Dean Street is a street in Soho, central London, running from Oxford Street south to Shaftesbury Avenue. It crosses Old Compton Street and is linked to Frith Street by Bateman Street.
Dean Street is a street in Soho, central London, running from Oxford Street south to Shaftesbury Avenue. It crosses Old Compton Street and is linked to Frith Street by Bateman Street.
In 1764 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, then a young boy, gave a recital at 21 Dean Street.
Admiral Nelson stayed in Dean Street the day before setting sail for the Battle of Trafalgar. He spent the night drawing up his final battleplans, including the masterstroke of painting identifiable gold and black checks on the ships. He is said to have spent the early part of the evening at a nearby undertakers selecting the coffin he would like to be buried in were the battle not to go according to plan, which proved to be time well spent, for he died in the battle despite leading the British fleet to victory.
Charles Dickens was also a regular on Dean Street when he was a young actor enthusiastically participating in amateur productions at Fanny Kelly's Royalty Theatre at number 73–74. In 1845 he starred in an adaptation of Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour , which met mixed reviews; Dickens' acting was said to be of debatable merit. Dickens's artistic contemporary George Cruikshank was also a resident of Dean Street and it was here that he drew the illustration for Dickens's early works. Cruikshank is perhaps best known as a cutting caricaturist with scant regard for his targets. He was once bribed £100 for his pledge not to "caricature His Majesty (George III) in any immoral situation." He obliged and instead created a humorous caricature of England which came to be known as John Bull.
Furniture maker William Hean lived at 17 Dean Street between 1827 and 1845. Karl Marx lived at 28 Dean Street between 1851 and 1856, above what is now the Hart Brothers restaurant Quo Vadis. The Marxes shared their house in Dean Street with Italian teachers and a cook and were very poor while living in the street. Their rooms were described by one visitor as being in "One of the worst, therefore one of the cheapest, quarters of London..." Three of their five children died while living here, all in infancy. Marx's collaborator Friedrich Engels also lived in an apartment at 28 Dean Street.
The French House in Dean Street is a public house that was the unofficial headquarters of Charles de Gaulle and the French resistance during World War II.
The street has an association with healthcare. Over the years there have been various hospitals on the street including pioneering establishments for prevention and cure of diseases. The Royal Ear Hospital occupied number 10. An early maternity hospital was also located here and the Lock Hospital too was in Dean Street, Lock being a euphemism for venereal disease. Today there are two Sexual Health clinics on Dean Street: 56 Dean Street, and Dean Street Express at number 34, opposite Royalty Mews.
Dean Street has in recent years been a centre of the creative and advertising industries including film and video editing facilities; this was especially true from the 1960s to the 1990s.
There have been many music and theatre venues on the street, including the Soho Theatre, which presents new plays and stand-up comedy. The celebrated Gargoyle Club ran for 27 years in the upper floors at number 69, [1] an address that also housed the nightclub Billy's in its cellars during the late 1970s. There, New Romanticism, a landmark youth movement, took root. [2]
On 10 July 2009 a fire broke out on Dean Street. Two firefighters suffered minor injuries but nobody else was hurt. The building that caught fire was gutted. [3]
The start of a dramatic change to Dean Street began in March 2010 as the demolition commenced of an entire block (Great Chapel Street and Dean Street) in preparation for a western entrance to the new Crossrail station at Tottenham Court Road, which would have a major impact on the area.
From north to south:
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century.
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.
A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings. Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, and can serve a political purpose, be drawn solely for entertainment, or for a combination of both. Caricatures of politicians are commonly used in newspapers and news magazines as political cartoons, while caricatures of movie stars are often found in entertainment magazines.
Shaftesbury Avenue is a major road in the West End of London, named after The 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. It runs north-easterly from Piccadilly Circus to New Oxford Street, crossing Charing Cross Road at Cambridge Circus. From Piccadilly Circus to Cambridge Circus, it is in the City of Westminster, and from Cambridge Circus to New Oxford Street, it is in the London Borough of Camden.
John Leech was a British caricaturist and illustrator. He was best known for his work for Punch, a humorous magazine for a broad middle-class audience, combining verbal and graphic political satire with light social comedy. Leech catered to contemporary prejudices, such as anti-Americanism and antisemitism and supported acceptable social reforms. Leech's critical yet humorous cartoons on the Crimean War helped shape public attitudes toward heroism, warfare, and Britons' role in the world.
Wardour Street is a street in Soho, City of Westminster, London. It is a one-way street that runs north from Leicester Square, through Chinatown, across Shaftesbury Avenue to Oxford Street. Throughout the 20th century the West End street became a centre for the British film industry and the popular music scene.
George Cruikshank or Cruickshank was a British caricaturist and book illustrator, praised as the "modern Hogarth" during his life. His book illustrations for his friend Charles Dickens, and many other authors, reached an international audience.
Sketches by "Boz," Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People is a collection of short pieces Charles Dickens originally published in various newspapers and other periodicals between 1833 and 1836. They were re-issued in book form, under their current title, in February and August 1836, with illustrations by George Cruikshank. The first complete one volume edition appeared in 1839. The 56 sketches concern London scenes and people, and the whole work is divided into four sections: "Our Parish", "Scenes", "Characters" and "Tales". The material in the first three sections consists of non-narrative pen-portraits, but the last section comprises fictional stories.
Old Compton Street is a road that runs east–west through Soho in the West End of London, named after Henry Compton who raised funds for St Anne's Church in 1686. The area, particularly this street, became home to French Protestant refugees in 1681. Known for its diverse and artistic traditions, the street housed businesses, artists, philosophers, and was frequented by communists and proto-beatniks. The Algerian Coffee Stores, one of the oldest shops on the street, was established in 1887. Post World War II, the street became a center for modern and trad jazz. Since the 1970s, Old Compton Street has been a focal point for London's gay community, with numerous gay bars, restaurants, and specialty shops. The Admiral Duncan pub, a notable gay venue, was bombed in 1999 in a hate crime attack. The street is also home to the Prince Edward Theatre.
Soho Square is a garden square in Soho, London, hosting since 1954 a de facto public park let by the Soho Square Garden Committee to Westminster City Council. It was originally called King Square after Charles II, and a much weathered statue of the monarch has stood in the square, with an extended interruption, since 1661, one year after the restoration of the monarchy.
Saint Anne's Church serves in the Church of England the Soho section of London. It was consecrated on 21 March 1686 by Bishop Henry Compton as the parish church of the new civil and ecclesiastical parish of St Anne, created from part of the parish of St Martin in the Fields. The church is under the Deanery of Westminster in the Diocese of London.
Frith Street is in the Soho area of London. To the north is Soho Square and to the south is Shaftesbury Avenue. The street crosses Old Compton Street, Bateman Street and Romilly Street.
The Royalty Theatre was a small London theatre situated at 73 Dean Street, Soho. Established by the actress Frances Maria Kelly in 1840, it opened as Miss Kelly's Theatre and Dramatic School and finally closed to the public in 1938. The architect was Samuel Beazley. The theatre's opening was ill-fated, and it was little used for a decade. It changed its name twice and was used by an opera company, amateur drama companies and for French pieces.
Greek Street is a street in Soho, London, leading south from Soho Square to Shaftesbury Avenue. The street is famous for its restaurants and cosmopolitan nature.
St Giles is an area in the West End of London in the London Borough of Camden. It gets its name from the parish church of St Giles in the Fields. The combined parishes of St Giles in the Fields and St George Bloomsbury were administered jointly for many centuries; leading to the conflation of the two, with much or all of St Giles usually taken to be a part of Bloomsbury. Points of interest include the church of St Giles in the Fields, Seven Dials, the Phoenix Garden, and St Giles Circus.
Great Windmill Street is a thoroughfare running north–south in Soho, London, crossed by Shaftesbury Avenue. The street has had a long association with music and entertainment, most notably the Windmill Theatre, and is now home to the Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum and the Trocadero shopping centre.
Carlisle House was the name of two late seventeenth-century mansions in Soho, London, on opposite sides of Soho Square. One, at the end of Carlisle Street, is sometimes incorrectly said to have been designed by Christopher Wren; it was destroyed in the Blitz. The other was the location of Madame Cornelys' entertainments in the eighteenth century and was demolished in 1791; part of the site was cleared in 1891 for the building of St. Patrick's church.
20 Frith Street is a building in the Soho district of London. It is located on the east side of Frith Street, close to the junction with Old Compton Street. The building which currently occupies the site of 20 Frith Street was built in 1858 by William Cooze to replace a house which dated from c1725, which itself may have replaced an even earlier building.
This is a list of the etymology of street names in the London district of Soho, in the City of Westminster. The following utilises the generally accepted boundaries of Soho viz. Oxford Street to the north, Charing Cross Road to the east, Shaftesbury Avenue to the south and Regent Street to the west.