|
|
Oxford Street
(W1) Originally Tyburn Road, and next Oxford Road (the highway to Oxford) . It extends from the site of the village pound of St. Giles's (where High Street and Tottenham Court Road meet) , westward to Hyde Park Corner. It follows the ancient military road (Via Trinovantica; Stukeley) , which crossed the Watling Street at Hyde Park Corner, and was continued thence to Old Street (Eald Street) , north of London. During the Civil War in 1643 a redoubt was erected near St. Giles's Pound, and a large fort with half-bulwarks across the road opposite Wardour Street. Pennant (born in 1726) remembered Oxford Street as "a deep, hollow road, and full of sloughs; with here and there a ragged house, the lurking-place of cut-throats," insomuch that he "never was taken that way by night" in a hackney coach, to his uncle's house in George Street, but he "went in dread the whole way." (Reference: Timbs's Curiosities of London, p. 621)
|
|
|
