District in London, England
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster in the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century.
The area was developed from farmland by Henry VIII in 1536, when it became a royal park. It became a parish in its own right in the late 17th century, when buildings started to be developed for the upper class, including the laying out of Soho Square in the 1680s. St Anne's Church was established during the late 17th century, and remains a significant local landmark; other churches are the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory and St Patrick's Church in Soho Square. The aristocracy had mostly moved away by the mid-19th century, when Soho was particularly badly hit by an outbreak of cholera in 1854. For much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation as a base for the sex industry in addition to its night life and its location for the headquarters of leading film companies. Since the 1980s, the area has undergone considerable gentrification. It is now predominantly a fashionable district of upmarket restaurants and media offices, with only a small remnant of sex industry venues. London's most prominent gay village is centred on Old Compton Street in Soho.
Soho's reputation as a major entertainment district of London stems from theatres such as the Windmill Theatre on Great Windmill Street and the Raymond Revuebar owned by entrepreneur Paul Raymond, and music clubs such as the 2i's Coffee Bar and the Marquee Club. Trident Studios was based in Soho, and the nearby Denmark Street has hosted numerous music publishing houses and instrument shops from the 20th century onwards. The independent British film industry is centred around Soho, including the British headquarters of Twentieth Century Fox and the British Board of Film Classification offices. The area has been popular for restaurants since the 19th century, including the long-standing Kettner's which was visited by numerous celebrities. Near to Soho is London's Chinatown, centred on Gerrard Street and containing several restaurants and shops.
Name.
The name "Soho" first appears in the 17th century. The name is derived from a former hunting cry. James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, used "soho" as a rallying call for his men at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685, half a century after the name was first used for this area of London.
The Soho name has been reused by other entertainment and restaurant districts such as SoHo, Hong Kong, which derives its name from being located south of Hollywood Road, and the cultural and commercial area of in Málaga, Spain. The New York City neighbourhood of SoHo, Manhattan, gets its name from its location south of Houston Street, but is also a reference to London's Soho. The Pittsburgh neighbourhood of Uptown was also formerly called Soho, most likely having been named by its founder James Tustin after the London district, though it may refer to Soho, West Midlands.
Location.
Soho has never been an administrative unit with formally defined boundaries; it is about in area, and is usually considered to be bounded by Shaftesbury Avenue to the south, Oxford Street to the north, Regent Street to the west, and Charing Cross Road to the east. Apart from Oxford Street, all of these roads are 19th-century metropolitan improvements. The area to the west is known as Mayfair, to the north Fitzrovia, to the east St Giles and Covent Garden, and to the south St James's. Soho is part of the West End electoral ward which elects three councillors to Westminster City Council.
The nearest London Underground stations are Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus, Tottenham Court Road, Leicester Square and Covent Garden.
History.
Early history.
During the Middle Ages, the area that is now Soho was farmland that belonged to the Abbot and Convent of Abingdon and the master of Burton St Lazar Hospital in Leicestershire, who managed a leper hospital in St Giles in the Fields. In 1536, the land was taken by Henry VIII as a royal park for the Palace of Whitehall. The area south of what is now Shaftesbury Avenue did not stay in the Crown possession for long; Queen Mary sold around in 1554, and most of the remainder was sold between 1590 and 1623. A small section of land remained, until sold by Charles II in 1676.
In the 1660s, ownership of Soho Fields passed to Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans, who leased 19 out of the of land to Joseph Girle. He was granted permission to develop property and quickly passed the lease and development to bricklayer Richard Frith. Much of the land was granted freehold in 1698 by William III to William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland, while the southern part of Soho was sold piecemeal in the 16th and 17th centuries, partly to Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester.
Soho was part of the ancient parish of St Martin in the Fields, forming part of the Liberty of Westminster. As the population started to grow, a new church was provided, and in 1687 a new parish of St Anne was established for it. The parish stretched from Oxford Street in the north to Leicester Square in the south and from what is now Charing Cross Road in the east to Wardour Street in the west; it therefore included all of contemporary eastern Soho, including the Chinatown area. The western portion of modern Soho, around Carnaby Street, was part of the parish of St James, which was split off from St Martin in 1686.
Gentrification.
Building progressed rapidly in the late 17th century, with large properties such as Monmouth House (built for James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, Charles II's eldest illegitimate son), Leicester House, Fauconberg House, Carlisle House and Newport House.
Soho Square was first laid out in the 1680s on the former Soho Fields; by 1691, 41 houses had been completed there. It was originally called King Square in honour of Charles II, and a statue of him was based in the centre. Several upper-class families moved into the area, including those of Richard Graham, 1st Viscount Preston, and Edward Howard, 2nd Earl of Carlisle. The square had become known as Soho Square by 1720, at which point it had fashionable houses on all sides. Only No 10 and No 15 from this period have survived into the 21st century.
Though the Earls of Leicester and Portland had intended Soho to be an upper-class estate comparable to Bloomsbury, Marylebone and Mayfair, it never developed as such. Immigrants began to settle in the area from around 1680 onwards, particularly French Huguenots after 1688. The area became known as London's French quarter. The French church in Soho Square was founded by Huguenots and opened on 25 March 1893, with a façade of terracotta and coloured brick designed by Aston Webb.
Cholera outbreak.
A significant event in the history of epidemiology and public health was John Snow's study of an 1854 outbreak of cholera in Soho. He identified the cause of the outbreak as water from the public pump at the junction of Broad Street (now Broadwick Street) and Cambridge Street (now Lexington Street), close to the rear wall of what is today the John Snow public house.
Snow mapped the addresses of the sick and noted that they were mostly people whose nearest access to water was the Broad Street pump. He persuaded the authorities to remove the handle of the pump, thus preventing any more of the infected water from being collected. The spring below the pump was later found to have been contaminated with sewage. This is an early example of epidemiology, public health medicine and the application of science—the germ theory of disease—in a real-life crisis. Science writer Steven Johnson has written about the changes related to the cholera outbreak, and notes that almost every building on the street that existed in 1854 has since been replaced. A replica of the pump, with a memorial plaque and without a handle (to signify Snow's action to halt the outbreak) was erected in 1992 near the location of the original.
Decline.
By the mid-18th century, the aristocrats who had been living in Soho Square or Gerrard Street had moved away, as more fashionable areas such as Mayfair became available. The historian and topographer William Maitland wrote that the parish "so greatly abound with French that is an easy Matter for a Stranger to imagine himself in France." Soho's character stems partly from the ensuing neglect by rich and fashionable London, and the lack of the redevelopment that characterised the neighbouring areas.
The aristocracy had mostly disappeared from Soho by the 19th century, to be replaced by prostitutes, music halls and small theatres. The population increased significantly, reaching 327 inhabitants per acre by 1851, making the area one of the most densely populated areas of London. Houses became divided into tenements with chronic overcrowding and disease. The 1854 cholera outbreak caused the remaining upper-class families to leave the area. Numerous hospitals were built to cope with the health problem; six were constructed between 1851 and 1874. Businesses catering to household essentials were established at the same time.
The restaurant trade in Soho improved dramatically in the early 20th century. The construction of new theatres along Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road improved the reputation of the area, and a meal for theatre-goers became common. Public houses in Soho increased in popularity during the 1930s and were frequented by struggling authors, poets and artists.
Recent history.
Since the decline of the sex industry in Soho in the 1980s, the area has returned to being more residential. The Soho Housing Association was established in 1976 to provide reasonable rented accommodation. By the 21st century, it had acquired around 400 flats. St Anne's Church in Dean Street was refurbished after decades of neglect, and a Museum of Soho was established.
On 30 April 1999, the Admiral Duncan pub on Old Compton Street, which serves the gay community, was damaged by a nail bomb that left three dead and 30 injured. The bomb was the third that had been planted by David Copeland, a neo-Nazi who was attempting to stir up ethnic and homophobic tensions by carrying out a series of bombings.
In early February 2020, parts of an unexploded Second World War bomb was discovered by construction workers developing a new mixed residential building in Richmond Mews, near Dean Street. Residents, employees, and pedestrians on Richmond Mews, Dean Street, Meard Street and St Anne's Court were evacuated on both the 3 and 4 February 2020. All road junctions connecting to the streets closed during retrieval of the bomb fragments as well.
Properties.
Theatre and film.
Soho is near the heart of London's theatre area. It is home to the Soho Theatre, built in 2000 to present new plays and comedy.
The Windmill Theatre was based on Great Windmill Street, and was named after a windmill at this location that was demolished in the 18th century. It initially opened as the Palais de Luxe in 1910 as a small cinema, but was unable to compete with larger venues and was converted into a theatre by Howard Jones. It re-opened in December 1931, but was still unsuccessful. In 1932, the general manager Vivian Van Damm introduced a non-stop variety show throughout the afternoon and evening. It was famous for its nude "tableaux vivants", in which the models had to remain motionless to avoid the censorship laws then in place. The theatre claimed that, aside from a compulsory closure between 4 and 16 September 1939, it was the only theatre in London which did not close during the Second World War; this led it to use the slogan "We never closed". Several prominent comedians including Harry Secombe, Jimmy Edwards and Tony Hancock began their careers at the Windmill. It closed on 31 October 1964 and was again turned into a cinema.
The Raymond Revuebar at No. 11 Walker's Court was a small theatre specialising in striptease and nude dancing. It was owned by Paul Raymond and opened in 1958. The facade supported a brightly lit sign declaring it to be the "World Centre of Erotic Entertainment". Raymond subsequently bought the lease of the Windmill and ran it as a "nude entertainment" venue until 1981. The upstairs became known as the Boulevard Theatre and in 1980 was adopted as a comedy club