Tottenham Court Road
| Tottenham Court Road | |
|---|---|
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| Tottenham Court Road, Looking North (2005) | |
| Basic data | |
| city | London |
| Borough | Camden |
| Created | before the 11th century |
| Connecting roads | Charing Cross Road , Hampstead Road |
| Cross streets |
only the main ones: Oxford Street New Oxford Street Grafton Way Euston Road |
| Places |
St Giles Circus Kirkman Place |
| Subway stations |
Tottenham Court Road Goodge Street Warren Street |
| use | |
| User groups | Individual transport, cyclists, buses |
| Technical specifications | |
| Street length | approx. 1.1 km |
Tottenham Court Road is a major shopping street in central London running north from St Giles Circus , the junction of Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road , to Euston Road . The street runs in the London Borough of Camden on the western edge of Bloomsbury and forms the border with the City of Westminster between St Giles Circus and Hanway Street, which branches off one block north of it .
history
Tottenhall was a benefice house mentioned in the Domesday Book as early as the 11th century , which belonged to the deanery of St Paul's Cathedral and stood on the site of the current administration building of the University College Hospital at 250 Euston Road ⊙ . The road formed the entrance to the property from Oxford Street. From a malapropism , Tottenhall gave rise to the name Tottenham , based on the Tottenham district of the same name in north London.
At the beginning of the 18th century the benefice house was demolished and the street was called Tottenham Court Road . From the late 18th century, and especially at the beginning of the 19th century, the street became famous for furniture manufacturing. The carpentry workshops mainly produced cabinets , some later switched to piano making .
On October 17, 1814, a vat burst at the Horse Shoe Brewery on the street. The emerging 8,000 to 9,000 kegs of beer produced a 4.5 m high tidal wave in places, which flooded the area. The poor district of St Giles Rookery was particularly hard hit, with families living in basement apartments. The accident known as the London Beer Flood claimed eight lives.
In 1900 the Central London Railway (CLR) began operating, serving the Tottenham Court Road underground station . In 1907 the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (CCE & HR) followed, which runs under Tottenham Court Road and in addition to the Tottenham Court Road station also served the Goodge Street and Warren Street stations . In 1933 the underground companies became public property, the CLR became the Central Line , and the CCE & HR became the Northern Line of the London Underground .
The furniture retail trade grew in the 1910s and 1920s together with the furniture industry, so that several large furniture stores were built on the street. The most important is likely to be Heal's , which even then could look back on almost a hundred years of history.
The St Giles Circus at the southern end of the road was in the 1950s one of the busiest intersections of London, which is why the London County Council (LCC) the intersection into a roundabout wanted to convert. The living space lost as a result of the renovation was to be compensated for by three apartment blocks on the corner lot between Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road . Litigation between the LCC and the landowners was circumvented by Oldham Estates Co acquiring the property. The real estate company owned by Harry Hyams , a then still young real estate agent from northern England, ceded the land required for the redesign of the intersection to the LCC and received in return the right to build higher buildings on the property than the normal zoning regulations would have been permissible. Hymas commissioned Richard Seifert to design a high-rise complex with mixed use, the Center Point .
The original traffic concept stipulated that the traffic would have been routed around the Center Point high-rise, which is why it is connected to the adjacent Center Point House with a two-story bridge. The roundabout was not realized because in the 1960s, before Center Point was completed, Tottenham Court Road was converted into a one-way street with three lanes to the north. The concept was so successful that the roundabout was not built.
With the West End Project of the government of the borough of Camden, the public space adjacent to Tottenham Court Road Station is to be upgraded, as an increase in traffic of 40% is expected with the opening of the Crossrail . In this context, one-way traffic for bicycles and buses was lifted again in April 2019. From spring 2020, private traffic will also be allowed to drive south on the road at night and on Sunday. During the day, the road is closed to through traffic in both directions, as individual sections may only be used by bicycles and buses.
Tottenham Court Road is a major shopping street known for its large number of electronic goods stores . There are many furniture stores further north .
The street started talking when the first branch of the lap dancing club chain Spearmint Rhino opened in central London in 2001 .
The Church of Scientology has a branch at 60 Tottenham Court Road.
Trivia
- Tottenham Court Road is the only thoroughfare in London's W1 postal district that has the word Road in its name - all others are Streets , Squares etc.
- The composer and pianist Billy Mayerl was born in this street in 1902 .
- A scene from the novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is set on Tottenham Court Road .
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lets his novelist Sherlock Holmes buy his violin from a pawnbroker on Tottenham Court Road.
- The street is mentioned in the song "Born Slippy" by the music group Underworld .
- Tottenham Court Road also made an appearance in Webber's "Cats", namely in the song "Grizabella, the glamor cat".
- The street is also mentioned several times in "The Invisible Man" by HG Wells.
- Douglas Adams also mentions the road in "Goodbye and Thanks for the Fish".
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Henry Benjamin Wheatley, Peter Cunningham: London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions . Cambridge University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-1-108-02808-0 , Tottenham Court Road, pp. 389 ( google.ch [accessed April 25, 2020]).
- ↑ a b c d Tottenham Court Road. In: Hidden London. Retrieved April 25, 2020 (UK English).
- ↑ rory Tingle: What really happened in the London Beer Flood 200 years ago? In: Independent. October 17, 2014, accessed April 25, 2020 .
- ^ Center Point. In: Historic England. Retrieved April 22, 2020 (English).
- ↑ Jerry White: London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People . Random House, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4070-1307-7 , pp. 51 ( google.ch [accessed April 25, 2020]).
- ↑ Maps. In: West End Project. Retrieved April 25, 2020 (UK English).