A travel guru has expressed his excitement at discovering “London’s buried street” on a visit to the capital.
Chris Gledhill (@cgledhill) regularly documents his adventures on TikTok and it was a sight in Soho that captured his imagination recently. Heading down the bustling Old Compton Street, it appeared his fellow pedestrians were blissfully unaware of what laid beneath them.
Standing on the road’s traffic island, Chris pointed his camera below an iron grille to reveal a lost world in yesteryear. “In the Victorian times, Little Compton Street was built over, raising the street level,” he explained.
“In some places the old street can still be seen.” Chris peered downwards and located an old street sign, embedded into brickwork surrounded by cabling and fallen leaves. “We walk past that every single day and had no idea!” one of his followers admitted in response. “I’m taking a look on Monday!”
“Based on this, a dig should be commenced to understand history,” enthused a second TikTok user. “We may find many things. demolish all buildings and dig it’s important.”
Whilst a third added: “I’m obsessed with old Londons layout, I need to visitor this place, and apparently there’s another street where you can see the old river fleet that was down Blackfriars.”
Others, meanwhile, were sceptical about the “buried” street’s purpose, as one person claimed: “It isn’t a street, but part of the subway network built beneath Charing Cross Road in 1887 to carry utilities for the emerging modern age of London.”
And a second said: “I don’t believe that, I heard that’s so the sewer companies can identify where they are underground.” Chris hit back, however, explaining that building over it was “easier than digging utilities, install pipes and cables at street level then raise the level.”
According to London Walking Tours, Little Compton Street was “obliterated in 1886″. The guide adds: ” The Metropolitan Board of Works demolished it and its surroundings, in order to drive Charing Cross Road through one of Victorian London’s most notorious slum districts to create a connecting link between Trafalgar Square and Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road.”
Little Compton Street was an historic name for the eastern end of Old Compton Street beyond its junction with Greek Street. Dr. Who fans may recognise it as a passage between Torchwood One’s head office and the Torchwood bunker beneath Soho Square, accessible through a gardener’s hut, according to Tardis Wiki.
