Great Queen Street

[1] In 1646 William Newton was given permission to build fourteen large houses, each with a forty-foot frontage, on the south side of the street.

Although he did not build all the houses himself, selling on some the plots, they were constructed to a uniform design, in a classical style, with Ionic pilasters rising through two storeys from the first floor to the eaves.

According to John Summerson they "laid down the canon which put an end to gabled individualism, and provided a discipline for London's streets which was to endure for two hundred years.

[5] In about 2005 a local architect's practice won a competition to create a small, new square by redesigning the Great Queen Street junction with Drury Lane.

The London Borough of Camden saw the potential of improving this junction as it was on their walking corridor between Leicester Square and Holborn.

This was difficult in an area with a high crime and anti-social behaviour due to it being on the edge of the night time economy in Covent Garden and one block from a substance abuse hostel.

Roughly half of the south side is occupied by Freemasons' Hall, the headquarters of the United Grand Lodge of England.

There are 29 meeting rooms and the 1,000 seat Grand Temple, which, with the Library and Museum are open to the public with hourly guided tours.

There is a pub called "The Prince of Wales" at 45 Great Queen Street, presumably named after the future George IV who was the Grand Master of the Freemasons in 1809.

At 31 Great Queen Street lived James Basire, a member of the Society of Antiquaries who took on William Blake as an apprentice in 1772 for seven years.

[10] The novelist R H Barham (aka Thomas Ingoldsby) lived at No 51 between 1821 and 1824 after gaining a minor canonry at London's St. Paul's Cathedral, where he served as a cardinal.