I went there in search of a significant address and ended up discovering both it and a second one across the street. In fact, it wasn’t quite like that. But let’s pretend.
Cleveland Street, in Fitzrovia, forms part of the boundary between Westminster and Camden. Its most conspicuous feature is the BT Tower, previously called the GPO or Post Office Tower. It was formally opened in May 1966, a couple of months before England won the World Cup at Wembley, by the novel double act of Billy Butlin and Tony Benn. It remains one of London’s tallest buildings.
However, Cleveland Street’s fame predates all that for reasons unconnected with telecommunications or architecture.
In 1889, number 19 was revealed to be a brothel where gentleman of the upper classes had transactional close encounters with teenage boys from the lower orders. Toffs involved included the Earl of Euston, Lord Somerset, who was an equerry to the then-Prince of Wales, and, according to rumours that were never proved, Prince Albert Victor, second in line to the throne.
The Cleveland Street Scandal, as it became known, recently formed the basis for The Flea, an excellent play by James Fritz which has had two successful runs at The Yard theatre in Hackney Wick. It is also a case study of moral panics about homosexuality, one with particular purchase for having occurred in Victorian England, a period often associated with what their champions optimistically term “traditional values”.
Would I find a plaque or any other commemoration of this transgression location on Cleveland Street? I didn’t, and although I was pleased to find a number 19, the 19th Century house of assignation of that same address has long since been knocked down. Perhaps it wasn’t even on quite the same spot.
There was, though, more for my London explorer’s pleasure. Directly opposite, above the door of the Grade II listed Number 22, is a blue plaque informing us that Charles Dickens twice lived at that house, first as a small child – born in Portsmouth, it was his first London home – and then as a youth.
Did the goings on at Number 19 take place literally a stone’s throw from the young Dickens’s front door? No such luck. His tenures were in 1815-16 and 1828-31, decades before the scandal and when today’s 22 Cleveland Street was 10 Norfolk Street (the renaming took place in 1867, absorbing Norfolk Street into the original Cleveland Street, named after the 2nd Duke of Cleveland). It has, though, been suggested that the proximity of 10 Norfolk Street to the Cleveland Street Workhouse provided inspiration for Oliver Twist.
My discovery of the adjacency of two such significant addresses, though hardly an original find, excited me enough to stand in the middle of Cleveland Street and make a very poor job of filming them both in the same shot, attracting curious looks as I did so. Maybe I should put the footage on TikTok. What would Dickens have done?
John Vane is a pen name used by Dave Hill, publisher and editor of On London for fiction and sketches. Buy his London novel Frightgeist: A Tall Tale of Fearful Times here or here.
OnLondon.co.uk provides unique coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture with no paywall and no ads. The vast majority of its income comes from individual supporters, who pay £5 a month or £50 a year. They receive in return bespoke newsletters, bargain London event offers and much gratitude. Details HERE.