The building addressed as 186 Fleet St., right beside St. Dunstan-in-the-West, was once occupied by Sir John Leng as the bookseller John Leng & Co. Educated at Hull Grammar School, Leng was the sub-editor of Hull Advertiser from 1847-1851; a year later, the editor and proprietor of Dundee Advertiser; established People’s Journal in 1853; People’s Friend in 1869; Evening Telegraph in 1877; and an author of many works and pamphlets. Leng was also actively involved in the government for the city of Dundee and became knighted in 1893.
Currently, the building is owned by a Scottish publisher, DC Thomson, purchased the building in 1972. The DC Thomson publishing group continues the publication of the Dundee Courier, the Sunday Post (previously The Post Sunday Special), and the Weekly News. It is now commonly believed that Sweeney Todd’s barber shop (presently the Dundee Courier building), as depicted in James Malcolm Rymer’s The String of Pearls, or, The Barber of Fleet Street: a Domestic Romance (1850), was connected to St. Dunstan’s Church through a back alleyway called Hen and Chicken Court, the former site of the Hen and Chicken tavern.