"The largest and most important improvement in London since the construction of Regent Street in 1820."
London County Council produced a special souvenir programme for the event.
This map from the programme give some idea of the scale of the works. The buff area of development covers many of the streets that were demolished.
Map showing part of the Kingsway & Aldwych development of 1905
The programme was written by Laurence Gomme, Clerk to the Council, who was also a keen historian. Gomme helped to found The Victoria County History series and The Survey of London and it was he who persuaded LCC to adopt the Blue Plaque scheme. Incidentally he also suggested naming the development "Aldwych" to reference the ancient nearby settlement.
The programme enthusiastically details the construction of the whole development but such an enthusiast for London's history and architecture couldn't let the new development open without also documenting what had been destroyed.
So Gomme provides us with numerous superb and unique images of many of the old streets and courts, immediately prior to their demolition in 1901.
I haven't seen such a fine collection elsewhere and can't find any equivalent on the net.
I'll post more details in future posts but for now I'll let these hauntingly beautiful images speak for themselves.
Plummer's Court
Sardinia Place
Sardinia Street
New Inn Banqueting Hall
A Corner in New Inn
New Inn
Hall's Yard, Little Wild Street, showing rear of Mission Chapel
Holywell Street (eastern end)
Holywell Street (western end)
Houghton Street and New Inn Passage
Wych Street
Wych Street
Corner of Wych Street and Holywell Street
Windsor Court
Sheffield Street
Little Wild Street
And finally, the one that got away, still standing in Portsmouth Street.
The Old Curiosity Shop, Portsmouth Street (said to have been the original of Dickens's "Old Curiosity Shop")
In a companion post Forgotten Images: Destruction & Construction in Aldwych & Kingsway I look at the demolition of the area and some of the subsequent construction work.