Praed Street () is a street in

Paddington Paddington is an area within the City of Westminster, in Central London. First a medieval parish then a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Three important landmarks of the district are Padd ...

, west London, in the

City of Westminster The City of Westminster is a city and borough in Inner London. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It occupies a large area of central Greater London, including most of the West En ...

, most notable for being the location of

London Paddington station Paddington, also known as London Paddington, is a Central London railway terminus and London Underground station complex, located on Praed Street in the Paddington area. The site has been the London terminus of services provided by the Great W ...

. It runs south-westerly, straight from

Edgware Road Edgware Road is a major road in London, England. The route originated as part of Roman Watling Street and, unusually in London, it runs for 10 miles in an almost perfectly straight line. Forming part of the modern A5 road, Edgware Road undergoes ...

to Craven Road, Spring Street and Eastbourne Terrace.

History

Praed Street was originally laid out in the early 19th century, being built up in 1828. It was named after

William Praed William Praed (24 June 1747 – 9 October 1833) was an English businessman, banker, and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1774 to 1808. He is not to be confused with his first cousin of the same name, William Mackworth Praed, serj ...

, chairman of the company which built the canal basin which lies just to the north. In 1893 plans were put forward by the Edgware Road and Victoria Railway company to build an underground railway along the Edgware Road which included the construction of a Tube station at Praed Street. The scheme was rejected by Parliament and the line was never built.

Overview

On the north west side of the street are Paddington Station and the Great Western Hotel, the

Royal Mail , kw, Postya Riel, ga, An Post Ríoga , logo = Royal Mail.svg , logo_size = 250px , type = Public limited company , traded_as = , foundation = , founder = Henry VIII , location = London, England, UK , key_people = * Keith Williams ...

Western depot, and St Mary's Hospital. The south east side is predominantly retail but includes the frontage for

Underground (

Bakerloo The Bakerloo line () is a London Underground line that goes from in suburban north-west London to in south London, via the West End. Printed in brown on the Tube map, it serves 25 stations, 15 of which are underground, over . It runs partl ...

Circle A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is cons ...

and

District A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivision ...

lines) station. At the far north east end, on the north west side, is a prominent 1980s extension to the

Hilton London Metropole The Hilton London Metropole is a 1,059-room 4-star hotel and conference centre located on Edgware Road in central London. It is bounded by the Marylebone Flyover to the north, Praed Street to the south, and the Paddington Basin development to the ...

Hotel.

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...

maintains a consulate at number 97-99.

In literature and film

Solar Pons Solar Pons is a fictional detective created by August Derleth as a pastiche of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Robert Bloch wrote of the series, "During a span of a century there have been literally hundreds of Sherlockian imitations, rang ...

, a pastiche of

Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...

created by

August Derleth August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and for his own contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and th ...

, had his home at 7B Praed Street. American poet

Richard Hugo Richard Hugo (December 21, 1923 – October 22, 1982), born Richard Franklin Hogan, was an American poet. Although some critics regard Hugo as primarily a regionalist, his work resonates broadly across place and time. A portion of Hugo's work re ...

wrote the poem "Walking Praed Street", which first appeared in his book of poems, ''The Lady in Kicking Horse Reservoir''. The poem's first two lines are said to be two of the greatest American lines ever written: "I've walked this street in far too many towns./ The weather, briefly: in Salerno, rain." Praed Street appeared in the political thriller novel ''

House of Cards A house of cards (also known as a card tower or card castle) is a structure created by stacking playing cards on top of each other, often in the shape of a pyramid. "House of cards" is also an expression that dates back to 1645 meaning a structu ...

'', and subsequently in its

television adaptation An adaptation is a transfer of a work of art from one style, culture or medium to another. Some common examples are: * Film adaptation, a story from another work, adapted into a film (it may be a novel, non-fiction like journalism, autobiography, ...

, as an accommodation address set up by main protagonist Francis Urquhart as part of a plot to force the resignation of the sitting Prime Minister. Praed Street is the setting for the 1928 novel ''

The Murders in Praed Street ''The Murders in Praed Street'' is a 1928 detective novel by John Rhode, the pen name of the British writer Cecil Street. It features the fourth appearance of the armchair detective Lancelot Priestley, who figured in a long-running series of nov ...

'' by

John Rhode Cecil John Charles Street (3 May 1884 – 8 December 1964), who was known to his colleagues, family and friends as John Street, began his military career as an artillery officer in the British Army. During the course of World War I, he became a ...

. Praed Street is mentioned in

Ira Levin Ira Marvin Levin (August 27, 1929 – November 12, 2007) was an American novelist, playwright, and songwriter. His works include the novels '' A Kiss Before Dying'' (1953), '' Rosemary's Baby'' (1967), ''The Stepford Wives'' (1972), '' This Perfe ...

's '' Rosemary's Baby''. Somebody compares a house there with the house (

Bramford Bramford is a village in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It is three miles west of Ipswich of which it forms part of the wider Ipswich Built-up area. It was recorded in the Domesday Book as "Brunfort" or "Branfort". The River Gipp ...

in New York) where the protagonists live: "There was a house in London, on Praed Street, in which five separate brutal murders took place within sixty years." In ''The Dark Labyrinth'' by

Lawrence Durrell Lawrence George Durrell (; 27 February 1912 – 7 November 1990) was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was the eldest brother of naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell. Born in India to British colonial p ...

, a character complains he 'could not be carried away by fairy tales of the Second Coming written in this Praed Street vein' (chapter three).

References

External links

{{Commons category-inline, Praed Street Streets in the City of Westminster Paddington

History

Overview

In literature and film

See also

References

External links