HOW is it possible to capture the torrent of life that for more than 1000 years has rolled up and down the Strand? Geoff Browell, Head of Archives at King’s College, in the Strand, and the historian Eileen Chanin make a valiant attempt.
Running along the north bank of the Thames from Temple Bar to Trafalgar Square, the Strand has a story that begins in the Anglo-Saxon period when the old Roman City of London appears to have been a deserted ruin. A new development grew up in the vicinity of what is now the Aldwych. “Lundenwic” was described by Bede as an “emporium for many nations”.
The first surviving mention of the “Stronde” is from1185. Architecturally, it was dominated in the Middle Ages by the Church. There were religious houses, such as St Mary Rounceval, at Charing Cross, and episcopal mansions whose gardens went down to the Thames.
The 16th-century Reformation transformed the Strand. Somerset House was constructed from the spoils of demolished ecclesiastical buildings. Bishops’ palaces were generally replaced by aristocratic mansions.
The authors combine their account of the changing physical appearance of the Strand with vignettes of some of those who populated it in various ages. Cities permit the rapid dissemination of news and ideas. In the 18th century, the Strand was home to coffee houses and taverns, hubs for a great variety of networks.
In the 19th-century, King’s College was established in the Strand, and a little later a vast public hall was constructed. Exeter Hall was to be a non-sectarian venue. More than 3000 people gathered there in June 1840 for the World Anti-Slavery Convention, at which Prince Albert made his first public appearance.
With the building of the Hotel Cecil in the 1890s, the Strand could claim the largest hotel in Europe with a thousand rooms. Soon after, in 1905, King Edward VII opened the new avenues of Kingsway and the Aldwych.
The era of opulence was brought to an end by the wars of the 20th century. St Clement Danes was a prominent casualty of the Blitz in 1941.
Post-war redevelopment proved to be controversial, and a brutalist scheme to replace Covent Garden provoked a huge public outcry orchestrated by the Vicar of St Martin-in-the Fields, Austen Williams.
A final chapter speculates about the future and brings this survey of a remarkable street not to a conclusion, but to the expectation of further, even possibly apocalyptic, change.
The Rt Revd Lord Chartres is a former Bishop of London.
The Strand: A biography
Geoff Browell and Eileen Chanin
Manchester University Press £25
(978-1-5261-7911-1)
Church Times Bookshop £22.50
