A Type of Griffin

I cycle past a pair of griffins on Blackfriar's Road, Southwark, every day, but the light has never been quite right to blip them... until today (they're usually hiding in the gloom). So, here is one of the pair. I've tried to find out a little about the building that they guard and google has led me to this:

'Dating back to 1819, this was the premises of the Blackfriars Type Foundry and, up until 1954, Wicks Rotary Type Casting Co. Today, the foundry and itís annexe have been carefully converted into more than 60 modern units specifically designed for small business use.'