Fleet Street

About Fleet Street

Usually thought of as the home of the British press, Fleet Street actually no longer plays host to the newspaper groups that once made it famous. In recent years all of the major players in print media have moved away from Fleet Street, for the most-part to Docklands, and yet the name is still synonymous with the press.

Deriving its name from the river Fleet, over which it used to travel before the river was redirected underground, Fleet Street runs out of the City and on to become the Strand in one direction and turns into Ludgate Hill in the other.

The street was also infamously home to the Demon Barber, Sweeney Todd, the fictional serial killer whose character appeared in a number of plays and books in the 19th century and became virtually an urban legend: at the time people spoke of Todd as if he were a real man.

Display shops and venues on Fleet Street