Cambridge Circus, London

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Cambridge Circus and the Palace Theatre Cambridge Circus (26641393788).jpg
Cambridge Circus and the Palace Theatre

Cambridge Circus is the partly pedestrianised intersection where Shaftesbury Avenue crosses Charing Cross Road on the eastern edge of Soho, central London. [1] Side-streets Earlham, West, Romilly and Moor streets also converge at this point. It is halfway between Tottenham Court Road station, Oxford Street (at St Giles Circus) and the centre of Leicester Square, which is southwest of Charing Cross Road via Cranborne Street.

Contents

The Circus is fronted by listed Victorian buildings. Of these, the Palace Theatre has the widest façade; three bars and three fast food outlets occupy the ground floors of the others.

History

The opening of Charing Cross railway station in 1864 highlighted the need for better road routes northward towards Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. [2] The Metropolitan Board of Works therefore proposed two new streets using the powers granted by the recent Metropolitan Street Improvements Act 1877. The new roads, later named Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue, were planned by the board's staff, the architect George Vulliamy and the engineer Sir Joseph Bazelgette. The plan required the demolition of the old Newport Market and the squalid slums that surrounded it; much delay was incurred by this as the residents were required by the act to be rehoused locally. [3] The two new roads were to meet at a junction or "circus", which was named after Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, a cousin of Queen Victoria, who officially opened Charing Cross Road in 1887. [4] Cambridge Circus was initially offered by the Board of Works as the location for the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain or "Eros", but the memorial committee chose Piccadilly Circus at the other end of Shaftesbury Avenue instead. [5]

Side-street approaches

Earlham Street specialises in fashion. Moor Street, leading to the Prince Edward Theatre, has numerous cafés. West Street has St Martin's Theatre, restaurant The Ivy, and until 2019 L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon.

Buildings

The Palace Theatre is on the west side of the junction; it was designed by T. E. Collcutt in the Northern Rennaisance style, and built in 1888-1891; originally called the Royal English Opera House. It is a Grade II* listed building. [6] The Ivy restaurant and a number of private clubs are accessible from the south of Cambridge Circus. The Victorian buildings which surround the junction have featured in a number of espionage and spy films and books. [1]

In fiction

In his espionage novels, author John le Carré placed the headquarters of the fictionalised British intelligence service based on MI6 in buildings on Shaftesbury Avenue and Cambridge Circus; [1] [7] it is from this that Le Carré's nickname for the agency, "The Circus", derives. The BBC's Gordon Corera notes that the entrance described by Le Carré most closely resembles that of 90 Charing Cross Road, just north of Cambridge Circus. [8] The actual MI6 has never occupied premises in or near Cambridge Circus. [8] [9]

The Circus hosted Marks & Co, booksellers, who operated from 84 Charing Cross Road, which featured in Helene Hanff's 1970 book 84, Charing Cross Road , which has subsequently been adapted into a stage play, a television play, and a 1987 movie starting Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, and Judi Dench. Hanff's book, as well as her other work The Duchess of Bloomsbury (1973), detail her several-decades-long correspondence by mail with Frank Doel, a bookseller at Marks & Co.

In the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire , the protagonist, Jamal, is asked to locate Cambridge Circus in the Indian version of the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? . He answers the 5 million rupee question correctly, based on his experience working in an outsourced call centre. [10]

Film locations

Cambridge Circus has featured in:

References

  1. 1 2 3 Christopher Howse (1 May 2007). "Exactly where is the Circus?". The Telegraph . Archived from the original on 10 May 2012.
  2. ↑ Sheppard, Francis Henry Wollaston, ed. (1963). "Chapter XIII: Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road". Survey of London: Volumes 33 and 34, St Anne Soho. London: London County Council. p. 296. Retrieved 31 January 2026.
  3. ↑ Weinreb, Ben; Hibbert, Christopher (2008). The London Encyclopaedia (Third ed.). London: Macmillan. p. 149. ISBN   978-1405049252.
  4. ↑ Weinreb & Hibbert 2008, p. 121
  5. ↑ Sheppard, Francis Henry Wollaston, ed. (1963). "Chapter VII: The Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain". Survey of London: Volumes 31 and 32, St James Westminster, Part 2. London: London County Council. pp. 101–110. Retrieved 31 January 2026.
  6. ↑ Historic England. "Palace Theatre (1066339)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 2 February 2026.
  7. ↑ John Le Carré Call for the Dead
  8. 1 2 Gordon Corera (11 September 2011). "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: John Le Carre and reality". BBC News . Retrieved 31 July 2015.
  9. ↑ "Buildings". Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Archived from the original on 4 July 2015. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
  10. ↑ "Slumdog Millionaire". www.imsdb.com. 112. Archived from the original on 21 February 2009. Retrieved 20 October 2019.

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