Soho: Gerrard Street

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Sir Walter Besant, in The Fascination of London, published in 1903, continues his survey of Soho with this look at Gerrard Street:

At No. 13, Greek Street were Wedgwood's exhibition-rooms.

In No. 27 De Quincey used to sleep on the floor by permission of Brumel, the money-lender's attorney.

On the other side of Shaftesbury Avenue, and parallel with it, is Gerrard Street, a dingy, unpretending place, but thick with memories and associations.

It was built about 1681, and was called after Gerard, Earl of Macclesfield.

Wheatley quotes from the Bagford manuscripts. of the British Museum to the effect that "Henry, Prince of Wales, son of James I, caused a piece of ground near Leicester Fields to be walled in for the exercise of arms. Here he built a house, which was standing at the Restoration. It afterwards fell into the hands of Lord Gerard, who let the ground out to build upon."

Hatton speaks of "Macclesfield House, alias Gerrard House, a well-built structure situate in Gerrard Street...now (1708) in possession of Lord Mohun."

Dryden lived in Gerrard Street in a house on the site of one marked by a tablet of the Society of Arts.

He died here, and his funeral was interrupted by a drunken frolic of Mohocks headed by Lord Jeffreys.

Close by is an hotel, where once Edmund Burke resided; opposite to him J. T. Smith lodged, as he tells us in "Nollekens and his Times," and he could look into Burke's rooms when they were lighted, and see the patient student at work until the small hours of the morning.

Charles Kemble and his family also resided in this street.

Next: Soho: Gerrard Street: The Club