Wych Street

Wych Street was a street in London, running roughly east-west to the south of Lincoln's Inn Fields, from the Strand to Drury Lane. It was in an area that was not affected by the Great Fire of London, and contained decrepit Elizabethan houses, with projecting wooden jetties, until the street was demolished in around 1901 as part of the redevelopment of this area by the London County Council, to form the Aldwych and Kingsway.

The Angel Inn public house was at the bottom of Wych Street, by the Strand. To the west, about half way along on the north side, was the New Inn, an Inn of Court where Sir Thomas More received his early legal education, and, to the south, Lyon's Inn, an Inn of Chancery where Sir Edward Coke was a student in 1578, which was replaced by a Globe Theatre and the Opera Comique in c.1863.

At the western end was Drury House, the house of Sir Robert Drury, from which Drury Lane took its name, later rebuilt as Craven House by Lord Craven, and finally turned into a public house, the "Queen of Bohemia", named after Lord Craven's mistress, Elizabeth of Bohemia, the daughter of James I. This building was later demolished, and replaced by the first Olympic Theatre.

Jack Sheppard, the infamous thief, was apprenticed to a carpenter, Mr. Wood, on Wych Street; one of Sheppard's haunts, the White Lion tavern, was also on Wych Street. The music hall performer Arthur Lloyd lived at 39 Wych Street in 1892.

Around 1780, the brothers George and John Jacob Astor, who later became America's first mulitmillionaire, ran an instrument store in Wych Street 26.

Where Was Wych Street? is one of the best loved short stories by Stacy Aumonier (1887-1928).

External links

* [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22319/22319-8.txt Where Was Wych Street?] by Stacy Aumonier at Project Gutenberg, or in reprint (2008) at .
* [http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/personalisation/object.cfm?uid=006ZZZ0TAB700B3U00007000 Old Houses In Wych Street] , photographed by Henry Dixon in c.1881
* [http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/WychStreet.htm Wych Street, London, 1901]
*" [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=45129 The Strand (northern tributaries): Clement's Inn, New Inn, Lyon's Inn etc.] ", "Old and New London: Volume 3" (1878), pp. 32-5.
* [http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/1859map/map1859_k_17.html Map]