Goad London 219—W1—Soho—Wardour, Berwick & Old Compton Streets 1958 (1970) map

Charles Goad Insurance Plan of London, sheet 219 [Soho: Wardour Street, Berwick Street, Old Compton Street and Shaftesbury Avenue]

Goad's fire insurance plan of London, sheet 219, covers Soho around Wardour Street and Berwick Street (W1). The film laboratories and studios, cutting rooms and photo-engraving premises it records make the work behind the entertainment industry tangible. Wardour Street was the centre of the British film trade through the twentieth century, but by the century's end the big companies had gone, leaving independent post-production houses. The sheet also explicitly names the Marquee Club at 90 Wardour Street, its home from 1964 to 1988. The Who began their Tuesday residency on 24 November 1964, Pink Floyd played the Spontaneous Underground from 13 March 1966, and Led Zeppelin appeared on 18 October 1968 while still billed as the Yardbirds; Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie also played here. The club was operating when the sheet was last corrected, and its site later became Soho Lofts. At 59 Old Compton Street, the club-and-restaurant label marks the 2i's Coffee Bar, where Tommy Steele, Cliff Richard and musicians who became the Shadows helped launch British rock 'n' roll. It operated from 1956 to 1970, closing in the year of the final revision. The Wardour Garage car park beside Richmond Buildings, operated by Parking Managements Ltd in the sheet's day, became the Soho Hotel of 2004, which has its restaurant entrance on Flaxman Court. In this way a service site was given over to visitor accommodation. The sheet also names the Eros Hotel, the Swiss Hotel and the Police Offices, while Berwick Street's market, founded in 1778, still fills the street. Goad's plans were drawn to assess property and fire risk, and they were kept current with pasted overlays recording new uses, altered layouts, demolition and rebuilding. On this sheet a vacancy annotation carries the latest date, October 1970. The sheet was resurveyed and reissued in November 1958,…