View source for Charing Cross Road

{{Short description|Street in central London}}
{{For|the 1935 film|Charing Cross Road (film)}}
{{more citations needed|date=February 2013}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2023}}

[[File:Charing Cross Road, London (August 2023) 02.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Charing Cross Road, London, looking north from its junction with Irving Street. The Garrick Theatre is on the right.]]

'''Charing Cross Road''' is a street in [[central London]] running immediately north of [[St Martin-in-the-Fields]] to [[St Giles Circus]] (the intersection with [[Oxford Street]]), which then merges into [[Tottenham Court Road]]. It leads from the north in the direction of [[Charing Cross]] at the south side of [[Trafalgar Square]]. It connects via St Martin's Place and the motorised east side of the square.

== History ==

Charing Cross road was originally{{Clarify timeframe|date=May 2022}} two narrow streets in the West End, Crown Street and Castle Street. The development of [[Regent Street]] (parallel to the west) in the mid-18th century coincided with not only the building up of great fields west of the area but also [[Westminster Bridge]] which was built as central London and the wider estuary's second bridge after more than a century of pressure, in 1750.

These pressures therefore congested the north–south axis of the inner West End almost as much as the relieved London Bridge area.  Specifically a major increase in traffic occurred{{When|date=May 2022}} around [[Piccadilly Circus]], [[Charing Cross]] and Oxford Street, much of it destined from/to [[Tottenham Court Road]], [[Bloomsbury]] and nearby routes to all northerly directions.

Charing Cross Road was therefore developed, in conjunction with [[Shaftesbury Avenue]], by the [[Metropolitan Board of Works]] under an 1877 [[Act of Parliament]].{{sfn|Weinreb|Hibbert|Keay|Keay|2008|p=149}} The Act's total costs, including demolition and rebuilding of many rows of buildings across London was £778,238. The two streets and others such as the [[Thames Embankment]], [[Northumberland Avenue]] and the [[Kingsway (London)|Kingsway]]-[[Aldwych]] superstructure were built{{When|date=May 2022}} to improve traffic flow through central London.<ref>{{cite book|title=[[The Buildings of England]]|volume=6: Westminster|year=2003|first1=Simon|last1=Bradley|first2=Nikolaus|last2=Pevsner|page=401|isbn=0-300-09595-3}}</ref> The scheme abolished some of the worst slums in London which delayed progress in construction while the inhabitants were rehoused.{{sfn|Weinreb|Hibbert|Keay|Keay|2008|p=149}}

== Bookshops ==

{{see also|Book trade in the United Kingdom}}
Charing Cross Road is renowned for its specialist and second-hand [[bookshop]]s. The section from [[Leicester Square tube station|Leicester Square Underground station]] to [[Cambridge Circus, London|Cambridge Circus]] is home to specialist bookshops, and more general second-hand and antiquarian shops such as [[Quinto Bookshop]], Henry Pordes and Any Amount of Books. [[Anton Zwemmer|Zwemmer]]'s Bookshop, an arts bookshop founded in 1922, was present at 79 Charing Cross Road until 2002.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.thebookseller.com/news/news/2003-zwemmers-repossessed-charing-x-rd|title=Zwemmer's repossessed in Charing X Rd|date=17 April 2003|newspaper=[[The Bookseller]]|access-date=13 May 2022}}</ref><ref name="carlin">Jane Carlin, [https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1510&context=faculty_pubs "Anton Zwemmer: London's Bookseller and Publisher for the Arts"], in: Book Club of Washington Journal, Fall 2012, Vol. 12, No. 2. Retrieved 17 February 2021.</ref> Smaller second-hand and specialist antiquarian bookshops can be found on the adjoining [[Cecil Court]].

[[File:Soho foyles bookshop 1.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Foyles Building]] bookshop on the west side of Charing Cross Road in 2006 (closed 2014)]]

The northern section between Cambridge Circus and Oxford Street includes more generalist bookshops such as the venerable [[Foyles]]. A long-standing correspondence between [[New York City]]-based author [[Helene Hanff]] and the staff of a bookshop on the street, Marks & Co., was the inspiration for the book ''[[84, Charing Cross Road]]'' (1970). The book was made into a [[84 Charing Cross Road (film)|1987 film]] starring [[Anne Bancroft]] and [[Anthony Hopkins]] and also into a play and a [[BBC]] radio drama. {{as of|2022}} the building is a restaurant at street level, entered around the corner in Cambridge Circus, but its upper levels of the building remain as originally constructed. A brass plaque on the stone pilaster facing Charing Cross Road commemorates the former bookshop and Hanff's book.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hanff|first=Helene|title=A Delightful Account of a Lifelong Love Affair with Books|year=1985|page=126|url=https://archive.org/details/qslegacy0000hanf/page/126/mode/1up?q=plaque|publisher=[[André Deutsch Limited]]|access-date=13 May 2022}}</ref>

== Features ==

The [[London Astoria]] music venue was located here before its demolition in 2009, as is one of the sites of [[St Martin's Arts College]], opening in 1939.{{sfn|Weinreb|Hibbert|Keay|Keay|2008|p=149}} To the northeast of Charing Cross Road are the music shops on [[Denmark Street]] (known as Britain's [[Tin Pan Alley]]).{{sfn|Weinreb|Hibbert|Keay|Keay|2008|p=134}}

A number of theatres are on or near Charing Cross Road, such as the [[Phoenix Theatre (London)|Phoenix Theatre]] (which has its entrance on the adjoining Phoenix Street), the [[Garrick Theatre]] and [[Wyndham's Theatre]].{{sfn|Weinreb|Hibbert|Keay|Keay|2008|p=149}}

Beneath the grille in the traffic island between Charing Cross Road's junction with [[Old Compton Street]], in the middle of the road, a road sign reading Little Compton Street can be seen, which was a historic name for the eastern end of Old Compton Street beyond its junction with Greek Street.

On the east side of the road's southern end, at the joining of [[St Martins Lane]], is a statue of [[Edith Cavell]]. Towards the north end is the [[Phoenix Garden]], an environmental garden run by local residents.

== In popular culture ==
In the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' books, the [[Places in Harry Potter#The Leaky Cauldron|Leaky Cauldron]] pub is located on Charing Cross Road. Author J.K. Rowling chose this road because "it is famous for its bookshops, both modern and antiquarian. This is why I wanted it to be the place where those in the know go to enter a different world."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Rowling|first1=J.K.|authorlink=J.K. Rowling|title=The Leaky Cauldron|url=https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/the-leaky-cauldron|website=Wizarding World|access-date=23 February 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=[[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows]]|last=Rowling|first=J.K.|authorlink=J.K. Rowling|chapter=26|page=423|publisher=[[Bloomsbury Publishing]]|year=2007}}</ref>

== References ==

;Citations
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite encyclopedia|first1=Ben|last1=Weinreb|author-link1=Ben Weinreb|first2=Christopher|last2=Hibbert|author-link2=Christopher Hibbert|first3=Julia|last3=Keay|first4=John|last4=Keay|author-link4=John Keay|title=The London Encyclopedia|year=2008|publisher=Pan MacMillan|isbn=978-1-4050-4924-5}}
{{refend}}

;Sources
{{reflist}}

== Further reading ==

* ''Book Lovers' London'', by Lesley Reader, Metro Publications, paperback, 2nd edition, 2002, {{ISBN|1-902910-13-3}}; 3rd edition, 2005, {{ISBN|1-902910-26-5}}

== External links ==

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20191224201526/http://www.leepers.us/evelyn/bookshops/uk-lond.htm List of Charing Cross Road bookshops by Evelyn C. Leeper]
* ''[https://archive.org/details/bookbrowsersguid0000lewi/page/n5/mode/2up The Book Browser's Guide: Britain's Secondhand and Antiquarian Bookshops]''
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100220105536/http://blogs.periodistadigital.com/charingcrossroad.php Charing Cross Road blog]

{{Metropolitan Board of Works}}
{{University of the Arts London}}
{{London landmarks}}
{{Coord|51|30|42|N|0|07|42|W|display=title|region:GB_type:landmark_source:cswiki}}

[[Category:Charing Cross Road| ]]
[[Category:Streets in the London Borough of Camden]]
[[Category:Bookstore neighbourhoods]]
[[Category:Bookshops in London]]