The Strand is a street in the City of Westminster, London, England. It currently starts at Trafalgar Square and runs east to join Fleet Street at Temple Bar, which marks the boundary of the City of London at this point, though its historical length has been longer than this.

Two tube stations were once named after it: the former Piccadilly line Strand tube station, now called Aldwych but no longer in use, and the former "Strand tube station" on the Northern Line now part of Charing Cross tube station.

History

Etymology and use

Strand, WC2, City of Westminster

The street is popularly referred to as The Strand although the street address is actually just "Strand", hence, strictly speaking, "366 Strand" and not "366, The Strand". On the Monopoly board it is written as "Strand", while on the title deed card it is "The Strand".

Origins

Strand, shown in a 1593 map, as the principal route - parallel to the River, from the City in the east, to Whitehall in the west.

A 19th century print showing St Mary-Le-Strand and the Strand front of Somerset House.

• Durham House
• Somerset House
• Northumberland House, demolished circa 1866
• Savoy Palace, demolished 1381
• York House, Strand
• Arundel House
• Inn, or residence, of the Bishop of Carlisle^[3]
• Cecil House
• Suffolk House

These had their own river gates and landings directly onto the Thames. The line of buildings on the Strand only became separated from the river with the construction of the Victoria Embankment in 1865-70. This moved the river some further away. By this time, the streets had become built up, and the large houses were falling into decay; the area around the modern Aldwych becoming something of a slum and the Victorian era became a period of rebuilding.

The Strand became a newly fashionable address. Many avant-garde writers and thinkers gathered here, among them Thomas Carlyle, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, and the scientist Thomas Henry Huxley. 142 Strand was the home of radical publisher and physician John Chapman^[4] (1821-1894), who not only published many of his contemporaries from this house during the 1850s, but also edited the Westminster Review for 42 years. The American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson was also a house guest. Virginia Woolf also writes about the Strand in several of her essays, including "Street Haunting: A London Adventure." T.S. Eliot alludes to the strand in his 1905 poem "At Graduation" and John Masefield also refers to a "jostling in The Strand" in his well-known poem "On Growing Old".

Theatre

The Strand, by Coutts Bank (May 2001)

Surviving theatres include the Adelphi Theatre, the Savoy Theatre and Vaudeville Theatre and, closely adjacent in Wellington Street, the Lyceum Theatre.

The Song

The Strand is the subject of a famous music hall song Let's All Go Down The Strand (words and music by Harry Castling and C. W. Murphy), which dilates on its merits as a place of entertainment and relaxation as compared to the Rhineland:

The Strand, Looking Eastwards from Exeter Exchange, the church in the distance is St. Clement Danes. A circa 1824 oil painting in the collection of the Museum of London.

<poem>

One night a half 'a dozen tourists Spent the night together in Trafalgar Square. A fortnight's tour on the Continent was planned, And each had his portmanteau in his hand. Down the Rhine they meant to have a picnic Til' Jones said, "I must decline--" "Boys you'll be advised by me to stay away from Germany-- What's the good a' going down the Rhine." "Let's All Go.....cont. Let's all go down the Strand -- Have a banana! Let's all go down the Strand! I'll be the leader, you can march behind. Come with me and see what we can find! Let's all go down the Strand -- Have a banana! Oh! What a happy land. That's the place fer fun and noise, All among the girls and boys. So let's all go down to the Strand. </poem>

Prominent buildings

• Australia House
• Bush House (whose address is "BBC World Service, Strand, London WC2B 4PH, UK" but whose main entrance is on the North side facing Aldwych and Kingsway)
• Courtauld Institute of Art (at Somerset House)
• King's College London, whose main campus (called the Strand Campus) is located off this street, next to Somerset House
• Roman Baths, Strand Lane {National Trust}
• Royal Courts of Justice
• Shell Mex House
• Simpson's-in-the-Strand
• Savoy Hotel
• Strand Palace Hotel
• The Adelphi Theatre
• Savoy Theatre
• Twinings
• 440 Strand, headquarters of Coutts & Co Bank

Churches

St. Clement Danes church, near Fleet Street

See also

• Strand Magazine

References

• Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson (1968) The Lost Theatres of London. Rupert Hart-Davis.

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