Brydges Street
Names
- Brydges Street
- Bridges Street
Street/Area/District
- Brydges Street
Maps & Views
- 1658 London (Newcourt & Faithorne): Bridges Street
- 1720 London (Strype): Bridges Street
- 1746 London, Westminster & Southwark (Rocque): Bridges Street
- 1761 London (Dodsley): Bridges Street
- 1799 London (Horwood): Brydges Street
Descriptions
from A Topographical Dictionary of London and Its Environs, by James Elmes (1831)
Brydge's-St., Covent Garden, is the continuation northward of Catherine-street, which leads from 342, Strand, to Great Russell-street, by Drury-lane Theatre.
from Lockie's Topography of London, by John Lockie (1810)
Brydges-Street, Covent-Garden,—the continuation of Catherine-st. from 342, Strand, leading to Great Russell-st. by Drury-lane theatre.
from London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions, by Henry Benjamin Wheatley and Peter Cunningham (1891)
Brydges Street, Covent Garden, between Great Russell Street and Catherine Street; it now forms the northern half of Catherine Street. It was built circ. 1637,1 and so called after George Brydges, Lord Chandos (d. 1654), the grandfather of the magnificent duke of that name. Strype describes it as a "place well built and inhabited, and of great resort for the theatre there." Its character early deteriorated. In the coarse lines which Dryden made the beautiful Mrs. Bracegirdle repeat as the epilogue to King Arthur, Brydges Street is shown to be a place of disreputable resort; and the epilogue to "Sir Courtly Nice," 1685, declared that "our Brydges Street is grown a Strumpet Fair." Half a century later there was little improvement, as we learn from Fielding, who knew Covent Garden as well as any one. Both in Jonathan Wild and Tom Jones, Brydges Street figures and figures unfavourably. In more modern times the old Drury Tavern, the Sheridan Knowles public-house, the Sir John Falstaff, H.'s, and the Elysium, show a dramatic and a festive neighbourhood. Drury Lane Theatre is at its north-eastern corner. [See Catherine Street; Drury Lane Theatre; Rose Tavern.]
1 Rate-books of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.