Rathbone Place is a street in central London that runs roughly north-west from
Oxford Street
Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running between Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road via Oxford Circus. It marks the notional boundary between the areas of Fitzrovia and Marylebone to t ...
to
Percy Street. it is joined on its eastern side by Percy Mews,
Gresse Street, and Evelyn Yard. The street is mainly occupied by retail and office premises.
History
The street was originally known as Glanville Street.
[Rathbone Street]
, ''Survey of London, Volume 21, The parish of St Pancras part 3: Tottenham Court Road & Neighbourhood''. 1949. British History Online. Retrieved 13 November 2014. It was renamed after Captain Thomas Rathbone, who had owned a house on the street since 1684.
Inhabitants
The essayist and critic
William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt (10 April 177818 September 1830) was an English essayist, drama and literary criticism, literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history ...
lived at No. 12 from 1802 to 1805, while the painter
John Constable
John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...
lived at No. 50 during this time. The sculptor
Gilbert Bayes
Gilbert William Bayes (4 April 1872 – 10 July 1953) was an English sculptor. His art works varied in scale from medals to large architectural clocks, monuments and equestrian statues and he was also a designer of some note, creating chess piec ...
lived at No. 52 from 1899 to 1900. The wax modeller
Emma Peachey lived and had showrooms at No. 35 in the mid-19th century.
The music-hall publisher Henri D'Alcorn was based in Rathbone Place: at no. 22A in 1855–7, no. 18 in 1857–60 and no. 8 in 1860–67.
Buildings
On the east side, Number 11 was a
grade II listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...
terraced house, built around 1718–20 and refronted in the nineteenth century. The ground floor was converted to commercial premises. It is now the home of Lazarides Gallery.
On the same side is
The Wheatsheaf public house
A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...
at number 25 which became one of the principal gathering-places of London's
bohemian
Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to:
*Anything of or relating to Bohemia
Culture and arts
* Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, originally practised by 19th–20th century European and American artists and writers.
* Bohemian style, a ...
set before the Second World War and where customers included
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, whose works include the poems " Do not go gentle into that good night" and " And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Un ...
.
On the western side of the street was the former
Royal Mail
Royal Mail Group Limited, trading as Royal Mail, is a British postal service and courier company. It is owned by International Distribution Services. It operates the brands Royal Mail (letters and parcels) and Parcelforce Worldwide (parcels) ...
depot, which is now
One Rathbone Square; it was redeveloped by
Great Portland Estates
Great Portland Estates plc (branded as GPE) is a British property development and investment company. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. The firm switched to Real Estate Investment Trust status wh ...
into a mix of residential, office and retail units.
A sign on a building for Rathbone Place is seen in the last scene of BBC's ''
Sherlock'' series 4
finale.
This is a nod to the actor
Basil Rathbone
Philip St. John Basil Rathbone MC (13 June 1892 – 21 July 1967) was an Anglo-South African actor. He rose to prominence in the United Kingdom as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in more than 70 films, primarily costume drama ...
and the building shown is not part of Rathbone Place.
References
References
Citations
*
Streets in the City of Westminster
Streets in the London Borough of Camden
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