Walk This Way Golden Jubilee Bridges The construction of the Golden Jubilee Bridges has
Soho & Covent Garden to South Bank
re-drawn the map of London, opening up unparalleled access between two of London’s most exciting areas: the West End and South Bank. Walk This Way will guide you around the history and architecture that is now linked by the new Bridge. From the public squares of the West End: Soho, Leicester and Trafalgar; to the spectacles of South Bank: London Eye, National Theatre and Oxo Tower; and then back to the Embankment and Covent Garden.
See www.southbanklondon.com for a more detailed profile of the buildings and streets featured in Walk This Way – Golden Jubilee Bridges. At a brisk pace, the Walk This Way Golden Jubilee Bridges route will take at least 60 minutes, although it is recommended that you allow more time to stop and sightsee at various points along the route.
architecture + history at your feet
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Hungerford Bridge and the Golden Jubilee Bridges
Named after the Farleigh Castle Hungerfords of Somersetshire, the seventeenth century Hungerford Market was found on the north side of the Thames. In 1845, it was connected south of the river by a massive suspension footbridge, also named Hungerford. An advanced design by renowned engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, at 660 feet in length, Hungerford Bridge was the second longest in the world. Its two red-brick supports (‘Surrey’ and ‘Middlesex’) incorporated landing piers and internal stairways for ferry passengers. The popular design became the subject of many paintings and an early photograph. In 1859 the Charing Cross Railway Station was built on the site of Hungerford Market. While most stations were not permitted in the centre of London, Charing Cross and its then-neighbour, Cannon Street, were allowed across the river and for this, a bridge was required. In 1864, the railway company replaced the crossing with a squat railway bridge of iron girders. The railway engineer, John Hawkshaw, did preserve the red-brick piers, however, and recycled the suspension elements in Bristol’s Clifton Bridge. Hawkshaw also added two narrow walkways either side, though one was later removed as the railway was widened, leaving the only direct connection to South Bank a single, narrow, congested footbridge that proved almost universally unpopular.
The bridge remained this way throughout the twentieth century, though it temporarily received a second walkway in 1951, when an army-issue Bailey Bridge was added for the Festival of Britain. In 1996 a design competition was won by architects Lifschutz Davidson and engineers WSP, who designed two new footbridges on either side of the rail crossing. The construction of these footbridges was a complex engineering feat, constrained by building in a busy tidal river near two submerged underground lines. Concerns that the piling work for the bridge foundations could trigger time-delay fuses of unexploded World War II bombs on the river bed (the bridge itself took a direct hit) and flood the nearby tube lines led to the design being modified and the foundations being dug by hand. As the bridge supports lay in the path of navigation channels, ship impact barriers had to be created. Three 40metre, 225-tonne concrete beams were shipped upriver and lowered into place using cranes and divers. These massive buffers are visible at low tides. In 2002, after one million work-hours, the new bridges opened. Each one is a 300m concrete deck attached to a series of leaning suspension masts with steel cables. The overall effect is to create a tunnel of light focusing on either end of the crossing and distracting the viewer from the adjacent railway bridge. The new bridges are capable of carrying more than four times the number of people across the river than before, creating a strong link between the West End and South Bank.
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Key 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Transport General travel information can be obtained on Transport for London’s 24-hour number: 020 7222 1234, www.tfl.gov.uk
Soho Square Greek Street Gerrard Street The Empire Leicester Square Gardens Odeon Theatre National Gallery St Martin-in-the -Fields Nelson’s Column
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South Africa House Charles I Statue Charing Cross Northumberland Avenue London Eye County Hall Shell Building bfi London IMAX Cinema Waterloo Station
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Hayward Gallery Oxo Tower Wharf National Theatre National Film Theatre Waterloo Bridge Royal Festival Hall Embankment Gardens Cleopatra’s Needle The Savoy The Lyceum Theatre Bow Magistrates Court Royal Opera House Covent Garden Piazza St. Paul’s Church
Underground Stations Tottenham Court Road Northern & Central Leicester Square Northern & Piccadilly Charing Cross Northern & Bakerloo Embankment Northern, Bakerloo, District and Circle Waterloo Northern, Bakerloo, Waterloo & City and Jubilee* Westminster District, Circle & Jubilee* Southwark Jubilee* Temple District & Circle Covent Garden Piccadilly Holborn Piccadilly & Central * these station exits are wheelchair accessible. Covent Garden station suffers from severe congestion and is exit-only from 13.00 to 17.00 on Saturdays. Commuters are advised to use alternative stations.
Route Accessibility A lift service is available on both sides of the foot-bridges on South Bank and on the downstream side of the footbridge on the north bank (see map). There is a steep gradient up Savoy Street between points 27 and 28. An alternate route is to continue along the downstream footbridge, through Charing Cross station and east along the Strand, re-joining the route at point 28. Accessibility Information Transport for London National Gallery London Eye Hayward Gallery Oxo Tower Wharf Royal National Theatre Royal Festival Hall Royal Opera House
020 7126 4059 020 7747 2885 0870 990 8885 020 7921 0813 020 7401 2255 020 7452 3000 020 7921 0971 020 7340 4000
Map reproduced from Ordnance Survey Landplan 1:5000 mapping with permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office © Crown copyright; Licence Number 398179
RV1 Bus Service Riverside 1 is a bus service linking Covent Garden, South Bank, Waterloo, Bankside, London Bridge and Tower Gateway, providing a cost-effective, easily recognisable link to over thirty of London’s attractions.
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Soho Square
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1 Gregory King 1681
‘So-ho’ was an ancient hunting cry used when sighting prey and the area was used for such sport as late as 1562. Confiscated from Westminster Abbey by Henry VIII, lack of interest and building restrictions resulted in little development until the Great Fire of 1666. With the City destroyed, the green fields of Soho were chosen to house the aristocracy. As Soho declined as a fashionable address, political and economic migrants were drawn there, including four thousand French Protestant Huguenots, fleeing persecution in 1685. By the nineteenth century, Soho housed ethnic minorities from all over Europe, including radicals fleeing the failed revolutions of 1848 (such as Karl Marx) and in the twentieth century, it has seen the growth of its Chinese community. The long history of ethnic diversity has resulted in a cosmopolitan mix of cafés, clubs, restaurants, theatres and dwellings, while the lack of sustained redevelopment has enabled historic buildings, dating as far back as the seventeenth century, to survive.
2 Various from C17th
3 Nicholas Barbon 1677–1685
Soho Square Initially named King Square after its creator, Soho Square was built for titled gentry made homeless by the Great Fire. It contains a monument to Charles II and a half-timbered Summer House (added in 1875–76). Once used to house an electrical transformer, it is now a parkkeeper’s hut. A French Protestant Church and St Patrick’s Catholic Church (both completed in 1893) are present in the Square, evidence of the international refugees that sought out Soho. Greek Street Greek migrants first came to Soho after the Ottoman invasions of the seventeenth century and Greek Street still retains buildings that date back to past ages: the House of St Barnabus for Destitute Women, built in 1746, and the Maison Bertaux patisserie, the oldest in London and structurally unchanged since 1871. Gerrard Street Acquired by Baron Gerard of Brandon at sword-point, Gerrard Street was developed for aristocratic residents. As areas further west grew fashionable, it became home to the immigrant communities who could afford its low rents: French, Italian, Jewish and, in the post-war period, thousands of agricultural workers from Hong Kong. The significance of the Chinese community was recognised by Westminster Council in 1985 when the street, now identified as ‘Chinatown’, was pedestrianised and renovated with Chinese style decoration.
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Leicester Square
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4 Thomas Verity, J. & A.E. Bull 1884
Named after the owner, Robert Sidney, Second Earl of Leicester, the private gardens known as Leicester Fields were developed into a residential square in 1782. The Third Earl permitted booths to be built, which evolved into shops and exhibitions. In the nineteenth century, the residents made way for turkish baths, oyster rooms and exhibition centres, the most noteworthy of which was James Wyld’s Great Globe (a massive sphere from 1851–62, containing a map of the world on the inside). Four great theatres were built in the Square: Alhambra
5 James Knowles 1874
(1858), the Empire (1884), Dalys (1893) and the Hippodrome (1900). In the late twentieth century, the Square was pedestrianised, refurbished and the theatres turned to cinemas: the Empire switched to screen in 1928; the Alhambra became the Odeon (1937); the Dalys was replaced by Warner West End (1938); and the Hippodrome has become a nightclub. These cinemas have since made Leicester Square the site for many of Britain’s film premieres and the centre of the British film industry.
6 Andrew Mather and Harry Weedon 1937
The Empire The ‘Empire Theatre of Varieties’ was a big success with Victorian London and had shown moving pictures since the 1896 Lumière brothers projections. Bought by MGM to be a flagship cinema in 1925, the theatre was given a lavishly-decorated 3,000-seat auditorium, drawing two million visitors annually. Reconstructed in 1962, the stalls became a Mecca Dance Hall (‘The Equinox’ from 1992) while the main cinema has a redesigned art-deco auditorium. The 1928 frontage was restored in the 1980’s. Leicester Square Gardens When developing his Square, the Earl of Leicester was obliged to provide a tree-planted public area, to compensate the parishioners, who had traditional rights to dry clothes and graze cattle on the fields. In serious disrepair by 1874, the gardens were restored by James Knowles after being purchased for the public by notorious fraudster Albert Grant MP, with a marble fountain and central monument to Shakespeare. Odeon Theatre Over a hundred ‘Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation’ cinemas were built in the 1930s. The most ambitious project was the Leicester Square cinema: a monumental building with a dramatic black tower and art-deco lettering, four times the cost of other major Odeons. Deutsch's death in 1941 marked the end of his cinema building, though many of the original constructions survive today, as cinemas, bingo halls or even churches. 5
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Trafalgar Square
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7 William Wilkins 1832–1838
Laid down in 1820, the public space was not named Trafalgar Square until 1830, twenty-five years after the most decisive sea battle in British history. The proponent architect was John Nash, who recognised the area as a crucial axis between the east-west St. Paul’s–Buckingham Palace road and the north-south Whitehall–Westminster link. Nash designed the east side of the Square and over the following century other architects and artists added to it. Charles Barry was one such architect, who constructed the north terrace in 1840 and, to prevent the gathering of riotous crowds, added the red granite fountains in 1845
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National Gallery Founded with just thirty-eight pictures in 1824, a permanent home for the National Gallery was commissioned seven years later. Forming the north side of Trafalgar Square, the grand building is divided into thirteen sections, six on each side of the central portico and its skyline is broken up by ‘pepper castors’ (small domed turrets). In 1867–76, E.M. Barry re-modelled the interiors and added a new east wing. The National Gallery now has forty-six rooms covering the development of European painting from the mid-thirteenth century to the French Impressionists. The most recent addition was the Sainsbury Wing, completed in 1991 on the site of a bombed-out furniture store. St Martin-in-the-Fields
(which were remodelled with mermaids and dolphins in 1938). In each of the Square’s four corners are the plinths: Sir Charles James Napier and Sir Henry Havelock, both Generals of the Imperial era, are to the south; George IV riding bareback and dressed as a Roman is located in the north-east; and the fourth plinth, which has stood empty for more than a century, houses a number of different temporary exhibits. In 2002, a World Squares for All
James Gibbs 1721–26
Once a stone chapel in the fields of the Saxon village of Charing, the land was confiscated by Henry VIII, who built a new church in 1542. The replacement church of 1721 is the oldest building in the Square. The first to feature a steeple rising directly above a portico of Corinthian columns, the Italian Baroque style has influenced church-design throughout the world.
project removed traffic from the north side of the Square, to be replaced by a grand staircase linking the National Gallery and pedestrianised north terrace to the Square.
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9 William Railton 1842
10 Herbert Baker 1935
11 Hubert Le Sueur 1638
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Nelson’s Column The centrepiece of the Square is the world’s tallest Corinthian column: 170ft of Devonshire granite, capped by the statue of Lord Horatio Viscount Nelson, Britain’s most beloved naval hero and commander at the battle of Trafalgar. The lions at the Column’s base were added by Sir Edwin Landseer and the reliefs by WFW Woodington were finished in 1867.
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12 Edward Middleton Barry 1863
South Africa House Once the site of The Golden Cross coaching inn and Morley’s Hotel, the High Commission of the Dominion of South Africa opened in 1935, a large white construction with classical porticoes related to St. Martin’s church, but distinguished by balconied windows and small motifs with exterior decorations of African animals. Charles I Statue The Charles I statue is the oldest in Trafalgar Square. Carved during his reign, it is the first statue of an English King on horseback, designed to make the diminutive monarch look more imposing. Hidden during the Civil War, the statue was re-erected on the site of the original Charing Cross, the point by which all distances to London are measured.
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Various 1876
Charing Cross Known also as the ‘Eleanor Cross’, it is the last of twelve crosses placed by King Edward I in 1290 to mark each of the resting places of Queen Eleanor’s funeral cortege as it journeyed from Lincolnshire to Westminster Abbey. The cross was soon replaced by a monument of Caen Stone, which was pulled down in 1647. When Charing Cross Station was being built in 1863, a replica by E.M. Barry was set up outside the Station, with eight crowned statues of Queen Eleanor on the sides and eight kneeling angels below.
Northumberland Avenue & Great Scotland Yard Northumberland House, the Earl of Northampton’s great Jacobean mansion, made way in 1874 for this quiet, tree-lined road, very much like a boulevard in its width and grand surrounding buildings. Originally a street of vast hotels, these were converted for other purposes in the twentieth century: the former Grand Hotel (1878–80) on the north-east corner; the Victoria Hotel, now Northumberland House (1882–85) on the south side, and the neighbouring Metropole Hotel (1885). To the south is Great Scotland Yard, reputedly named after a 12th Century palace used by visiting Kings of Scotland. In 1829, 4 Whitehall Place became the first headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, with a public entrance at the rear in Scotland Yard. The headquarters were relocated in 1890 to the Embankment, and again in 1967 to Victoria Street, both bearing the name of ‘New Scotland Yard’. 7
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South Bank
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14 Marks Barfield 2000
Originally isolated and defined by the Thames, the south side of the river has developed in a very different way from the affluent north bank. What began as green fields and pleasure gardens transformed, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, into a sprawl of industry: factories, wharves, railways, slums and ‘dark Satanic mills’. In 1951 the bomb-scarred area was chosen to host the Festival of Britain and has since become home to art and culture
15 Ralph Knott, E C Collins 1911–1933
centres for the entire nation. In South Bank can now be found a vibrant and growing community, as well as a riverside walk, passing some of London’s latest achievements in architecture.
16 Howard Robertson, R Maynard Smith 1953–1963
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London Eye ‘The perfect symmetry of a circle which – from a distance – seems to be transparent, embodies the passages of time.’ An integration of architecture, engineering and design, the sections of this 2,100 ton construction were transported down the Thames and raised a massive 135 metres high. From that height, passengers in the thirty-two glass observation pods can view up to 25 miles across London. County Hall The former home of the London County Council is a six-storey, symmetrical construction, faced with Portland Stone in the Edwardian Baroque style. The twentyfive year construction outlasted its architect, who died in 1929, with the North, South and Island Blocks added thereafter (the last in 1974). The capital’s government, known from 1965 as the Greater London Council, was abolished in 1986 and the Hall now houses Dali Universe, the London Aquarium and two hotels. Shell Building To encourage big business to settle in South Bank, building restrictions were lifted in the 1950s, prompting the construction of Shell’s twenty-six storey tower. 338 feet of steel frames and reinforced concrete faced with Portland Stone, it was London’s highest building at the time of opening, the tower is still used as Shell offices, while the other half of the Shell Centre, a shorter building located downstream, has become a housing complex. 8
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17 Brian Avery & Associates 1999
18 J W Jacomb-Hood, A W Szlumper 1901–22
19 Hubert Bennet, Jack Whittle 1963–1968
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bfi London IMAX Cinema Out of Waterloo Road’s sunken ‘bullring’ roundabout rises the giant glass drum of the IMAX, home to the biggest cinema screen in the country (20m by 26m) and complemented by the world’s most sophisticated sound and projection system. The exterior walls of the building project a major work of art by Howard Hodgkin, lit at night with a variety of colours.
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20 Oxo Tower: A W Moore; 1928 Oxo Tower Wharf: Liftschutz Davidson 1995
Waterloo Station The original terminus of 1848 was a confused collection of eighteen platforms, ten platform numbers and four stations, entirely beyond commuter comprehension. In 1900, work began on a new red-brick and Portland Stone station with twentyone platforms, a grand booking hall and the ‘Victory Arch’ entrance (named after World War I, with sculptures and memorials around a massive fanlight). Receiving fifty bomb hits during the Blitz, the Station remained operational nonetheless. In 1992, the glass walls of the Eurostar International Terminal were added.
21 Denys Lasdun 1976
Hayward Gallery Named after London County Council leader Isaac Hayward, the gallery was considered a classic example of 1960s ‘brutalist’ architecture: reinforced concrete following strong horizontal lines with little skylight pyramids on top. Crowning the gallery is the neon tower, originally an exhibit, this ‘kinetic sculpture’ changes colour in response to the direction, speed and strength of the wind.
22 Leslie Martin, Hubert Bennett 1956–1958
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Oxo Tower Wharf Built as a power station, the Wharf was acquired by a Meat Extract Company which, in the 1930s, built a tower that spelt out their product in stained glass windows, designed to circumvent strict laws about exterior advertising. An empty shell by the 1970s, plans to replace the building with a massive hotel and skyscraper, sparked a community protest that eventually prevailed. The derelict wharf was refurbished, creating exhibition space, shops, restaurants and housing, earning the 1997 Building of the Year Award for Urban Regeneration.
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23 Giles Gilbert Scott; Rendel, 1937–1945
National Theatre In 1976, after a century of planning and fourteen years in the Old Vic, the Royal National Theatre opened: a Modernist design of reinforced concrete and horizontal lines augmented by the massive fly-towers of the theatres. In 1997 work began to develop and renovate the National Theatre, complementing Lasdun’s design. The main entrance, box office, bookshop and foyer performance areas were completely rebuilt and a new exterior performance space, “Theatre Square’, was added. National Film Theatre The popularity of the Festival of Britain’s ‘Télekinema’ led to the NFT opening in 1957, built beneath Waterloo Bridge’s southern arches. With a second cinema added in 1970, the NFT is now one of the world's leading cinematheques, and hosts the annual London Film Festival.
24 Robert Matthew, Leslie Martin 1948–1951
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Waterloo Bridge Intended as the Strand Bridge, this granite construction was bought by the government, re-named after Wellington’s recent victory and opened in 1817. Underused and neglected, by 1923 the bridge was deemed beyond repair and closed permanently. Work for a replacement began in 1939 but was delayed almost immediately by the outbreak of World War II, though construction still continued despite being hit by labour shortage and V2 rockets. With few men available for building work, most of the work was done with female labour and ‘The Ladies Bridge’ was opened in 1945. Royal Festival Hall Built on the site of the Red Lion Brewery, the Royal Festival Hall is the only permanent legacy of the 1951 Festival Of Britain. Designed in a ‘Modernist’ style with glazed screens and a green roof of weather-exposed copper, it is the first postwar building to receive a Grade 1 listing. Inside, the auditorium high on the upper levels is insulated from the sound of the nearby railway while beneath are placed galleries, restaurants, shops, cafés and performance areas. A 1965 redevelopment defines much of the current outward appearance: the Portland Stone exterior was re-cased, the river frontage was pushed thirty yards forward, and a new riverside entrance was created. In 2001 a programme was commenced to renovate and upgrade the facilities, qualities and capabilities of the Concert Hall as well as restoring much of the original features of the ‘People’s Place’. 9
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Victoria Embankment
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25 Alexander McKenzie 1864–1870
Following an outbreak of cholera in 1853, engineer Joseph Bazalgette was charged with designing a sanitary sewage system beneath London. From 1856 to 1859 he oversaw construction of eighty-two miles of new sewers. To accommodate his special ‘interceptor sewers’ on either side of the river, Bazalgette built the three Embankments from 1868–1874: Chelsea and Victoria in the north, Albert in the south. These embankments reclaimed over fifty-two acres of land from the Thames and, on the north side, gardens were laid out on the reclaimed areas south of the Strand. The first electrically illuminated street in London, the Victoria Embankment has also been decorated by monuments such as the Golden Eagle of the RAF Memorial and the gargantuan granite obelisk of Heliopolis.
26 Built for Pharaoh Thothmes III 1467 BC
Embankment Gardens With topsoil taken from Barking Creek, these twenty acres of quiet greenery contain memorials and statues of famous Britons including Robert Burns, Arthur Sullivan, John Stuart Mill and the Imperial Camel Corps. At the west end of the Gardens is the York Water Gate. Built in 1626 by Balthasar Gerbier, it features columns, lions and a pediment on the south side with simpler Tuscan pilasters on the north. Once part of the Duke of Buckingham’s riverside mansion (demolished in 1676), it gave direct access to the river from the Duke’s gardens and now acts an entrance to Embankment Gardens.
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27 T.E. Collcutt 1884–1889
Cleopatra's Needle Sixty feet high, this 180 ton granite obelisk stood for a thousand years in Alexandria, royal city of Queen Cleopatra. The monolith was given to Britain in 1819, though it was 1877 before anyone attempted to transport it. Encased in an iron cylinder and towed from the Mediterranean, the obelisk was nearly lost in a storm off the Bay of Biscay, in which six men lost their lives to ensure it eventually reached British shores safely in January 1878. The Needle was installed on the Victoria Embankment the same year with time capsule items, historical plaques and two sphinxes by George Vulliamy.
28 1772 Rebuilt: Samuel Beazley 1834
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The Savoy The Savoy Palace was built in 1246 by Count Peter of Savoy and became the residence of Earls of Lancaster until 1381 when it was destroyed by the Peasant’s Revolt. In 1881 the site was developed by Richard D’Oyly Carte, theatrical impresario of the Gilbert & Sullivan operettas (also known as the ‘Savoy Operas’). Carte built the Savoy Theatre and then a hotel designed to rival the best in the world, featuring full electrical lighting and a multitude of bathrooms. Facing the river are nine storeys of artificial stone and horizontal windows while the forecourt is the only street in Britain where traffic drives on the right, a measure introduced so passengers in horse-drawn hansom cabs would avoid stepping off into puddles. The Lyceum Theatre The original Lyceum was a concert and exhibition venue (Madame Tussaud’s waxworks debuted here in 1802) before hosting the Drury Lane theatre company in 1809. When the Lyceum was burnt down in 1830, it was rebuilt facing Wellington Street (where the portico remains today) and enjoyed great success under the management of the actor Henry Irving. The theatre was bought by the London County Council in 1939, which intended to demolish the building for a road improvement. The outbreak of war spared the Lyceum and in 1951, it was converted, first into a Mecca Ballroom then a nightclub. This too closed in the 1980s and the building lay empty until it was extensively restored and converted in 1996 to be re-opened as a theatre. 10
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Covent Garden
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29 John Taylor 1879–1881
Until the fourteenth century, Westminster Abbey’s ‘convent garden’ was a mixture of orchard, meadow and arable land for the monks. Taken by Henry VIII in 1536, the estate came into the hands of Earls of Bedford who developed the land, first into their family home (1613), then into a classical piazza (1633) designed to rival the architecture of Europe. Built as a residential area, the nobility were soon driven westward to the private squares while Covent
Bow Magistrates Court In 1740, the first magistrates’ office was established in ‘Thieving Alley’. When John Fielding took over fourteen years later, he formed the Bow Street Runners: a permanent force of eight detectives who policed the district with great effectiveness. In 1829, the Runners were replaced by the Metropolitan Police and the central policing role was moved from Bow Street to Great Scotland Yard, Whitehall. The Magistrates Court remained as the principal court for Westminster and was re-built, with adjoining police station, in 1881.
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31 Inigo Jones 1633–1637
Garden drew traders, ambience and nightlife. The small fruit and vegetable market grew exponentially bigger after the City markets had been destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, and by the eighteenth century it was dominating the Square. With London overpopulated by the nineteenth century and nearby Hungerford Market demolished to make way for Charing Cross Station in 1850, Covent Garden grew so large that traders overflowed as far as Seven Dials to the north. Road improvements eased the situation, but by the twentieth century the food market could no longer remain at Covent Garden and was relocated to Nine Elms in 1973. Plans to demolish the entire site were successfully overturned by local residents and the Square was instead renovated and restored in 1978. Covent Garden is now a shopping centre and, pedestrianised to a large extent, has become popular for niche businesses, as well as tourists, shoppers and street entertainers.
30 Robert Smirke 1808–1809 Rebuilt: E.M Barry 1857–1858
Royal Opera House Funded by the success of The Beggars Opera, John Rich’s theatre opened in Bow Street in 1732, one of only two London theatrical companies. Destroyed by fire in 1808, a neo-classical replacement, paid for by increased ticket prices, opened in 1809 prompting two months of riotous audience protest. The theatre was burnt down again in 1856 and its successor, a giant Corinthian six-column portico, survives today together with the neighbouring Floral Hall, added in 1860. Re-named the Royal Opera House in 1892, it became a furniture store during the First World War and a Mecca Dance Hall during the Second. Post-war, it was occupied by the Sadler’s Wells Ballet Company (The Royal Ballet from 1956) and Covent Garden Opera Company (The Royal Opera from 1968). Lottery funding allowed the Royal Opera House to re-open in 1999, substantially modernised and with Barry’s auditorium restored.
32 Inigo Jones 1631–1638
Covent Garden Piazza Inspired by Italian public spaces, Inigo Jones, the most gifted architect of the English Renaissance, designed the Covent Garden piazza to be unadorned, open to the public with large arcades between houses to shelter passers-by. This introduced classical architecture to London and the idea of an open square as a public meeting space. In 1828–30, the Market Building was built by Charles Fowler: Graeco-Roman grey granite and yellow brick with sandstone and painted stucco dressings. The north and south fronts of the Market have a long colonnade of Doric columns with a square pavilion at either end and a Venetian archway in the centre. The iron and glass roofs were added by William Cubitt from 1874–89. St. Paul’s Church St Paul’s was London’s first Classical church: an Etruscan temple, brick-built with Portland Stone facings. Major restoration was carried out in 1795 when an accidental fire destroyed everything but the walls, portico and south-west wing. The door to the east-facing portico is a false one, due to the Bishop of London insisting that the altar (originally placed in the west) be moved to the eastern end (as traditional), forcing the main entrance to shift to the opposite side of the church. This has proved beneficial as the portico serves as a shelter and meeting place, while the western churchyard remains one of London’s secretive gardens, a place of tranquillity ten yards from one of London’s busiest public spaces.
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More Walking Guides If you have enjoyed this guide then please visit www.southbanklondon.com to discover the other titles in the series: Walk This Way – Riverside London From Tate Britain to the Design Museum Walk This Way – Millennium Bridge From St Paul’s Cathedral to Bankside and Borough Walk This Way – South Bank From the London Eye to the Imperial War Museum Walk This Way – A Young Person’s Guide A discovery of the Thames, especially written for young people
Acknowledgements The Walk This Way series has been researched and published by South Bank Employers’ Group, a partnership of the major organisations in South Bank, Waterloo and Blackfriars with a commitment to improving the experience of the area for visitors, employees and residents. This guide has been made possible thanks to funding from the Waterloo Project Board and Cross River Partnership, which are supported by the London Development Agency, Transport for London, Westminster and Lambeth Councils For further information about Walk This Way or the South Bank, please see www.southbanklondon.com South Bank Employers’ Group 103 Waterloo Road SE1 8UL T: 020 7202 6900 E: mail@southbanklondon.com Photography: Peter Durant/ arcblue.com Graphic design: Mannion Design Map design: ML Design
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