|
More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
|
Piccadilly
|
|
(London W1) The main thoroughfare of the *West End, stretching from Piccadilly Circus to Hyde Park Corner. The name Piccadilly, the subject of endless conjecture since the 17C, probably derives from Piccadilly Hall, a house built nearby in about 1615 by a tailor, Robert Baker; and his house seems to have acquired that nickname because he had made a fortune selling piccadils (stiffened projecting borders worn at the neck, shoulders and wrists). In the 1640s the first houses were built along this road west from London; for a while it was called Portugal Street, but Piccadilly was the name which stuck.
|
|
|
|
When Nash drove *Regent Street through Piccadilly, he gave the intersection rounded edges to form a genuine 'circus'; the present broken shape of Piccadilly Circus (famous above all for *Eros) is the result of *Shaftesbury Avenue being added to the northeast in the 1880s, and of the other sides being redeveloped without regard for the circular groundplan.
|
|
|
|