’ for ball o’ chalk down the Lane; comin?
1947		B. Charles 5 Feb. diary in Garfield Our Hidden Lives (2004) 348: At the Lane I left for an interesting old cuckoo clock and got it for 34/-.
1966		G. Fletcher Down Among the Meths Men 92: An old tramp was stabbed in the Lane last night.
1976		(ref. to 1930s) R. Barnes Coronation Cups and Jam Jars 13: I’ll take ’em dahn the Lane in the morning and sell ’em.
1981		(con. c.1905) A. Harding in Samuel East End Und. 88: It was the first home where we had linoleum. We bought it down the Lane.

5. (US) The Bowery, NYC.

1904		C. Connors Bowery Life [ebook] The life of the Bowery, ‘de lane’ he calls it, the streets he loves, he could not be torn from.
1910		H. Hapgood Types from City Streets 33: The life of the Bowery, ‘de Lane,’ as he calls it.
1915		G. Bronson-Howard God’s Man 371: The activities of the Petties take in the ‘Avenue’ as well as the ‘Lane’.

6. Brick Lane, London E1.

1961

(con. c.1935) R. Poole London E1 (2012) 32: They went into the Court on their way to Brick Lane. Jimmy loved going down the Lane when it was crowded.