Wardour Street - History

History

It is named after Sir Archibald Wardour, who was the architect of several buildings on the street. There has been a thoroughfare here on maps and plans since they were first printed, the earliest being Elizabethan.

In 1585, to settle a legal dispute, a plan of what is now the West End was prepared. The dispute was about a field roughly where Broadwick Street is today. The plan was very accurate and clearly gives the name Colmanhedge Lane to this major route across the fields described as “The Waye from Vxbridge to London” (Oxford St) to what is now Cockspur St. The old plan shows that this lane follows the modern road almost exactly, including bends at Brewer and Old Compton Streets.

The road is also a major thoroughfare on Faithorne and Newcourt’s map surveyed between 1643 and 1647. Although they do not give a name, it has about 24 houses and a large “Gaming House” roughly on the site of the Odeon cinema on the north west corner of Leicester Square. The map also shows a large windmill, 40-50 yards to the west of what is now the Church of St Anne, roughly on the current position of Great Windmill Street.

The name Colmanhedge Lane did not last and a 1682 map by Ogilby and Morgan shows the lane split into three parts. The northern part is shown as SO HO, the middle part Whitcomb St and the remainder from James St south, is Hedge Lane. It is not clear from the map where the boundary between SO HO and Whitcombe St is, probably somewhere between Compton Street and Gerrard St. These three names are on the Morden and Lea map of 1682.

John Rocque shows the road very clearly on his large scale map of 1746, however the names have changed again. From Oxford St south to Meard St is now Wardour Street'. Then south to Compton Street is Old Soho; then down to Coventry St is Princes Street. For the length of Leicester Square is Whicomb St and finally Hedge Lane which now starts at Panton St rather than James Street.

By the end of the 18th century Horwood, on a large map of 1799, uses the same names but not Old Soho' and Hedge Lane. This leaves just Wardour, Princess and Whitcomb streets. The houses have individual numbers by then and are shown in detail on Horwood’s map.

The names are much the same on Greenwood’s map of 1827 although the area at the southern end had been re-developed. The road now ends at Pall Mall East, and the boundary between Wardour and Princes St may have moved north a little.

By 1846, Cruchley’s new plan of London shows change at the southern end. Wardour, Princes and Whitcomb streets stay the same but Whitcomb Street loses a few hundred yards at the southern end and, from James Street to Pall Mall, is now Dorset Place.

In Victorian times Princes Street is still shown on the 1871 Ordnance Survey map. Stanford’s Map of Central London 1897, at 6” to a mile, has just two names, Wardour Street from Oxford Street to Coventry St and Whitcomb St south from there. It has remained this since, though numbering was rationalised around 1896.

• The name changes since 1585

In the late 19th century, Wardour Street was known for slightly shoddy furniture stores. Wardour Street prose implies the use of near-obsolete words for effect, such as anent, which refers to a large number of antique shops in the area.