Sir Christopher Hatton was born in 1540 and died in 1591. He was Lord Chancellor of England and according to some, a secret lover of Elizabeth I. She granted him the grounds of Ely Palace on which Hatton House was built, a generous gift which did much to fuel the rumours. Hatton House was demolished in the late 1600s to make way for a new small town called Hatton Garden: this became the centre of London's jewellery trade. By 1850 all of the houses in the area had become a workshop or a diamond merchant's. In 1987 , 80% of the world's diamonds passed through Hatton Garden where De Beers has its headquarters.