A4200 | ||||
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Route information | ||||
Length | 2.0 mi (3.2 km) | |||
Major junctions | ||||
South end | A4 Aldwych | |||
East end | A400 Camden High Street, next to Mornington Crescent tube station | |||
Location | ||||
Country | United Kingdom | |||
Constituent country | England | |||
Administrative areas | Greater London | |||
Primary destinations | Aldwych Holborn Bloomsbury Euston Somerstown Camden Town | |||
Road network | ||||
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The A4200 is a major thoroughfare in central London. It runs between the A4 at Aldwych, to the A400 Hampstead Road/Camden High Street, at Mornington Crescent tube station, via Holborn, Bloomsbury, Euston and Somers Town.
Kingsway is a major road in central London, designated as part of the A4200. It runs from High Holborn, at its north end in the London Borough of Camden, and meets Aldwych in the south in the City of Westminster at Bush House. It was opened by King Edward VII in 1905. [1] Together Kingsway and Aldwych form one of the major north–south routes through central London linking the ancient east–west routes of High Holborn and Strand. The name "King's Way" originally applied to what is now Theobalds Road, as it was the route that King James I took when travelling from London to his residence Theobalds Palace in Hertfordshire.
The road was purpose-built as part of a major redevelopment of the area in the 1900s. Its route cleared away the maze of small streets in Holborn such as Little Queen Street and the surrounding slum dwellings. However, Holy Trinity Church in Little Queen Street was spared, whereas the Sardinian Embassy Chapel, an important Roman Catholic church attached to the Embassy of the Kingdom of Sardinia, was demolished to make way for the new street.
Plans were published by London County Council in 1898, authorised by the London County Council (Improvements) Act 1899 (62 & 63 Vict. c. cclxvi) and the road was formally opened in 1905. It is one of the broadest streets in central London at 100 feet (30 m) wide. There were several proposed names for the new street, including King Edward VII Street, Empire Avenue, Imperial Avenue and Connecticut Avenue. The name "Kingsway" was in honour of King Edward VII, who opened the street. [2]
It was unique in containing below it a tunnel for a tramway, which started just north of Southampton Row, passed beneath Aldwych and continued to the Thames Embankment; this Kingsway tramway subway joined the North and South London tram systems. In 1958 the disused tunnel was reopened at the southern end to make a new connection, the Strand Underpass, for light traffic between Waterloo Bridge and Kingsway in order to reduce congestion. Also beneath Kingsway was a branch of the Piccadilly tube line from Holborn to Aldwych station on the Strand; this was closed in 1994. Aldwych station is still used for television and film sets that require underground scenes. During the Second World War the branch was used to store art treasures from the British Museum, including the Elgin Marbles. [3]
On 1 April 2015, electrical cables under the pavement in Kingsway caught fire, leading to serious disruption in central London. The fire continued for the next two days, with flames shooting out of a manhole cover from a burst gas main, [4] before being extinguished. [5] Several thousand people were evacuated from nearby offices, and several theatres cancelled performances. [6] [4] [7] There was also substantial disruption to telecoms infrastructure. [8] On 8 April, press reports emerged stating that the fire may have been started as part of the 2015 Hatton Garden burglary; [9] however, the investigation into how the fire started stated on 9 April that it came from an electrical fault. [10]
The original buildings were built between 1903 and 1905. They were mostly mid-rises in stone, and in various styles including neoclassical and neo-Baroque. Many survive but some have been replaced. Notable buildings include:
The closest tube stations are Holborn, which is at the top of the road, at the junction with High Holborn, as well as Temple, and formerly Aldwych, which closed in 1994.
As part of the redevelopment a tram tunnel was built underneath the road. [19] [20] [21] The trams ceased to run in the 1950s and, since 1961, the southern end of the tunnel has been used by cars under the name of the Strand Underpass. [22] [23] The northern entrance to the tunnel still exists [24] (with its tram lines still in situ, see image right) [25] and can be found at the junction of Southampton Row and Vernon Place.
On 27 December 1909, a song by the English composer Edward Elgar, named The King's Way, celebrates the opening of Kingsway. The words are written by his wife, Caroline Alice Elgar. The song was first performed at an Alexandra Palace concert on 15 January 1910, sung by Clara Butt. [26] [27] [28]
Southampton Row is a major thoroughfare running northwest–southeast in Bloomsbury, Camden, central London, England.
The street was named after Thomas Wriothesley, 4th Earl of Southampton. [29] It was previously known as King Street
In 1822, the Chartist Henry Hetherington registered a printing press at 13 Kingsgate Street (a smaller street parallel to King street, but demolished during the 1903-05 Kingsway development). This was an eight-roomed house, including shop and printing premises—at an annual rent of £55. [30] His first published book was in January 1823, and was named Mudie's journal, the Political Economist and Universal Philanthropist. [31]
The first studio of the sculptor Robert William Sievier (1794–1865) was in Southampton Row until 1837, where he relocated to Henrietta Street, near Cavendish Square, and he also had a separate residence in Upper Holloway. [32]
The Central School of Art and Design, formerly the Central School of Arts and Crafts, was established by the London County Council in 1896 in Southampton Row [33] [34] to provide specialist art teaching for workers in the craft industries. The architect William Lethaby (1857–1931) [35] was the first Principal, as recorded by a blue plaque on Southampton Row. [36]
Sir John Barbirolli, the conductor and cellist, was born in Southampton Row on 2 December 1899. A commemorative blue plaque was placed on the wall of the Bloomsbury Park Hotel in May 1993 to mark his birthplace. [37]
In 1907, the Institute of Education moved to its first purpose-built building on Southampton Row. [38] In 1938, the Institute moved to the Senate House complex of the University of London on Malet Street, not far away to the northwest. [39] [40]
On 12 September 1933, the Hungarian physicist Leó Szilárd, an exile from Nazi Germany, was crossing Southampton Row at the junction with Russell Square when he conceived the idea of a nuclear chain reaction, which led directly to the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear power. [41]
The Sue Ryder Care charity, established in 1953, is registered at 114–118 Southampton Row.
Also in 1953, John Cass opened a bookshop on Southampton Row, where he began publishing books and journals which were acquired by Taylor & Francis in 2003. [42]
In 1966, the Indica Bookshop was separated from the Indica Gallery, a counterculture art gallery supported by Paul McCartney, and moved to 102 Southampton Row in the summer of that year.
As of 2022 [update] a major route for buses, the street once formed part of a tram route that included a tunnel for trams.
Woburn Place is a street in central London, England, named after Woburn Abbey, home to the Dukes of Bedford who developed much of Bloomsbury. It is located in the Bloomsbury area of Camden. [43] [44]
To the north is Tavistock Square and to the south-east is Russell Square. Past Tavistock Square the road becomes Upper Woburn Place until the junction with Euston Road. The Royal National Hotel building is located in the south-west side of Woburn Place north of Russell Square, with 1,630 rooms on eight floors, is the largest hotel in the UK. [45] The British Medical Association building [46] is at the junction of Upper Woburn Place with Tavistock Square.
Property values are high in this area. For example, in 2005 a freehold office building at 19–29 Woburn Place (9,400 m2, 101,000 sq ft) was sold for £22.6 million. [47]
On 7 July 2005, a suicide bomb planted by 18-year-old Hasib Hussain detonated aboard a double decker bus passing Tavistock Square as it was travelling from Marble Arch to Oxford Circus on route 30, killing 13 passengers, plus Hussain himself. The bus had been diverted to Woburn Place due to road closures resulting from the earlier bombings. [48]
Eversholt Street is a street in the London Borough of Camden in London, England. It lies in Somers Town, London: stretching a kilometre from Euston railway station in the south to Camden Town in the north.
Eversholt Street starts at Euston Road, between Euston Square Gardens and Euston Fire Station. [49] It travels north, including Euston House, the grade-II listed Royal George, [50] the grade-II listed 64 Eversholt Street, [51] the grade-II listed Church of St Mary the Virgin, [52] the grade-II listed Eversholt House, [53] and Camden Council's The Crowndale Centre which includes Camden Town Library. It joins Camden High Street at Mornington Crescent station. It also includes a controversial strip bar that is the subject of many articles in local newspapers. [54] [55] [56] [57]
The road was laid out in the 1810s as part of the Bedford Estate. [58] It was called "Seymour Street", as shown in the map to the right, until 1938 when it was renamed. [59] It took its new name from Eversholt which is a village in Bedfordshire (which comes from Anglo-Saxon meaning "wood of the wild boar") near Ampthill, which gave its name to Ampthill Square nearby, and follows a theme of names related to the Duke of Bedford. It in turn gives its name to Eversholt Rail Group.
The West End of London is a district of Central London, London, England, west of the City of London and north of the River Thames, in which many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings and entertainment venues, including West End theatres, are concentrated.
Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest museum in the United Kingdom, and several educational institutions, including University College London and a number of other colleges and institutes of the University of London as well as its central headquarters, the New College of the Humanities, the University of Law, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the British Medical Association and many others. Bloomsbury is an intellectual and literary hub for London, as home of world-known Bloomsbury Publishing, publishers of the Harry Potter series, and namesake of the Bloomsbury Group, a group of British intellectuals which included author Virginia Woolf, biographer Lytton Strachey, and economist John Maynard Keynes.
Holborn, an area in central London, covers the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Camden and a part of the Ward of Farringdon Without in the City of London.
The Kingsway tramway subway is a cut-and-cover tunnel in central London, built by the London County Council, and the only one of its kind in Britain. The decision in 1898 to clear slum districts in the Holborn area provided an opportunity to use the new streets for a tramway connecting the lines in the north and south. Following the pattern of tramways in New York and Boston, it was decided to build this as an underground connection.
Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster. Drury Lane is part of London's West End Theatreland.
Aldwych is a closed station on the London Underground, located in the City of Westminster in Central London. It was opened in 1907 with the name Strand, after the street on which it is located. It was the terminus of the short Piccadilly line branch from Holborn that was a relic of the merger of two railway schemes. The station building is close to the Strand's junction with Surrey Street, near Aldwych. During its lifetime, the branch was the subject of a number of unrealised extension proposals that would have seen the tunnels through the station extended southwards, usually to Waterloo.
Holborn is a London Underground station in Holborn, Central London, located at the junction of High Holborn and Kingsway. It is served by the Central and Piccadilly lines. On the Central line the station is between Tottenham Court Road and Chancery Lane stations and on the Piccadilly line it is between Covent Garden and Russell Square stations. The station is in Travelcard Zone 1. Close by are the British Museum, Lincoln's Inn Fields, Red Lion Square, Bloomsbury Square, London School of Economics and Sir John Soane's Museum.
British Museum was a station on the London Underground, located in Holborn, central London. It was latterly served by the Central line and took its name from the nearby British Museum in Great Russell Street.
High Holborn is a street in Holborn and Farringdon Without, Central London, which forms a part of the A40 route from London to Fishguard. It starts in the west at the eastern end of St Giles High Street and runs past the Kingsway and Southampton Row, becoming Holborn at its eastern junction with Gray's Inn Road. The western stretch, as far as Drury Lane, was formerly known as Broad Street. On High Holborn, traffic flows one-way westbound from its junction with Drake Street to its western end, and flows both ways for the remainder.
Aldwych tramway station was a tram stop underneath Kingsway, a road in central London, England. It was built in 1906 by the London County Council Tramways as part of the Kingsway tramway subway, joining the separate networks of tramways in North and South London.
Holborn tramway station was a tram stop underneath Kingsway in central London, England. It was built in 1906 by the London County Council Tramways as part of the Kingsway tramway subway, joining the separate networks of tramways in North and South London. When opened it was named Great Queen Street.
The WC postcode area, also known as the London WC postcode area, is a group of postcode districts in central London, England. The area covered is of high density development, and includes parts of the City of Westminster and the London Boroughs of Camden and Islington, plus a very small part of the City of London.
Euston Square is a large square in the London Borough of Camden in Central London. It lies on Euston Road, and Euston railway station and Euston bus station are on its northernmost side. Although “Euston Square” strictly refers to the square, in day to day use the name is often used to refer to Euston Square tube station, whose entrance is at the junction of Euston Road and North Gower Street. The southern half of the square was built over in the 1920s, leaving Euston Square Gardens on the north side in front of Euston station.
Cross River Tram was a Transport for London (TfL) proposal for a 10-mile (16 km) tram system in London. It was planned to run on a north–south route from Camden Town in the north, via King's Cross, to Peckham and Brixton in the south.
Museum MileLondon is the home of 14 museums in London, England, in the area between Bloomsbury to the north and the Embankment on the River Thames to the south.
The A400 road is an A road in London that runs from Charing Cross to Archway in North London. It passes some of London's most famous landmarks.
The London Night Bus network is a series of night bus routes that serve Greater London. Services broadly operate between the hours of 23:00 and 06:00.
Bloomsbury is a ward in the London Borough of Camden, in the United Kingdom. It covers much of the historic area of Bloomsbury, and also some of Covent Garden and Fitzrovia.
The London Borough of Camden is a borough in Inner London, England. Camden Town Hall, on Euston Road, lies 1.4 mi (2.3 km) north of Charing Cross. The borough was established on 1 April 1965 from the former metropolitan boroughs of Holborn, St Pancras and Hampstead.
The Bedford Estate is an estate in central London owned by the Russell family, which holds the peerage title of Duke of Bedford. The estate was originally based in Covent Garden, then stretched to include Bloomsbury in 1669. The Covent Garden property was sold for £2 million in 1913 by Herbrand Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford, to the MP and land speculator Harry Mallaby-Deeley, who sold his option to the Beecham family for £250,000; the sale was finalised in 1918.