Preface

Preface

Volumes XXXIII and XXXIV of the Survey of London describe the Parish of St. Anne, Soho. Widespread building development was taking place in this area in the 1670's and 1680's, and when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685 large numbers of Huguenot refugees began to settle here. A quarter of a century later about forty per cent of the population of the parish was said to be of French extraction, and this foreign element has been periodically replenished by new immigrants, particularly in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Soho is still the most famous of London's cosmopolitan quarters, but its reputation amongst Englishmen for good food is a surprisingly recent development which made little progress until the early years of the twentieth century.

Very little of the original seventeenth-century building fabric of Soho survives, and only the tower of St. Anne's Church still stands. There are, however, a few fine Georgian houses, No. 1 Greek Street and No. 76 Dean Street being outstanding, but many others have been demolished during the last fifty years, and a depressingly large proportion of these two volumes is devoted to the recording of lost grandeur.

The Council tenders its thanks to Her Majesty The Queen for her gracious permission to make use of the archives in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, and in the Duchy of Cornwall Office, and to reproduce the drawing on Plate 29a. The Council is also most grateful to all those numerous persons who have given help in the preparation of these volumes. In particular I should like to thank the advisory members of the Historic Buildings Sub-Committee—Lord Faringdon, Mr. A. R. Dufty, Mr. Ian L. Phillips, Mr. T. F. Reddaway and Sir John Summerson—for giving their time and expert knowledge, and to welcome Mr. John Betjeman as a new member of the Sub-Committee. I record here with regret the death in 1964 of Mr. J. H. MacDonnell, who was a member of the London County Council from 1928 to 1955 and was actively associated with the Survey of London for thirty-six years.

These two volumes have been prepared under the direction of the General Editor, Mr. F. H. W. Sheppard, who, with Mr. P. A. Bezodis, Mrs. Marie P. G. Draper, Mr. D. A. Bevan, Mrs. V. G. Giles and Mr. M. P. Havinden (all of the Clerk's Department), wrote the historical portions of the text and edited all the material. Mr. P. A. B. Llewellyn and Mrs. K. Hill assisted in seeing the volumes through the press. The architectural portions, both graphic and textual, were prepared in the Department of Architecture and Civic Design under the direction of Mr. W. A. Eden, Surveyor of Historic Buildings. Mr. Walter Ison, Architectural Editor, and Mr. J. M. W. Laithwaite contributed the descriptive matter. The production of the drawings was supervised by Mr. F. A. Evans. Although these are individually acknowledged in the list of plates and figures in the text, I should like to add a word of special appreciation for the work of the late Mr. Tibor Biro, who, having joined the Architect's Department of the London County Council in 1957, made an outstanding contribution, as draughtsman and scribe, to these and the previous two volumes. Most of the photographs were taken by Mr. K. M. Jordan, of the Department's Photographic Unit, under the direction of Mr. G. N. Finnissy.

The County Hall
London

Irene Chaplin
Chairman of the Planning and Communications (Historic Buildings)
Sub-Committee