51°30′48″N 0°07′59″W / 51.5133°N 0.133°W
Meard Street is a street in Soho, London. It runs roughly east–west (properly, east-northeast to west-southwest, as elsewhere in Soho), between Wardour Street to the west and Dean Street to the east. It is in two sections, with a slight bend in the middle: the west half is pedestrianised, while the east half is a narrow, single-lane road.
The street is named after John Meard, the younger, a carpenter, later esquire, who developed it in the 1720s and 1730s.[1]
It is prominently featured in photographs and postcards for the tourist trade, due to the pun with French: merde and Italian: merda ("shit").
15 Meard Street served as the exterior of the home occupied by characters played by Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi in the 2013–16 ITV sitcom Vicious.
History
editThe two halves occupy what were originally two separate, non-communicating 17th-century courts. They were developed in two halves: the western half, Meard's Court, in 1722, and the eastern half, Dean's Court (opening off Dean Street, and renamed Meard Street) in 1731/32. As part of the redevelopment of Dean's Court, the two halves were joined in 1732/33.[1]
Notable occupants
edit- Johann Christian Bach (1738–1782), German composer
- Carl Friedrich Abel (1723–1787), German composer and violist
- Vincent Novello (1781–1861), English music publisher and organist[2]
- Anne Pigalle, chanteuse, artiste and Soho club night creator, lived at number 4 from 1985 to 1990
- Batcave, birthplace of English goth subculture
- Sebastian Horsley (1962–2010), artist and dandy; number 7[3][4]
See also
editReferences and sources
edit- References
- ^ a b (Sheppard 1966)
- ^ Foreman, Lewis and Foreman, Susan. London: A Musical Gazetteer (2005), p. 273
- ^ Debriefer: The Crucifixated Sebastian Horsley, 23 November 2007, archived from the original on 21 September 2011
- ^ Sebastian Horsley (23 March 2007), (blog post of March 23, 2007)
- Sources
- Sheppard, F. H. W. (1966), "The Pitt Estate in Dean Street: Meard Street", Survey of London: volumes 33 and 34: St Anne Soho, pp. 238–246, retrieved 29 July 2009
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