Essex Street, London

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North end of Essex Street Essex Hall, Essex Street.JPG
North end of Essex Street
Location of Essex Street and Little Essex Street Essex Street & Milford Lane.jpg
Location of Essex Street and Little Essex Street

Essex Street is a street in the City of Westminster that runs from Milford Lane in the south to Strand in the north. It is joined by Little Essex Street on its western side and Devereux Court on the eastern side. It was laid out by Nicholas Barbon in around 1675 or 1680 and contains a number of listed buildings.

Contents

History

Essex Street was laid out by Nicholas Barbon [1] between 1675 and 1680, on the grounds of the former Essex House which itself stood on the site of the Outer Temple, once owned by the Knights Templar. The highwayman Tom Cox, who was hanged at Tyburn in 1691, was captured in the nearby St Clement Danes churchyard after one of his victims spotted him coming out of his lodgings in Essex Street. [2]

In the first half of the twentieth century, the street was known for its publisher's offices such as Chapman & Hall, [1] and Methuen & Co. (No. 36). [3] Macmillan were at 4 Little Essex Street until 1990. [1] The Roman Catholic journal Merry England, edited by Wilfrid Meynell, was published from 43 Essex Street. [3]

Buildings

Essex Hall, an office building at numbers 1 to 6, is the headquarters of the British Unitarians. [4] Prior to the Blitz, a chapel and meeting rooms were on the site, continuing the association with the first avowedly Unitarian place of worship in London, dating back to 1774, [1] when Theophilus Lindsey founded the Essex Street Chapel. [5]

23 Essex Street houses a firm of legal barristers. [6]

The Edgar Wallace, a public house at No. 40, is on the site of the former Essex Head Tavern, [1] where Samuel Johnson and Richard Brocklesby founded the Essex Head Club in 1783. [7]

There are a number of listed buildings in the street. Numbers 11, 14, 19, 34 and 35 are all grade II listed. No. 32 is grade II* listed; California House is grade II listed; and the triumphal gateway at the southern end of the street (c.1676), which once screened it from Essex Wharf and its neighbouring wharfs beyond, is grade II listed. The gateway was damaged by bombing during the Second World War, and after repairs it was incorporated into a 1953 office building that now encloses the southern end of the street, apart from pedestrian access by steps to the southern part of Milford Lane. [8]

Little Essex Street

The Cheshire Cheese, a public house at 5 Little Essex Street, stands on a site where there has been a tavern since the 16th century. [1] It is a Grade II listed building, which was rebuilt in 1928 by the architect Nowell Parr, on the site of an earlier pub, for the 'Style & Winch' Brewery. [9]

Notable former residents

Related Research Articles

The General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches is the umbrella organisation for Unitarian, Free Christians, and other liberal religious congregations in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was formed in 1928, with denominational roots going back to the Great Ejection of 1662. Its headquarters is Essex Hall in central London, on the site of the first avowedly Unitarian chapel in England, set up in 1774.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese</span> Pub in the City of London

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is a Grade II listed public house at 145 Fleet Street, on Wine Office Court, City of London. Rebuilt shortly after the Great Fire of 1666, the pub is known for its literary associations, with its regular patrons having included Charles Dickens, G. K. Chesterton and Mark Twain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tooley Street</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Peter's Church, Congleton</span> Church in Cheshire, England

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">King Edward Street Chapel, Macclesfield</span> Church in Cheshire, England

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nowell Parr</span> British architect (1864–1933)

Thomas Henry Nowell Parr FRIBA was a British architect, best known for designing pubs in west London. Many of these were built while Parr was "house architect" for Fuller's Brewery. Parr designed various buildings in Brentford while he was surveyor and then architect to the Council from 1894 to 1907.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Godalming Congregational Church</span> Church in Surrey , United Kingdom

The building formerly known as Godalming Congregational Church was the Congregational chapel serving the ancient town of Godalming, in the English county of Surrey, between 1868 and 1977. It superseded an earlier chapel, which became Godalming's Salvation Army hall, and served a congregation which could trace its origins to the early 18th century. The "imposing suite of buildings", on a major corner site next to the Town Bridge over the River Wey, included a schoolroom and a manse, and the chapel had a landmark spire until just before its closure in 1977. At that time the congregation transferred to the nearby Methodist chapel, which became a joint Methodist and United Reformed church with the name Godalming United Church. The former chapel then became an auction gallery before being converted into a restaurant; then in 2018 the premises were let to the Cotswold Company to be converted into a furniture and home accessories showroom. In 1991 the former chapel was listed at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Cheshire Cheese</span> Pub in Essex Street, Strand, London

The Cheshire Cheese is a public house at 5 Little Essex Street, London WC2, on the corner with Milford Lane.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Milford Lane</span> Street in the City of Westminster, London

Milford Lane is a narrow street in the City of Westminster that runs from Strand in the north to a brief walkway section leading to Temple Place in the south. It is joined by Little Essex Street and Essex Street on its eastern side. Maltravers Street once joined the lane to Arundel Street, but ceased to exist when building work at 190 Strand was completed.

Devereux Court is a street in the City of Westminster that runs from Strand in the north to Essex Street in the south. It is entirely pedestrianised.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great James Street</span> Street in Bloomsbury district, Camden borough, London

Great James Street is a street in the Bloomsbury district of the London Borough of Camden. It has strong literary and publishing connections, and former residents include the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne and the detective story writer Dorothy L. Sayers. The Nation & Athenaeum, chaired by John Maynard Keynes, and the Nonesuch Press were both based in the street. The street has almost all its original buildings with minimal external changes. It is described in Nikolaus Pevsner's guide as "a gem" and its mostly terraced houses as "unusually uniform for their date". The majority of the street is listed by Historic England.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Essex Street" in Christopher Hibbert; Ben Weinreb; John Keay; Julia Keay (2010). The London Encyclopaedia. London: Pan Macmillan. p. 277. ISBN   978-0-230-73878-2.
  2. Smith, Captain Alexander (2002). Arthur L. Hayward (ed.). A Complete History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen, Footpads, Shoplifts and Cheats of Both Sexes: Previously Published 1719 and 1926 (Reprint ed.). Abingdon: Routledge. p. 56. ISBN   978-1-136-48416-2.
  3. 1 2 Williams, George G. Assisted by Marian and Geoffrey Williams. (1973) Guide to literary London. London: Batsford. p. 87. ISBN   0713401419
  4. "Contact us". Unitarians.org.uk. Retrieved 18 February 2017.
  5. Walford, Edward. (1878) Old and New London: A narrative of its history, its people, and its places. London: Cassell Petter & Galpin. British History Online. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
  6. 23 Essex Street Chambers, accessed 16 December 2022
  7. James Sambrook, "Essex Head Club (act. 1783–1794)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004-2016. Retrieved 17 November 2016. (subscription required)
  8. Historic England. "Essex Watergate Closing South End of Street (1066823)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 17 November 2016.
  9. Historic England. "Cheshire Cheese Public House (1431970)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 17 November 2016.

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