London - Leicester Square and around Travel Guides | London | Sub Regions | London - Leicester Square and around

Leicester Square always gets bad press, written off as a charmless tourist-trap rife with pickpockets, bagsnatchers and mediocre buskers. The criticisms are still justified – not too many of the businesses round here expect to see the same face twice – but since the little square’s pedestrianization and then refurbishment in the early 1990s it has increasingly provided a much-needed focal point for the entertainment scene in the West End. The two main draws are the cinemas, not only the blockbusting first-run multiscreens surrounding the square, but also places like the cult rep the Prince Charles, or the fashionable Curzon Soho, and the nightclubs, like Sound on Wardour Street. Just north of the square lies Chinatown, not really the home of London’s Chinese community, more like its market place, and only consisting of a couple of streets of restaurants, but still an area with one of the most distinctive cultural identities in the capital. It squeezes into a little niche between the square itself, Shaftesbury Avenue, the high street of ‘Theatreland’, and Charing Cross Road, the bookseller’s favourite address.

Sights

5 Leicester Pl, T 020-7437 9363. Daily 0930-2000. Free. M Leicester Sq.

Dedicated sightseers won’t want to miss this extraordinary church to the north of the Square. Originally a panoramic playhouse, explaining its unusual round design, it became the Eglise Française Catholique de Londres in 1865. Bombed out in 1940, it was almost entirely rebuilt in 1955 and Jean Cocteau was commissioned to decorate the Chapelle du Saint Sacrament. His murals are an energetic depiction of the Annunciation, Mary at the foot of the Cross and the Assumption. An Aubusson tapestry hangs over the altar, and Boris Anrep was responsible for the mosaics.

Leicester Sq.

Leicester Place and Leicester Street both head north from the Square into Chinatown. Tiny in comparison to New York’s, London’s original Chinatown was near the docks in Limehouse, only setting up shop here in the 1950s. Lisle Street is lined with restaurants and supermarkets, while pedestrianized Gerrard Street has been ‘themed’ with Chinoiserie street furniture and gates to complement another stretch of busy restaurants. Both streets come together in Newport Place, where the bandstand-pagoda is a bustling meeting point.

M Leicester Sq.

The Charing Cross Road, twisting northwards from Trafalgar Square, was once a continuous strip of rambling second-hand and antiquarian booksellers. Many have been forced out by rocketing rents, but old-timers like Henry Pordes still give some idea of the way it was. More charming now are the narrow old alleyways like Cecil Court, running into St Martin’s Lane. Still packed with curious specialist bookshops, they provide some of the most surprising browsing in the West End. Beyond Cambridge Circus, where the road crosses Shaftesbury Avenue, there are branches of most of the big new book retailers, as well as the legendarily capacious and confusing Foyle’s.

M Piccadilly Circus.

Since the late 19th century, this street has been most famous for being the main artery of the West End’s ‘theatreland’. Five theatres were opened along its west side in the decades around 1900: the Lyric, the Apollo, the Globe (now the Gielgud), the Queen’s and the grand Palace theatre on Cambridge Circus. Many of the streets around conceal wonderful old theatres like the Prince Edward on Old Compton Street, the Palladium and the Piccadilly.

Travel Guides | London | Sub Regions | London - Leicester Square and around
		Flights Cheap flights to any destination worldwide click here		Car Rental Compare prices for worldwide car rental click here		Hotels Lowest prices on over 60,000 hotels worldwide click here		Travel Insurance Compare Travel Insurance prices click here