Great Portland Street, Westminster
Not as grand-looking as it sounds, this commercial thoroughfare runs between Oxford Street and the eastern end of Marylebone Road, where Great Portland Street station is located
BBC Broadcasting House, at the junction of Portland Place and Langham Place
Like so many roads in the vicinity, Great Portland Street’s name was a product of the marriage of estate owner Margaret Cavendish Harley to the second Duke of Portland.
In the mid-20th century the street was renowned for its car showrooms but these have been driven away by fashion wholesalers and office furnishers, although it remains home to the Retail Motor Industry Federation.
To the west, Portland Place runs parallel with Great Portland Street, joining Regent Street via a dog-leg at Langham Place, the site of Broadcasting House. The elliptical building was constructed in 1932 of ferro-concrete, aptly faced with Portland stone. For the interior, Eric Gill produced carvings and a free-standing relief of Prospero and Ariel. The building has recently been extended.
Felix Mendelssohn stayed in Great Portland Street on his visits to London in the 1820s and 30s, at the home of a German iron merchant. Among the writers who lived here were James Boswell and Leigh Hunt. HG Wells was well acquainted with the area: it is the setting for events in both The Invisible Man and his lesser-known story The Crystal Egg. The Invisible Man boarded in “a large unfurnished room in a big ill-managed lodging-house in a slum near Great Portland Street.”
There’s still a Ryman’s in Great Portland Street, just as there was in 1893 when Henry J Ryman opened his very first stationery store.
