A Stroll Down Surrey Street

Well, I promised myself that I would get better at posting on here in March, and while five posts this month is the same as I posted in January and February together, I still think it is a case of "must try harder"!

I am on leave for the next couple of weeks and then go back to work into a bit of refresher training, so between now and then any posts are likely to be more general than Undergroundy, starting today.
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Surrey Street is hardly one of London’s major thoroughfares. In fact, this 158m long one-way street which links Strand with Temple Place is pretty sleepy most of the time, and that is all to the good.

While it may not seem like much, the area has an aristocratic past, reminders of which are everywhere if you know what to look for. The only nobleman’s house which remains in these parts today is Somerset House, built by the Duke of that county, but at one time houses belonging to the Dukes of Norfolk, Suffolk and Richmond could be found along this stretch of the north riverbank, as well as those of several marquises and bishops.

The Duke of Norfolk, who is first in the order of the English peerage, had his home on a site which today is between Surrey Street and The Temple. Surrey Street takes its name from one of the Duke’s other titles (Earl of Surrey), as does Arundel Street (Earl of Arundel) which runs parallel with and to the east of Surrey Street, and Maltravers Street (Baron Maltravers) which runs east off Arundel Street.

Walking down Surrey Street from Strand, the only buildings of interest are on your right, the left side of the road taken up by an ugly concrete building with no public entrances. The first building you come to is the main entrance of the now closed Aldwych Station, once an outpost of the Piccadilly line. This station, which was at the end of a branch line running from Holborn, was closed in 1994 due to the projected cost of replacing the lifts. It is now used for emergency services training and as a film location – you may recognise it from Patriot Games or The Good Shepherd, but you probably wouldn’t recognise it from Atonement, Creep or V for Vendetta, since it is often dressed up as other stations, as was the case with those films. The income from filming is pretty good, and it is sometimes quipped within LU that Aldwych is more profitable now that it is closed than it ever was when it was open.

A bit further down, and on the right again, is another reminder of the previous owners. The Norfolk Building of King’s College London now houses academic staff, but stonework above the door gives away its previous identity: the Norfolk Hotel. Named for you-know-who, this unassuming building has a scandalous claim to fame – it was one of the hotels used by John Profumo and Christine Keeler for their affair in the summer of 1961.

Next to the Norfolk is a little roofed alley with a mysterious sign above the entrance –
THE NATIONAL TRUST
ROMAN BATH
DOWN STEPS TURN RIGHT
This bath, which is almost certainly not Roman, was acquired by the National Trust in 1948. Quite where it gets its name from is unclear, but it is at least several hundred years old, and you may have read about one David Copperfield taking a dip there in Dickens’ novel. The bath, which is now inside a building but visible to the street via a large window, can normally be viewed by entering a fenced area and pressing a light switch. Between April and September, you can get a closer look if you contact Westminster City Council at least 24 hours in advance. Unfortunately on the day of this particular visit, the gate was locked. The street this is on – Strand Lane – is eerily quiet owing to the expansion of King’s College London all around it, and it feels as though you are not really allowed to be there at all.

Arriving at the southern end of Surrey Street, you are faced with an entrance to Temple Gardens and, more interestingly, an old cabman’s hut. These green wooden buildings used to be found all over London but there are now only a few of them left, serving cheap tea and bacon butties to the Hackney Carriage drivers of the city.

The one on Temple Place would probably also serve a fair number of students, too, were it not for the large Brutalist structure that is King’s College London Students’ Union. While I’m sure it must have good views from the top, to those of us at the bottom it is not such a pretty sight.

So that is Surrey Street. Just to the right in this last photo is The Howard Hotel – the Dukes of Norfolk all having Howard as their surname – which rounds off the connections between this street and the noble family. It can be easy to believe that London is a place where history is only to be found within the old Roman walls or in the vicinity of Trafalgar and Parliament Squares, but the truth is that there are thousands of places in this city where history has been made and where stories can be found and told. Even if you are a 158 metre long one-way street.


My other photos from this trip