Long Acre is a street in central London

Central London

Central London is the innermost part of London, England. There is no official or commonly accepted definition of its area, but its characteristics are understood to include a high density built environment, high land values, an elevated daytime population and a concentration of regionally,...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Starting from St. Martin's Lane

St. Martin's Lane

St. Martin's Lane is a street on the edge of Covent Garden in Central London, which runs from the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, after which it is named, near Trafalgar Square northwards to Long Acre.A narrow street with relatively little traffic, St...

 it runs from west to east just north of Covent Garden

Covent Garden

Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...

 piazza, one block north of Floral Street. The street was completed in the early 17th century. It was once known for its coach

Coach (vehicle)

A coach is a large motor vehicle, a type of bus, used for conveying passengers on excursions and on longer distance express coach scheduled transport between cities - or even between countries...

-makers, and later for its car dealers. On the corner of Mercer Street it is still possible to read the inscription "Armstrong Siddeley

Armstrong Siddeley

Armstrong Siddeley was a British engineering group that operated during the first half of the 20th century. It was formed in 1919 and is best known for the production of luxury motor cars and aircraft engines.-Siddeley Autocars:...

 Connaught Coachworks".

Long Acre is numbered 1 to 77 on the south side and 78 to 144 on the north side. At number 10-12 is Stanfords

Stanfords

Stanfords is a specialist bookshop of maps and travel books, and was established in 1853 by Edward Stanford. The store on its present location on Long Acre in Covent Garden, central London, first opened its doors in January 1901...

, one of the oldest and most extensive map shops in the UK. At the junction with James Street is Covent Garden tube station

Covent Garden tube station

Covent Garden is a London Underground station in Covent Garden. It is on the Piccadilly Line between Leicester Square and Holborn. The station is a Grade II listed building, on the corner of Long Acre and James Street...

. Almost directly opposite is Neal Street. The whole area on the north side from Neal Street to Arne Street was occupied by Odhams Press

Odhams Press

Odhams Press was a British publishing firm. Originally a newspaper group, founded in 1890, it took the name Odham's Press Ltd in 1920 when it merged with John Bull magazine. By 1937 it had founded the first colour weekly, Woman, for which it set up and operated a dedicated high-speed print works...

 from about 1890 to 1970. They published John Bull, which was the most popular magazine in Britain from 1916 to 1934. Odhams also published The Daily Herald, Women's Own, Debrett's

Debrett's

Debrett’s is a specialist publisher, founded in 1769 with the publication of the first edition of The New Peerage. The name "Debrett's" honours John Debrett...

and The Sporting Life

Sporting Life (newspaper)

The Sporting Life was a British newspaper published between 1859 and 1998 that was best known for its coverage of horse racing. Latterly it has continued as a multi-sports website....

(founded 1859). Odhams was bought by IPC (Robert Maxwell

Robert Maxwell

Ian Robert Maxwell MC was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and former Member of Parliament , who rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire...

) in 1961, and the site was closed down in 1969. Prior to Odhams, the site was occupied by the Queen's Theatre

Queen's Theatre, Long Acre

The Queen's Theatre was established in 1867, as a theatre on the site of St Martin's Hall, a large concert room that opened in 1850. It stood on the corner of Long Acre and Endell Street, with entrances in Wilson Street and Long Acre...

 (1867-1878), the second largest theatre in London at the time, after Drury Lane

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...

. It was here that Ellen Terry

Ellen Terry

Dame Ellen Terry, GBE was an English stage actress who became the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain. Among the members of her famous family is her great nephew, John Gielgud....

 first met Henry Irving

Henry Irving

Sir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as...

 in a Shakespearean

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 role. There is a plaque to commemorate the theatre, but it has been placed on the wrong block. The theatre was to the east of Endell Street, not the west. On "Acre House" (number 69 to 75) is a green plaque commemorating Denis Johnson's workshop. He lived c. 1760 to 1833 and had a workshop here in 1819, selling "hobby horse" bicycles, the first to be sold in the UK.

The coachbuilding trade dominated Long Acre in the nineteenth century - in 1906 41 buildings in the street were occupied by firms associated with transport, a mixture of traditional coachbuilders and those connected with the motor trade. By 1916 the transition to motor cars and related trades was almost complete. The Mercedes showroom was at number 127 to 130, close to Daimler and Fiat. At number 132 in 1929, John Logie Baird

John Logie Baird

John Logie Baird FRSE was a Scottish engineer and inventor of the world's first practical, publicly demonstrated television system, and also the world's first fully electronic colour television tube...

 made the first British television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 broadcast. Just off Long Acre is Langley Street, home of the famous Pineapple Dance Studios and http://www.lfs.org.ukLondon Film School

London Film School

The London Film School is a private film school in London and is situated in a converted brewery in Covent Garden, London, close to a hub of the UK film industry based in Soho. The LFS was founded in 1956 by Bob Dunbar as The London School of Film Technique...

] - the oldest film school in the world. Just opposite, until 2000, was Paxman, one of the best English manufacturers of French horns. It is said that the poet Richard Lovelace

Richard Lovelace

Richard Lovelace was an English poet in the seventeenth century. He was a cavalier poet who fought on behalf of the king during the Civil war. His best known works are To Althea, from Prison, and To Lucasta, Going to the Warres....

 spent his final years in Long Acre, in great poverty. As a young man Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine

Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...

 worked as a corset

Corset

A corset is a garment worn to hold and shape the torso into a desired shape for aesthetic or medical purposes...

 maker in Long Acre. In 1896 "The Freemason's Arms" was built, and still stands on Long Acre. Masonic symbols adorn the façade.

It ends at a junction with Drury Lane. Overlooking this junction is the monumental headquarters of the British Freemasons on Great Queen Street

Great Queen Street

Great Queen Street is a street in central London, England in the West End. It is a continuation of Long Acre from Drury Lane to Kingsway. It runs from 1 to 44 along the north side, east to west, and 45 to about 80 along the south side, west to east...

.