Livestream walk from Trafalgar Square down the Mall to Horseguards Parade then through St James’s Park and along St James’s.
Friday in four images: coffee at Unity Cafe Leytonstone, St. Martin’s Court after a screening of Days of Being Wild at the Prince Charles Cinema, The Round Table pub in St. Martin’s Court, baked Camembert made on a whim after watching an Instagram reel. A good day.
Our stroll through the history of Soho starts at Manette Street, named after a character in Charles Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities. We then pass The Pillars of Hercules pub in Greek Street and make our way into Soho Square, which was developed in the 1680s on the site of Soho Fields. We look at some of the fine 17th and 18th Century architecture around Soho Square.
From Soho Square, we go back along Greek Street, past the house where Thomas De Quincey lived and wrote, Jazz After Dark where Amy Winehouse performed, Josiah Wedgewood’s pottery showrooms, and L’Escargot Restaurant. We walk along Old Compton Street and also visit The Coach and Horses pub, Kettner’s, Maison Bertaux, The French House, Cafe Boheme and numerous other significant locations around Old Compton Street. Our walking tour then goes up Frith Street, past Bar Italia and Ronnie Scott’s Jazz club and then into Dean Street past the Soho Theatre and Quo Vadis restaurant. Dean Street was originally the heart of the French community in Soho, and in the 1700s French was so widely spoken in the area that people said you could imagine you were in France.
From Dean Street we pass back along Old Compton Street and then up Wardour Street, past the location of the famous Marquee Club and the Intrepid Fox pub. No walk around Soho would be complete without taking in Berwick Street with its historic street market and fantastic record shops. The final section of our walk goes through Walker’s Court to the Raymond Revuebar. We finish this wonderful Soho stroll in Rupert Street.
Watch Part 2 of my walking tour of Soho here
And this walk around Soho with Tim Arnold from Save Soho in 2015 is well worth a watch as well (this features in my forthcoming book – Welcome to New London).
The rain really reveals London in the raw. So where better to take a walk in a downpour than through the glitz and glamour of the London district most associated with ostentatious wealth – Mayfair. We peel off Regent Street down Maddox Street into St George’s, looking down into the valley of the lost River Tyburn. We accidentally stumble upon David Bowie’s old red phone box in Heddon Street where he was photographed for the back cover of the Ziggy Stardust album (I had no idea and learned this in the YouTube comments). We pass through St James’s Church into Jermyn Street and stroll Piccadilly Arcade to face The Royal Academy of Arts on Piccadilly. And its here we find the destination of this sodden walk (via Hatchards booksellers) – Burlington Arcade. Opened in 1819, following the fashion started on the continent in Paris and Brussels, this beautiful passage seems to belong in a parallel dimension. When I emerged at the other end – the rain had stopped.
Charing Cross Road, Trafalgar Square, St James’s Park, Buckingham Palace
The sun shone down on Central London on Remembrance Sunday. Leicester Square was packed. There was electric in the air in the unseasonal warmth. The West End was alive once more. I was bound for St James’s Park but the side streets leading away from Charing Cross constantly tempted – West Street, Lichfield Street, Cecil Court. The light danced in the fountains on Trafalgar Square. Kids climbed Edwin Landseer’s lions guarding the bunker beneath Nelson’s column. The marching band thumped out their racket on Horse Guards Parade and people strolled hand-in-hand through the leaves of St James’s Park. It was a glorious day.
It was just over a year ago that I visited Denmark Street with Tim Arnold of the Save Soho campaign. Tim was giving me a tour of venues under threat and those that still give live music a home in the West End. We decided to start outside the 12 Bar Club in Denmark Street – a venue Tim had played many times. As I started filming we noticed crates and boxes leaving the building in a steady stream – the 12 Bar Club had hosted its final gig in Tin Pan Alley, forced out by the Crossrail sponsored destruction of this corner of Central London.
When I met Henry Scott-Irvine of the Save Denmark Street campaign outside the boarded up venue last month, news had just filtered through that the 12 Bar had just closed its doors again at its new home on Holloway Road. As Henry put it – music needs a hub, Denmark Street/ Tin Pan Alley was the beating heart of London’s live music community and when that heart is damaged you can’t expect things to survive out along the arteries (I’m paraphrasing but Henry explains it more eloquently in the video above).
Superficially for now Denmark Street retains the guitar shops and a couple of venues. This is undoubtedly a good thing, particularly when you consider the way that the iconic Astoria was brutally erased from the map with a few swings of a wrecking ball (I couldn’t think of a Miley Cyrus gag there but insert your own).
Andre in Hanks Guitar Shop was upbeat about the situation – thinking that the surrounding developments could bring new trade to the street and lead to a revival of the shops and venues. Although he did sound a note of caution that the developers – who are also the landlords – needed to keep the rents at realistic levels for the traders in Tin Pan Alley. The various music industry offices occupying the upper floors of this historic 17th Century street have already been forced out – gone are the music publishers and agents who brought the music to Denmark Street in the early 20th Century – who invented the music press and the pop charts, then the pop stars and punk rock.
Good news arrived this week that the house where the Sex Pistols lived and daubed graffiti on the walls has been given a Grade II listing. Finally official heritage recognition for at least one chapter of this richly storied thoroughfare. Henry would like to see the London Borough of Camden give it the same protected status for music that Hatton Garden has for its jewelry trade.
Without dogged campaigning the developers could already have destroyed this vital part of London’s heritage – thankfully people such as Henry and Andre are keeping the music alive in Denmark Street and long may Tin Pan Alley rock on.
Sat in The Heathcote last night reading David Boote’s excellent series of leaflets on the Leyton Loop made me think about the walk that I did through Leyton to the West End via Kings Cross in June 2007. I posted a blog about it at the time.
Enthused, I came home from the pub, dug out the miniDV tape and quickly edited together this vid. It’s always difficult to capture the experience of walking in any form – literature seems to have managed it best. Here I tried to film as instinctively as possible as if scribbling in a notebook.
The Heathcote btw was shut tonight due to a gas leak – was it something I did? Not quite sure what I’ll do if it stays shut for a while. Maybe get round to writing up some notes I’ve got on walking that I’d like to share.