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.
The street originated as an early medieval lane referred to in Latin as the Via de Aldwych, which probably connected St. Giles Leper Hospital with the fields of Aldwych Close, owned by the hospital but traditionally said to have been granted to the Danes as part of a peace treaty with King Alfred the Great in Saxon times. It acquired its name from the Suffolk barrister Sir Robert Drury, who built a mansion called Drury House on the lane around 1500. After the death in 1615 of his great-great-grandson, another Robert Drury, the property passed out of the family. It became the London house of the Earl of Craven, then a public house under the sign of his reputed mistress, the Queen of Bohemia. Subsequently, the gardens and courtyards of the house were built over with rows of small houses. The remains of the house itself, which had been progressively demolished, were finally cleared in 1809. By this time, Drury Lane had become one of the worst slums in London, dominated by prostitution [1] and gin palaces. The area was eventually cleared to make way for the developments of Kingsway and Aldwych. [2]
The Muffin Man resided on Drury Lane, according to the famous nursery rhyme. [3]
The term "Drury Lane" is often used to refer to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, which has in different incarnations been located in the street since the 17th century, even though today the main entrance is on Catherine Street. Also in Drury Lane is the Gillian Lynne Theatre. [4] 173 Drury Lane was the location of the first J Sainsbury store. The store was opened in 1869 and the company is now one of the UK's largest retailers. [5]
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 is a district in central London, which 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.
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and with the Royal Opera House, itself known as "Covent Garden". The district is divided by the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, north of which is given over to independent shops centred on Neal's Yard and Seven Dials, while the south contains the central square with its street performers and most of the historical buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the London Transport Museum and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
Aldwych is a street and the name of the area immediately surrounding it, in the City of Westminster, part of Greater London, and is part of the West End Theatreland. The 450 metres (1,480 ft) street starts 600 metres (2,000 ft) east-northeast of Charing Cross, the conventional map centre-point of the capital city.
Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in developing London", as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observes. The original plan for "laying out and planting" these fields, drawn by the hand of Inigo Jones, was said still to be seen in Lord Pembroke's collection at Wilton House in the 19th century, but its location is now unknown. The grounds, which had remained private property, were acquired by London County Council in 1895 and opened to the public by its chairman, Sir John Hutton, the same year. The square is today managed by the London Borough of Camden and forms part of the southern boundary of that borough with the City of Westminster.
Holborn and St Pancras is a parliamentary constituency in Greater London that was created in 1983. It has been represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom since 2015 by Sir Keir Starmer, the current Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition.
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.
The Gillian Lynne Theatre is a West End theatre located on the corner of Drury Lane and Parker Street in Covent Garden in the London Borough of Camden. The Winter Garden Theatre formerly occupied the site until 1965. On 1 May 2018, the theatre was officially renamed the Gillian Lynne Theatre in honour of choreographer Gillian Lynne. It is the first theatre in the West End of London to be named after a non-royal woman.
Joseph Shepherd Munden was an English actor.
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 Somerstown.
Great Queen Street is a street in the West End of central London in England. It is a continuation of Long Acre from Drury Lane to Kingsway. It runs from 1 to 44 along the north side, east to west, and 45 to about 80 along the south side, west to east. The street straddles and connects the Covent Garden and Holborn districts and is in the London Borough of Camden. It is numbered B402.
"The Muffin Man" is a traditional nursery rhyme, children's song, or children's game of English origin. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7922.
Wych Street was in London where King, Melbourne and Australia Houses now stand on Aldwych. It ran west from the church of St Clement Danes on the Strand to meet the southern end of Drury Lane. It was demolished by the London County Council in around 1901, as part of redevelopment bisected by new street Aldwych, the east of which mimics its course, in a curved way so taking up land buildings stood on, and these works created Kingsway.
Holborn and Covent Garden is a ward of the London borough of Camden, in the United Kingdom. As the name suggests, it covers the parts of Holborn and Covent Garden that lie in Camden; the eastern part of Holborn lies in the City of London and the southern part of Covent Garden lies in the City of Westminster. For elections to Parliament, Holborn and Covent Garden is part of Holborn and St Pancras.
The London Borough of Camden is a London 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 and includes the former Central London borough of Holborn, and St Pancras and Hampstead.
Great West End Theatres is a documentary series detailing the history, architecture and theatrical anecdotes of the 40 West End Theatres of London, released individually as All-Region DVDs and also as digital downloads and the first 10 episodes were broadcast from 3 August 2013 in the UK by the BSkyB digital satellite channel Sky Arts 2 and were chosen as "Pick of the Day" by the London edition of Time Out magazine.
This is a list of the etymology of street names in the London district of Covent Garden. Covent Garden has no formally defined boundaries – those utilised here are: Shaftesbury Avenue to the north-west, New Oxford Street and High Holborn to the north, Kingsway and the western half of the Aldwych semi-circle to the east, Strand to the south and Charing Cross Road to the west.