Tottenham Court Road
Tottenham Court Road is a major road in central London, United Kingdom, running from St Giles Circus (the junction of Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road) north to Euston Road, near the border of the City of Westminster and the London Borough of Camden, a distance of about three-quarters of a mile. It has for many years been a one-way street: all three lanes are northbound only, the equivalent southbound traffic using the parallel Gower Street. It is generally regarded as marking the western boundary of Bloomsbury.
The south end of the road is close to the British Museum and to Centre Point, the West End's tallest building. There are a number of buildings belonging to University College London along the road, and University College Hospital is at the north end of the road at the intersection with Euston Road.
The road is served by three stations on the London Underground—from south to north these are Tottenham Court Road, Goodge Street and Warren Street—and by numerous bus routes.
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[edit] History
The area across which the road is built is described in the Domesday Book as belonging to the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's Cathedral. In the time of Henry III (1216–1272), a manor house slightly north-west of what is now the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street belonged to one William de Tottenhall. In about the 15th century, the area was known variously as Totten, Totham, or Totting Hall. After changing hands several times, the manor was leased for 99 years to Queen Elizabeth, when it came popularly to be called Tottenham Court. In the next century, it appears to have become the property of the Fitzroys, who built Fitzroy Square on a part of the manor estate towards the end of the 18th century.[1]
[edit] Commercial district
Tottenham Court Road is a significant shopping street, best known for its high concentration of consumer electronics shops, which range from shops specialising in cables and computer components to those dealing in package computers and audio-video systems. Further north there are several furniture shops including Habitat and Heals. The road gained notoriety in 2001 when the first branch in central London of the Spearmint Rhino chain of lap-dancing clubs opened. This club is situated in the 1930s building Paramount Court.[citation needed]
In the 1950s and 1960s, Tottenham Court Road and a few of the adjoining streets became a mecca for World War II surplus radio and electronics equipment. Shops such as Proops Brothers and "Z & I Aero Services" lined both sides of the road in those days, and thousands of British young men travelled there to buy amplifiers, radios and electronic components.[citation needed] There were many stores selling all kinds of electro-mechanical and radio parts. By the 1960s, they were also selling Japanese transistor radios, audio mixers, and other electronic gadgets. Many British-made valve stereos were offered too.
[edit] Whitfield Gardens
Opposite Habitat and Heals is an open public space called Whitfield Gardens. On the side of a house is a painting, the "Fitzrovia Mural" over 60 feet high, showing many people at work and at leisure. It was painted in 1980 in a style resembling that of Diego Rivera. The mural has suffered from neglect and has been daubed with graffiti. There is a proposal to restore the mural after the current works to renovate the gardens are completed.[2][3] In 2005, 12 so-called "Our Glass" panels were erected in the gardens. Each is about 5 feet high, with two sides showing a collage of people associated with the area, from satirical cartoonist Hogarth to the popular singer Boy George. There is a 13th panel showing an index to the people. Each panel has a title, for example "1. Whitefield Gardens and the Reverend Whitefield", "2. The Soul Catchers", "3. Hub of the Anti-Slavery campaign", and so on, up to "12. Our Glasses Public Art Club Land".[citation needed]
[edit] Fairyland, 92 Tottenham Court Road
During the period leading up to and during the First World War, 92 Tottenham Court Road in London was the location of a shooting range called Fairyland.
In 1909, it was reported in a police investigation that the range was being used by two Suffragettes in a possible conspiracy to assassinate Prime Minister Herbert Asquith.[4]
It was the place where, in 1909, Madan Lal Dhingra practised shooting prior to his assassination of Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie.[5]
Other residents of India House and members of Abhinav Bharat practiced shooting at the range and rehearsed assassinations they planned to carry out.[6]
It was also the place where, with regard to in R v Lesbini (1914), Donald Lesbini shot Alice Eliza Storey. R v Lesbini was a case that established in British, Canadian and Australian law that, with regard to voluntary manslaughter, a reasonable man always has reasonable powers of self control and is never intoxicated.[7][8]
The shooting range was owned and run by Henry Stanton Morley (1875-1916).[9]
[edit] In popular culture
[edit] Music
Pink Floyd played many early concerts at the UFO Club at 31 Tottenham Court Road where they were the house band.[10] The road is referred to in the lyrics of Underworld's "Born Slippy .NUXX" and Andrew Lloyd Webber's song "Grizabella the Glamour Cat", from his musical Cats. The Kinks reference the road in their song "Denmark Street".
The Pogues mention Tottenham Court Road in the song "Transmetropolitan", written by Shane MacGowan, from their first album, released in 1984, entitled Red Roses For Me. The lyrical reference is here:
From a 5 pound bet in William Hills/ To a Soho sex-shop dream/ From a fried egg in Valtaro's/ To a Tottenham Court Road ice cream/ We'll spew and lurch, get nicked and fixed/ On the way we'll kill and maim/ When you haven't got a penny, boys/ It's all the bloody same!
Tottenham Court Road's Tube Station is replicated as part of the set for the Queen musical We Will Rock You, which plays at the Dominion Theatre, directly above the tube station on Tottenham Court Road.
[edit] Books
The road is featured briefly in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling; The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins; Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf; Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw and its musical adaptation, My Fair Lady; Saturday and Atonement by Ian McEwan; several Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; the Saki story "Reginald on Christmas Presents"; several stories by John Collier; A Room with a View by E.M. Forster; The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd; The Wish House by Celia Rees; a The Matrix-based story, "Goliath", by Neil Gaiman; and The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon. Sherlock Holmes once said that he purchased his Stradivarius from, "a Jew broker in the Tottenham Court Road."
[edit] Movies
It is mentioned briefly as the location where 'I' was allegedly arrested for 'toilet trading' in the 1986 Bruce Robinson cult-classic movie Withnail and I. It is also featured briefly in the 2008 crime film The Bank Job. Also appears in Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 1 when Harry, Ron, and Hermione Apparate to Tottenham Court Road because of the unwelcome and sudden appearance of Death Eaters. Hermione said it was the first place she could think of and Death Eaters were unlikely to find them there.
[edit] Television
In the first series of Doctor Who (An Unearthly Child, 1963), the Doctor's TARDIS first materialises in a junkyard in Totters lane, possibly inspired by Tottenham Court Road.
[edit] Musicals
In the Lerner/Lowe musical My Fair Lady, Tottenham Court Road is referenced as the location where Eliza Doolittle sells her flowers.
[edit] References
- ^ Tottenham Court Road in Old and New London: Volume 4 (1878), pp. 467–480, from British History Online.
- ^ Mural could return to its former grace, News Reporters, 6 September 2010, Fitzrovia News, accessed 20 September 2010
- ^ Iconic London mural could be restored, Wikinews, 20 September 2010 accessed 20 September 2010
- ^ http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/suffragettes_programme.html
- ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madan_Lal_Dhingra
- ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_House
- ^ http://agc-wopac.agc.gov.my/e-docs/Journal/0000015015.pdf
- ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manslaughter_in_English_law
- ^ http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t19090719-55&div=t19090719-55&terms=Dhingra
- ^ "Syd Barrett" (obituary), Daily Telegraph, London, 12 July 2006.
