Savoy Court & the Savoy Theatre
Why is it significant?
Stand at the mouth of Savoy Court, the short cul-de-sac running off the Strand, and watch the taxis for a moment. Something is wrong... they are driving on the right.
Key Facts
| Place | Savoy Court & the Savoy Theatre |
|---|---|
| Address | Savoy Court, Strand, London WC2R 0ET, United Kingdom |
| Geo Coordinates | 51.51030, -0.12060 |
| Part of Walk | Curtain Up: London's West End Theatreland, from the Savoy to Covent Garden and Leicester Square |
| Generated | Generated |
Stand at the mouth of Savoy Court, the short cul-de-sac running off the Strand, and watch the taxis for a moment. Something is wrong... they are driving on the right. This tiny street is said to be the only road in Britain where traffic keeps to the right, and the usual explanation is wonderfully practical: it lets cabs pull up with their passengers' doors facing the entrances of the hotel and the theatre.
Above the hotel entrance stands a small statue of a knight in armour. That is Count Peter of Savoy, uncle of Henry III's queen, who was given this land by the river in 1246 and built a palace here. Later it belonged to John of Gaunt, and rebels burned it to the ground in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The palace has been gone for more than six hundred years, but the name has never left.
On your right is the Savoy Theatre. It was built in 1881 by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte as a home for the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, and it was the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electricity. Audiences were nervous about the new lamps, so Carte walked out on stage, wrapped a glowing bulb in muslin and smashed it, to show that nothing would catch fire. The cloth did not even scorch, and the audience burst into applause.
The profits of HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado paid for the Savoy hotel next door, which opened in 1889 with electric lifts and an astonishing number of bathrooms for the time. Claude Monet painted the misty Thames from his room upstairs. And the hotel still keeps a carved black cat called Kaspar, who is given a seat at any dinner party that would otherwise sit down thirteen at table.
The theatre burned in 1990 and was restored to its glittering art deco look of 1929, all silver and gold. So theatreland begins with light, with superstition and with a little bit of showing off. Walk west along the Strand, turn right up Southampton Street, and then left into narrow Maiden Lane, where the oldest restaurant in London is waiting.