Denmark Street — London's Tin Pan Alley

Look at this tiny little street. Just about a hundred yards long... and yet, more music history is packed into Denmark Street than practically anywhere else in London. Welcome to Tin Pan Alley!

London · from the walk “Soho's Secret Side”

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Denmark Street, London WC2H 8NL

Look at this tiny little street. Just about a hundred yards long... and yet, more music history is packed into Denmark Street than practically anywhere else in London. Welcome to Tin Pan Alley!

This street was laid out in the late sixteen eighties and named after Prince George of Denmark, who married the future Queen Anne. Remarkably, it's one of the only streets in London to retain its seventeenth century terraces on Both sides. But forget the architecture for a moment... listen to the ghosts.

It all started when music publisher Lawrence Wright moved here from Leicester in nineteen eleven. Back then, music was essentially a branch of Bookselling... because the only way to hear a popular song at home was to play it yourself from sheet music. Soon, every building on this street was buzzing with pianos, songwriters, and deal-makers. Wright himself launched Melody Maker magazine right here at number nineteen in nineteen twenty-six. And the New Musical Express, the legendary Nme, was founded at number five in nineteen fifty-two.

Now here's a story most people walk right past. At number twenty, a young man called Reg Dwight... plain old Reg... worked as the office boy for Mills Music, earning five pounds a week in nineteen sixty-five. You know him today as Sir Elton John. And get This... Paul Simon once walked into that Same office with two new songs, The Sound of Silence and Homeward Bound, and Mills turned him Down. Told him they'd never sell. Imagine That decision haunting you.

Down at number four stood Regent Sound Studio... a tiny, cramped basement room. An engineer named Bill Farley recorded the first Rolling Stones album there in its entirety across just a few days in early sixty-four. That little room conjured records for everyone from Vera Lynn to Black Sabbath, from Jimi Hendrix to The Kinks.

And then came punk. In nineteen seventy-five, Malcolm Mclaren took a lease on number six and set up a rehearsal space for the Sex Pistols. They lived upstairs in pretty rough conditions... but it was the first place any of them had lived away from their parents. Years later, during a remodel, cartoon graffiti of the band members was uncovered on a hidden wall... the work of one Johnny Rotten.

And one more thing you won't find in any guidebook. Number nine was home to La Giaconda, a café and hip hangout where David Bowie first met his band The Lower Third. Legend has it this very spot is the birthplace of Ziggy Stardust, partly inspired by fellow café patron Vince Taylor.

A hundred yards of pavement... and the entire soundtrack of modern Britain was written on it. Take a moment. Look around at those old facades. The music may have gone quiet... but if you listen closely, this street still hums.

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