On this week's virtual ramble, Diary visits a street where booze, gambling and prostitution sparked a moral panic - a place PoWs could only dream of. Its early life offered workshops and warehouses alongside booze, gambling and prostitution, and by the time the street had reached its th birthday its entrenched impolite behaviour was enough to set hands wringing at The Times.
Its grubbiness brought down a rain of fire and brimstone in — a blaze tore through the tenements, factories, workshops and warehouses. Igniting in Mr Creese the Bootmakers, it quickly destroyed a tailors, a stationer and a hosier.
Burning for 13 hours, other buildings home to three other boot-makers, a gunsmith, a poulterer and a carpet-maker were destroyed. From the ashes came many of the buildings we know today — heading up to and beyond six storeys, they were faced in a white granite or Portland stone cut in classical proportions. A friend to Oscar Wilde, he alleged the poet and playwright was a good customer of his. It started as an oyster warehouse, established in by fishmonger John Scott and now, based in Mayfair, is in the top five oldest remaining London eateries.
It enjoyed a celebrated clientele throughout its long tenure. It also attracted its fair share of oddness, illustrated by the following story. He told doctors he was walking to his office job at 6am on April 16 in Coventry Street when a strange and semi-invisible shadow had leapt from the cover of a dark alley, made for his neck and sucked his blood till he fainted.
Incredibly, the same day two other victims were admitted to the hospital, having been attacked in the same spot and in the same way. Plod were at a loss, fuelling rumours that something was abroad. It was said detectives secretly contacted a vampire slayer, who hunted down the monster, rammed the devil with a stake through the heart, and buried the body in hallowed ground in Highgate Cemetery. Whatever the truth, no one was ever charged. A friend of the Prince of Wales — His Maj would dine three times a week — Poulsen built a secret staircase leading from a balcony into nearby Rupert Street so such valued customers could come and go as they pleased without attracting attention when they were up to no good.
