Tottenham Court Road

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Tottenham Court Road

Tottenham Court Road is a road in Central London

Central London

The term Central London refers to the districts of London which are considered closest to the centre. There is no conventional definition, nor any official one, for the entire area that can be called "central London"....
, England

England

St Giles' Circus

St Giles's Circus is the intersection of Oxford Street, New Oxford Street, Charing Cross Road and Tottenham Court Road in the West End of London....
(the junction of Oxford Street

Oxford Street

Oxford Street is a major thoroughfare in London, England in the City of Westminster. With over 300 shops, it is Europe's busiest shopping street, as well as the most dense....
and Charing Cross Road

Charing Cross Road

Charing Cross Road is a London street which runs immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles' Circus and then becomes Tottenham Court Road....
) north to Euston Road

Euston Road

Euston Road is an important thoroughfare in central London, England and forms part of the A501 road. It is part of the New Road from Paddington to Islington, and was opened as part of the New Road in 1756....
, near the border of the City of Westminster

City of Westminster

The City of Westminster is a London borough of London with City status in the United Kingdom. It is located west of the City of London and north of the River Thames, and forms part of Inner London and the bulk of London's central area....
and the London Borough of Camden

London Borough of Camden

The London Borough of Camden is a London borough of London, England, which forms part of Inner London. The southern reaches of Camden form part of Central London....
. The road is one-way; all three lanes are northbound only.

The south end of the road is very close to the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture situated in London. Its collections, which number more than 7 million Object , are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginning to the present....
and Centre Point

Centre Point

Centre Point is a substantial concrete and glass office building in central London, England, occupying 101-103 New Oxford Street, WC1, close to St Giles' Circus and almost directly above Tottenham Court Road tube station....
, the West End

West End of London

The West End of London is an area of Central London, England, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, businesses, headquarters and the commercial West End theatres....
's tallest building. The road is served by three stations on the London Underground

London Underground

The London Underground is a metro system serving a large part of Greater London and neighbouring areas of Essex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire in the UK....
- from south to north these are: Tottenham Court Road

Tottenham Court Road tube station

Tottenham Court Road is a station on the London Underground, serving as an interchange between the Central Line and the Charing Cross branch of the Northern Line....
, Goodge Street

Goodge Street tube station

Goodge Street is a London Underground station on Tottenham Court Road. It is on the Northern Line between Tottenham Court Road tube station and Warren Street tube station, and is in Travelcard Zone 1....
and Warren Street

Warren Street tube station

Warren Street tube station is a London Underground station. It is on the Charing Cross tube station branch of the Northern Line, between Goodge Street tube station and Euston station, and the Victoria Line between Oxford Circus tube station and Euston station....
.

area across which the road is built is described in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book

The Domesday Book is the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for William I of England, or William the Conqueror....
as belonging to the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral is the Anglicanism cathedral on Ludgate Hill, in the City of London, and the seat of the Bishop of London. The present building dates from the 17th century and is generally reckoned to be London's fifth St Paul's Cathedral, although the number is higher if every major medieval reconstruction is counted as a new cathedr...
.

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Encyclopedia

Tottenham Court Road is a road in Central London

Central London

England

St Giles' Circus

St Giles's Circus is the intersection of Oxford Street, New Oxford Street, Charing Cross Road and Tottenham Court Road in the West End of London....
(the junction of Oxford Street

Oxford Street

Charing Cross Road

Charing Cross Road is a London street which runs immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles' Circus and then becomes Tottenham Court Road....
) north to Euston Road

Euston Road

City of Westminster

London Borough of Camden

British Museum

Centre Point

West End of London

London Underground

Tottenham Court Road tube station

Tottenham Court Road is a station on the London Underground, serving as an interchange between the Central Line and the Charing Cross branch of the Northern Line....
, Goodge Street

Goodge Street tube station

Warren Street tube station

History

The area across which the road is built is described in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book

The Domesday Book is the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for William I of England, or William the Conqueror....
as belonging to the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral

Henry III of England

Henry III was the son and successor of John of England as King of England, reigning for fifty-six years from 1216 to his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester....
(1216 – 1272) a manorhouse situated slightly to the north-west of the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street belonged to one William de Tottenhall. In about the fifteenth century, the area was known variously as Totten, Totham, or Totting Hall. After changing hands several times, the manor was leased for ninety-nine years to Queen Elizabeth

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was List of English monarchs and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the House of Tudor....
, when it came popularly to be called Tottenham Court. In the next century it appears to have become the property of the Fitzroys

Duke of Grafton

The title of Duke of Grafton was created in 1675 by Charles II of England for his 2nd illegitimate son by the Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton....
, who erected Fitzroy Square

Fitzroy Square

Fitzroy Square is one of the Georgian squares in London and is the only one found in the central London area known as in Fitzrovia.The square, nearby Fitzroy Street and the Fitzroy Tavern in Charlotte Street have the family name of Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, into whose ownership the land passed through his marriage....
upon a part of the manor estate towards the end of the Eighteenth century.

Commercial district

Tottenham Court Road is a significant shopping street

High Street

High Street, or the High Street, is a metonym for the generic street name of the primary business street of towns or city in the United Kingdom....
, best known for its high concentration of consumer electronics

Consumer electronics

Consumer electronics include electronic equipment intended for everyday use. Consumer electronics are most often used in entertainment, communications and office productivity....
shops, which range from shops specialising in cables and computer components, to shops dealing in package computers and audio-video systems. Further north there are many furniture

Furniture

Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects which may support the human body , provide storage, or hold objects on horizontal surfaces above the ground....
shops including Habitat

Habitat (retailer)

Habitat is a retailer of household furnishings in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, and has franchised outlets in other countries. Founded in 1964 by Terence Conran, it is now part of the IKANO Group....
and Heals. The road gained notoriety in 2001 when the first branch in Central London of the Spearmint Rhino

Spearmint Rhino

Spearmint Rhino is a chain of strip clubs that operates throughout the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Central Europe, Russia and Australia....
chain of lap-dancing clubs opened.

In the 1950s and 1960s Tottenham Court Road and a few of the adjoining streets became a mecca for World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
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 youngsters traveled there to buy amplifiers, radios and electronic components. There were many stores there selling all kinds of electro mechanical and radio parts. By the 1960s they were also selling a myriad of Japanese transistor radios audio mixers and such. Many British-made valve

Vacuum tube

In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , thermionic valve, or just valve is a device used to amplifier, switch, otherwise modify, or create an Electricity signal by controlling the movement of electrons in a low-pressure space....
stereos were offered too.

Opposite Habitat and Heals is an open public space called Whitefield 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

Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera was born Diego Mar?a de la Concepci?n Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodr?guez in Guanajuato City....
. 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

Collage

Sorry, no overview for this topic
of people associated with the area, from satirical cartoonist Hogarth

Hogarth

Hogarth may refer to:* Burne Hogarth, American cartoonist, illustrator, educator and author.* David George Hogarth, British archaeologist.* Donald Hogarth, Ontario politician and mining financier....
to singer Boy George

Boy George

Boy George is an England singer-songwriter who was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the early 1980s. He helped give androgyny an international stage with the success of Culture Club during the 1980s....
. There is 13th panel showing an index to the people. Each panel has a title, for example "1. Whitfield Gardens and the Reverend Whitefield", "2. The Soul Catchers", "3. Hub of the Anti-Slavery campaign"... up to "12. Our Glasses Public Art Club Land".

In popular culture

Music

Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd are an English Rock music band who initially earned recognition for their psychedelic rock and space rock music, and later, as they evolved, for their progressive rock music....
played many early concerts at the UFO Club

UFO Club

The UFO Club was a famous but shortlived UK underground club in London during the 1960s, venue of performances by many of the top bands of the day....
at 31 Tottenham Court Road where they were the house band. The road is referred to in Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an England composer of musical theatre, the elder son of William Lloyd Webber and also the brother of the renowned cellist Julian Lloyd Webber....
's song "Grizabella the Glamour Cat", from his musical, Cats.

Books

The road is featured briefly in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling as well as Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an England novelist and essayist, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literature literature figures of the twentieth century....
, Pygmalion
Pygmalion

Pygmalion is a Greek name. Pygmalion—or Pygmaion according to Hesychios of Alexandria—is probably a Cyprus form of Adonis, a Levant vegetation-god....
by George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw, was an Irish people playwright.Although Shaw's first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, his talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays....
, Saturday
Saturday (novel)

Saturday is a novel by the British author Ian McEwan that charts the day of a 48-year-old London neurosurgeon called Henry Perowne. It won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 2005....
by Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan

Ian Russell McEwan, CBE, Royal Society of Arts, Royal Society of Literature, is a Booker Prize-winning England novelist and screenwriter....
, in several Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. He is the creation of Scotland-born author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle....
stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, Deputy Lieutenant was a Scotland author most noted for his stories about the Detective fiction Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger....
, and is referenced in "A Room with a View

A Room with a View

A Room with a View is a 1908 novel by English writer E. M. Forster, about a young woman in the repressed culture of Edwardian. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a Romance novel and a critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century....
" by E.M. Forster.

Movies

It is mentioned briefly as the location where 'I' was allegedly arrested for 'toilet trading' in the 1986 Bruce Robinson

Bruce Robinson

Bruce Robinson is an England film director, screenwriter, novelist and actor. He is arguably most famous for his work on the cult classic Withnail and I, a film with comic and tragic, which is set in London during the 1960s....
cult-classic movie Withnail and I
Withnail and I

Withnail and I is a British film made in 1986 in film by Handmade Films. Written and directed by Bruce Robinson, it is based on his life in London in the late 1960s....
. It is also featured briefly in the 2008 crime film, The Bank Job
The Bank Job

The Bank Job is a 2008 in film British crime film directed by Roger Donaldson and starring Jason Statham, based on the 1971 Baker Street robbery in central London, from which the money and valuables stolen were never recovered....
.