|
Wardour Street is a street in Soho, London. It is a one-way street that runs north from Leicester Square, through Chinatown, across Shaftesbury Avenue to Oxford Street. ==History== There has been a thoroughfare on the site of Wardour Street on maps and plans since they were first printed, the earliest being Elizabethan. In 1585, to settle a legal dispute, a plan of what is now the West End was prepared. The dispute was about a field roughly where Broadwick Street is today. The plan was very accurate and clearly gives the name ''Colmanhedge Lane'' to this major route across the fields from what is described as "The Waye from Vxbridge to London" (Oxford Street) to what is now Cockspur Street. The old plan shows that this lane follows the modern road almost exactly, including bends at Brewer Street and Old Compton Street. The road is also a major thoroughfare on Faithorne and Newcourt's map surveyed between 1643 and 1647. Although they do not give a name, it has about 24 houses and a large "Gaming House" roughly on the site of the Odeon cinema on the north west corner of Leicester Square. The map also shows a large windmill, 40–50 yards to the west of what is now the Church of St Anne, roughly on the current position of Great Windmill Street. The name ''Colmanhedge Lane'' did not last and a 1682 map by Ogilby and Morgan shows the lane split into three parts. The northern part is shown as ''SO HO'', the middle part ''Whitcomb St'' and the remainder, from James Street south, is ''Hedge Lane''. It is not clear from the map where the boundary between ''SO HO'' and ''Whitcombe St'' is, probably somewhere between Compton Street and Gerrard Street. These three names are on the Morden and Lea map of 1682. Wardour Street was renamed and building began in 1686, as shown by a plaque formerly on the house at the corner with Broadwick St (or Edward St as it was). Sir Edward Wardour owned land in the area, and "Edward Street" was what is now the stretch of Broadwick Street between Wardour Street and Berwick Street, as shown by Roque. Neither side of the street was fully built up by 1720.〔''The early history of Piccadilly, Leicester square, Soho and their neighborhood: based on a plan drawn in 1585 and published by the London topographical society in 1925'', pp. 118-120, (google books ); ''Encyclopedia of London'', "Wardour Street"〕 John Rocque shows both roads very clearly on his large scale map of 1746. From Oxford Street south to Meard Street is now ''Wardour Street''. Then south to Compton Street is ''Old Soho''; then down to Coventry Street is ''Princes Street''. For the length of Leicester Square it is ''Whicomb St'' and finally ''Hedge Lane'', which now starts at Panton Street rather than James Street. By the end of the 18th century Horwood, on a large map of 1799, uses the same names but not ''Old Soho'' and ''Hedge Lane''. This leaves just ''Wardour, Princess'' and ''Whitcomb'' streets. The houses have individual numbers by then and are shown in detail on Horwood's map. The names are much the same on Greenwood's map of 1827 although the area at the southern end had been re-developed. The road now ends at Pall Mall East, and the boundary between ''Wardour'' and ''Princes St'' may have moved north a little. By 1846, Cruchley's new plan of London shows change at the southern end. ''Wardour, Princes'' and ''Whitcomb'' streets stay the same but ''Whitcomb Street'' loses a few hundred yards at the southern end and, from James Street to Pall Mall, is now ''Dorset Place''. In Victorian times ''Princes Street'' is still shown on the 1871 Ordnance Survey map. Stanford's Map of Central London 1897, at 6″ to a mile, has just two names, ''Wardour Street'' from Oxford Street to Coventry Street and ''Whitcomb St'' south from there. It has remained this since, though numbering was rationalised around 1896. In the late 19th century, Wardour Street was known for (sometimes slightly shoddy) furniture stores, antique shops, and dealers in artists' supplies. A complicated succession of members of the Wright family were in business in a variety of art and furniture-related fields between 1827 and 1919 at numbers 22 (the first and last), and also 23, 26, 134 and 144, with at least two businesses run by cousins in the latter part of the century. Wright was used for picture frames by the new National Gallery from at least 1856, when they made the large new frame for the ''Adoration of the Magi'' by Paolo Veronese that is still in place.〔("British picture framemakers, 1610–1950 – W" ), National Portrait Gallery〕 ''Wardour Street prose'' implies the use of near-obsolete words for effect, such as ''anent'', which refers to a large number of antique shops in the area. The Paris-born luthier Georges Chanot III had a shop and violin-making business at No 157 for many years. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Wardour Street」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|