Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
5
ART AND HERESY IN SOHO
The streets around Poland Street have more than their fair share of artistic and heretical
associations. A blue plaque at 74 Broadwick St records that
William Blake
was born there in
1757, above his father's hosiery shop, and where, from the age of 9, he had visions of
“messengers from heaven, daily and nightly”. He opened a print shop of his own next door to the
family home, and later moved nearby to 28 Poland St, where he lived six years with his “beloved
Kate” and wrote perhaps his most profound work,
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
, among other
poems. Poland Street was also
Shelley
's first halt after having been kicked out of Oxford in 1811
for distributing
The Necessity of Atheism
, and
Canaletto
ran a studio just south on Beak Street for
a couple of years while he sat out the Seven Years' War in exile in London. And it was in the
Old
King's Arms
pub on Poland Street in 1781 that the
Ancient Order of Druids
was revived.
Berwick Street
W
berwickstreetlondon.co.uk •
!
Piccadilly Circus
Pop down Walker's Court, off Brewer Street, past the triple-X-rated film shops, and
you come out into
Berwick Street
where the unlikely sight of one of the capital's
traditional fruit and veg markets greets you (see p.433). The street itself is no beauty
spot but the barrow displays are works of art in themselves. On either side, and round
the corner in Broadwick Street, you'll find some of London's best specialist record
shops like Sister Ray (see p.432) and Reckless Records.
Broadwick Street
It was a water pump on
Broadwick Street
that caused the deaths of some five hundred
Soho residents in the
cholera epidemic
of 1854. Dr John Snow, Queen Victoria's
obstetrician, traced the outbreak to the pump, thereby proving that the disease was
waterborne rather than airborne, as previously thought. No one believed him, however,
until he removed the pump handle and effectively stopped the epidemic. he original
pump stood outside the pub now called the
John Snow
, on which there's a
commemorative plaque and an easily missed red-granite kerbstone.
Carnaby Street
Until the 1950s,
Carnaby Street
was a backstreet on Soho's western fringe, occupied, for
the most part, by sweatshop tailors who made up the suits for nearby Savile Row in
Mayfair. Then, in 1954, Bill Green opened a shop in neighbouring Newburgh Street,
selling outrageous clothes to the gay men who were hanging out at the local baths. He was
followed by
John Stephen
, a Glaswegian grocer's son, who opened His Clothes in Beak
Street. In 1960, Stephen moved his operation to Carnaby Street and within a couple of
years owned a string of trendy boutiques catering for the new market in flamboyant men's
clothing, including the wonderfully named I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet. By 1964 - the
year of the of
cial birth of the Carnaby Street myth - Mods, West Indian Rude Boys and
other “switched-on people”, as the
Daily Telegraph
noted, had begun to hang out in
Carnaby Street. By the time Mary Quant sold her first miniskirt here, the area had become
the heart of London's
Swinging Sixties
, its street sign the capital's most popular postcard. A
victim of its own hype, Carnaby Street quickly declined into an avenue of overpriced tack.
Nowadays, it's pedestrianized and smart again, but dominated by chains - for any sign of
contemporary London fashion, you need to go round the corner to
Fouberts Place
,
Newburgh Street
and Kingly Court or head over to East London.
Photographers' Gallery
16-18 Ramillies St • Mon-Sat 10am-6pm, Thurs till 8pm, Sun 11.30am-6pm • Free •
T
020 7087 9300,
W
thephotographersgallery
.org.uk •
!
Oxford Circus
Established in 1971, the
Photographers' Gallery
was the first independent gallery
devoted to photography in London, and is now the city's largest public photographic
