Coffee houses, also, were favourite gathering places for conversation and refreshment and one of the most famous in Philadelphia--they were much the same in all the cities--was the London Coffee House or Bradford’s Coffee House, at the corner of Front and Market streets. It was built in 1702 and presented an interesting example of truly Colonial architecture in its striking brickwork, its penthouses and its jerkin-headed, gabled roof. It should be noted that the jerkin-head roof treatment, the plain survival of an English tradition, was to be found on a number of other early Pennsylvania buildings but the practice of building in this manner was soon discontinued. Watson in his “Annals” tells us that “at this Coffee House--the Governour and other persons of note ordinarily went at set hours to sip their coffee from the hissing urn, and some of these stated visitors had their known stalls. It was long the focus which attracted all manner of genteel strangers; the general parade was outside of the house under a shed of but common construction, extending from the house to the gutter way, both on the Front street and High street sides. It was to this, as the most public place, they brought all vendues of horses, carriages, groceries, &c., and above all, here Philadelphians once sold negro men, women and children as slaves.” It is to be sincerely regretted that the London Coffee House, like its near neighbour the Provincial Hall, was torn down many years ago for, quite apart from its architectural interest, its historic associations were important and intimately connected not only with local events but with events that had a bearing upon the affairs of the whole country. One of these was the beginning of the opposition to the Tea Act which started in Philadelphia and not in Boston as is popularly supposed. “When the tax on tea was reduced to three pence per pound there seemed to be a general disposition to pay it. At this juncture, when the arrival of a fresh consignment from the East India Company was expected, William Bradford gathered at the Coffee House several citizens, whom he knew to be heartily opposed to the measures of the British Government, and together they drew up a set of spirited resolutions anent the tea question. On the following Saturday, October 16, 1773, a ‘large and respectable town-meeting,’ presided over by Doctor Thomas Cadwalader, was held at the State House and the resolutions were adopted enthusiastically. The same resolutions were almost immediately afterwards adopted, nearly word for word, by a town-meeting in Boston (November 5, 1773), where a disposition to receive the tea had become general, from an idea that an opposition to it would not be seconded or supported by any of the other Colonies.”