Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
London became the nerve center of a global, colonial empire, and Fleet Street was
where every twitch found expression. Hard-drinking, ink-stained reporters gathered in
taverns and coffeehouses, pumping lawyers for juicy pretrial information, scrambling for
that choice bit of must-read gossip that would make their paper number one. They built an
industry that still endures. Even in this digital age, Britain supports about a dozen national
newspapers, selling more than 9 million papers a day.
Today, busy Fleet Street bustles with almost every business
except
newspapers. The
industry made a mass exodus in the 1980s for offices elsewhere, replaced by financial in-
stitutions. As you walk along, you'll see the former offices of the
Daily Telegraph
(135
Fleet Street) and the
Daily Express
(#121-128—peek into the lobby to see its classic 1930s
Art Deco interior). The last major institution to leave (in the summer of 2005) was the
Reuters news agency (#85, opposite the
Daily Express
).
• Heading 50 yards east past Prince Henry's Room along Fleet Street, you'll find...
St. Dunstan-in-the-West
This church stands where the Great Fire of September 1666 finally ended. The fire started
near London Bridge. For three days it swept westward, fanned by hot and blustery weather,
leveling everything in its path. As it approached St. Dunstan, 40 theology students battled
the blaze, holding it off until the wind shifted, and the fire slowly burned itself out.
