THE GOLDEN MILE

A Government-backed scheme to pedestrianise parts of The Strand is throwing light on the road's gilded history

- Jack Watkins

One of Wenceslaus Hollar's 17th-century etchings of London, showing the Strand

LET'S all go down the Strand, cries the Edwardian music-hall song, hailing it as 'the place for fun and noise. In the 1890s, it had more theatres, music halls, pubs and smoking rooms than any other street in London. However, more recently, it's been just another traffic-dominated thoroughfare, more noted for its poor air quality. In 2019, it was the first in the capital to breach annual legal limits for nitrogen dioxide. Now, however, Westminster City Council has begun an 832 million programme to pedestrianize the area around St Mary le Strand and King's College, as well as creating a two-way traffic system on the Aldwych. The council hopes it will transform this historic gateway to the West End into a world-class and contemporary traffic-free public space.

How historic a gateway it was is the focus of Manolo Guerci's sumptuously illustrated new book, London's 'Golden Mile': The Great Houses of the Strand, 1550-1650. Although the street's name arose from its original use as a bridle path alongside the Thames, according to Guerci, by the 16th century, it was distinguished by ‘a virtually uninterrupted line of majestic riverside mansions', owned by aristocrats and courtiers, and operating as a de facto substitute for Whitehall, after the Tudor monarchs established a permanent Court in London.