Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
nificent.' Then turn right into Poland Street to enter the Soho district. The long streets of
this area fossilise the pattern of fields from before its development in the seventeenth cen-
tury.
The numerous pubs, shops and the small dwellings, many of them divided into lodging
houses, presented a very different London from the smart 'modern' style of Sloane Street
and Hans Place, or the elegance of Mayfair. This is a side of Jane Austen's London that we
do not visit often in her topics or letters, but it was a real and vibrant part of it nonetheless.
When you reach the Coach and Horses pub, pause to look diagonally across to the corner
of Noel Street and the house with a mural on the gable end. This is No. 15 where the poet
Shelley stayed in 1811 when he was sent down from Oxford. Passionate about Polish free-
dom, he apparently chose his lodgings by the street name.
