Northumberland Avenue is a young street by central London standards, and a grand one at that. Like the rest of the pinks it starts at Trafalgar Square and in this case cuts down to the Victoria Embankment, pretty much direct. It's also the shortest street I've had to write about so far, being fully walkable in under five minutes, and more somewhere tourists stay than Londoners go. Pleasingly for Monopoly-based reportage it starts with a house and ends with a hotel, although the house is no longer there and I had to go to my doctor's surgery to see a bit of it.
Prior to the 1870s Northumberland Avenue did not exist. Yards on the banks of the Thames weren't generally somewhere West Enders needed to go, not until the Victoria Embankment was built and a connection was suddenly necessary. The Metropolitan Board of Works bought up all the properties on the site and completely redeveloped the area, their intention being that the new avenue would mostly be used to accommodate hotels. A planning rule at the time was that hotels couldn't be taller than the width of the road they were on, hence Northumberland Avenue is a pleasingly broad thoroughfare (with plenty of room for two rows of plane trees). And the biggest building they had to knock down to build it was this...
House:Northumberland House
The south side of the Strand was once home to several very posh mansions, as befits the waterfront district connecting Westminster to the City of London. The closestmansion to Charing Cross was built by the Earl of Northampton in 1605, being approximately 50m square plus a garden which stretched back almost to the river. In the 1640s it was sold to the Earl of Northumberland as part of a marriage deal, hence its name, and the exceptionally rich Percy family continued to make this mini-palace their central London home. By the late 19th century it had a bolderfrontage, 150 rooms and a dazzling central staircase but it was also in the way of development plans so the 7th Duke reluctantly sold up, ultimately persuaded by fire damage and a £500,000 sweetener. In 1874 the whole lot was demolished.
The building that replaced Northumberland House, on a very different footprint, was the swooshy Italianate Grand Hotel. It didn't weather well so was replaced in the 1980s by the very similar-looking Grand Buildings which you may know as the home of the Waterstones bookshop with the big basement. Meanwhile the Percy family retreated to their other London home at Syon Park, another whopping riverside mansion, and took with them the leonine statue which had once stood atop Northumberland House. This lion has a hilariously straight tail, although if you head down to Brentford it's extremely hard to see it on the roof behind the crenellations so you're better off laughing at the replica on the gate facing London Road.
The only other NH survivor was an intricate stone arch which was originally part of the house's inner north courtyard. It was bought as a decorative feature by the owner of the Tudor House in Bromley-by-Bow, George Rutty, who later sold off his grounds to the LCC for conversion to a public garden. In 1998 the arch was moved againto formthe entrance to the Bromley-by-Bow Centre, a pioneering multi-service community hub which just happens to be my doctor's surgery. It looks magnificent at the moment dripping with wisteria, and was recently scrubbed up by the Heritage of London Trust so the intricate stonework merits proper scrutiny too. I don't know where you go to get your prescriptions and your blood pressure checked, but I pass through a 250 year-old arch with a Monopoly board connection.
We should get back to Northumberland Avenue.
It no longer starts as grandly as it once did, now with a Tesco Express and a boarded up door on one side and a Prezzo on the other. But the avenue's high facades are still genuinely imposing, the plane trees soften the vista considerably and all this might just take your eye off the queue of traffic streaming up the street. This is a favourite cut-through for taxis, a regular haunt of private coaches and the location of the bus stands for routes 15 and 91. The breadth of the street allows plenty of room to stable hire bikes, particularly at the lower end, and inbetween are occasional stone benches cunningly designed so that anyone who tries sleeping on them will roll off. It's not really somewhere to linger, more to stay.
Hotel:Corinthia Hotel
The biggest surviving hotel is the Corinthia, a wedge-shaped behemoth at the Embankment end which started out as the Metropole in 1885 with an eye to accommodating wealthy socialites and colonial visitors. The government requisitioned it during both World Wars, hanging on after the Second so it could continue to be used by the Ministry of Defence. In its time was a royal playground, a cabaret venue, a shady office block and the first home of the Special Operations Executive. Foreign investors took back the building in 2007, adding blingy chandeliers and hotel rooms that start at 'Superior' and rise to a penthouse with a private roof terrace and a personal butler. The cheapest way in is the via one of their restaurants, although the meat courses at The Northall start at £42 so you might be better off in Kerridge's Bar and Grill with a plate of £32 fish and chips.
The two foreign countries with a foothold on Northumberland Avenue are Nigeria and South Korea. Nigeria House is at number 9, a corner site fronted in Portland stone with consular services inside and tourism adverts flashing in the windows. Across the road is the rather more welcoming Korean Cultural Centre with its library, performance space, art gallery and studio for hire. Kimchi aficionados should note that Korean Cuisine Month has just started, although be aware that today is Labor Day so KCC is closed until tomorrow. I don't think the Thai Square Spa at number 25 has any diplomatic connections, although they will give your feet a half-hour massage if you have £60 to burn.
The only top drawer attraction on the street is the Playhouse Theatre, where Alec Guinness made his stage debut and the BBC once recorded The Goon Show, and which is currently all dressed up as the Kit Kat Club for a long running in-the-round performance of Cabaret. Look out for the rush-hour-only entrance to Charing Cross station nextdoor and also the entrance to gloomy Embankment Place passing underneath the platforms. Out-of-towner pub The Sherlock Holmes is officially on Northumberland Street so I'm disregarding that. But Northumberland Avenue's still really all about the hotels, and catering to people who might be staying in those hotels, simultaneously bang in the middle of things and somehow off the beaten track.
