Piccadilly Circus

PICCADILLY CIRCUS

The West End is the location of many theatres, restaurants, bars and clubs and a popular place to meet at the start of the evening is at Piccadilly Circus. In fact, it is very rare to not see people waiting for friends and loved ones, standing near the famous and much admired Statue Of Eros (see earlier blog entitled EROS.)

Piccadilly Circus is sometimes described as being the Times Square of London, its many illuminated advertising signs being a comparable feature. The very first illuminated sign was put up in 1909, advertising Schweppes, which was then a mineral water supplier. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the signs had long since abandoned neon and were mostly state-of-the-art LED video displays, costing millions of pounds per year to rent each space.  One computer animated sign posted personal messages with a special rate for marriage proposals. After a romantic kiss at The Statue Of Eros, loved ones would be encouraged to look up to the sign, to see the personal message scrolling across. The service was discontinued in 2007.

Piccadilly Circus was built in 1819 and it is named a circus from the Latin word for ‘circle’ or ‘ring.’ Although no longer truly circular, it is the hub of six streets, including both Regent Street and Piccadilly. It has over a million pedestrian visitors each week and a further two million people pass through it by bus. Six hundred thousand people use Piccadilly Circus underground station on a weekly basis. Besides being filled with pedestrians and swirling traffic, Piccadilly Circus is closely surrounded by many famous locations.

Situated on the south side of Piccadilly since 1925 is Lillywhite’s, a multi-floored sports store. Nowadays it draws in tourists by selling replica Premiership football sports kits cheaply, but still specializes in outfitting for minority sports. Beneath Lillywhite’s is the Criterion Theatre, one of only two subterranean theatres in London and decorated with extravagant gilding by Verity in 1884. Nearby, on ground level is The Criterion, the restaurant where Sherlock Holmes first met Doctor Watson in its splendid Long Bar. The Criterion was a favourite of the French artist Toulouse-Lautrec who, when visiting London, ate porterhouse steaks there whilst gazing across to The London Pavilion.

A published statistic states that of the twenty-six million visitors to London each year, the majority pass through Piccadilly Circus and one in twenty-five of those go inside the London Pavilion. The north side pavement (sidewalk) on Coventry Street, outside the London Pavilion, has the highest density of pedestrian traffic in the United Kingdom. The London Pavilion was originally a music hall, nowadays it is part of The Trocadero Centre. The Trocadero Centre has been a London landmark for two and a half centuries, its fortunes almost changing on a decade-by-decade basis. In the late 1990’s, a forty-five million pound investment programme transformed the venue into a ‘high-tech’ indoor entertainment complex.

The entrance to The Café De Paris is on Coventry Street, which leads off Piccadilly Circus to the east. It opened in the roaring twenties, much of its early success rose from the patronage of King Edward VIII, who often visited when he was Prince Of Wales. The Aga Khan, the Mountbatten’s and Cole Porter were also regulars and its subterranean location allowed it to remain open at the outbreak of The Second World War. However, tragically, in March 1941, two fifty-kilogram explosive devises came through the roof during an air raid, landing straight onto the dance floor. Eighty people were killed including the young bride of Group Captain John Darwen RAF DSO DFC. Aged just twenty and married only weeks earlier, she died in his arms on the dance floor. John Darwen went on to become a heroic and much documented pilot, until a little over two years later he was killed in action, shot down by stray flak over Italy in 1942. The Café De Paris remains a popular venue to this day.

Not far from the entrance of The Café De Paris, is a street level statue called The Horses of Helios and the four beasts, Pyrios, Eos, Aethon and Phleyon, rear up above foaming fountain water. Directly above them, high up on the building’s top are three golden naked figures. They represent Faith, Hope and Charity, known as The Three Graces and they can be seen frozen mid-leap, heading downwards into the crowds beneath.

Not only is Piccadilly Circus at the meeting point of six thoroughfares, it has Mayfair, Soho, St James’s and China Town all quickly accessible to the four compass points, with the remainder of central London stretching beyond. Indeed, at one time, Piccadilly Circus was said to be the hub of the British Empire itself. It is hardly surprising then, that a flagship retail store bordering Piccadilly Circus has recently contracted to pay 1.95 million pounds a year to rent its premises.

Many descend on Piccadilly Circus simply to soak up the atmosphere and the saying goes, that if you wait in Piccadilly Circus long enough, you will meet someone you know. Be prepared, it may well be quicker than you think! Piccadilly Circus, Piccadilly, London W1J 7BX.

 Where to view Piccadilly Circus and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Piccadilly Circus’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.