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In February 2022, local businesses voted overwhelmingly in favour of establishing the Fleet Street Quarter Business Improvement District (BID). This favourable outcome demonstrated a strong mandate amongst businesses to work more collectively in leading, shaping and influencing a comprehensive programme of activity – positioning the Fleet Street Quarter as a thriving and vibrant destination.
Encompassing an area which features Fleet Street at its heart, but embracing fascinating areas such as Chancery Lane, Holborn, Ludgate Hill and New Street Square, the Fleet Street Quarter aspires to shape the whole area into a thriving place to live, work, and visit.
WHO WE ARE
"IF YOU THINK ABOUT THE POLITICAL CONTROL AND INFLUENCE NEWSPAPERS HAVE HAD THROUGHOUT HISTORY, THAT ALL HAPPENED HERE. THIS WAS WESTMINSTER MARK TWO FOR A REALLY LONG TIME. THE AMOUNT OF HISTORY AND THE NUMBER OF SECRETS THAT HAVE BEEN THROUGH THE STREETS ARE IMMENSE."
Alison Lee, Foundation Manager (CEO) at the St Bride Foundation
Fleet Street’s name today is synonymous with the newspaper industry, but the area’s links to the church and literary patrons run even deeper through its cultural history.
Documented as early as the 14th century, the Grade-II listed Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese tavern at 145 Fleet Street, is among the oldest in London. Despite being destroyed and rebuilt following the Great Fire of 1666, the pub remains a landmark of the area. The literary associations to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese are closely linked to the Quarter’s rich heritage with regular patrons including Charles Dickens, John Milton, Mark Twain, P.G Wodehouse, Alfred Tennyson and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 18th-Century poet, playwright and revered lexicographer Dr Samuel Johnson frequented the rebuilt tavern regularly, while living in his townhouse on Gough Square.
It was thanks to St Bride’s Church, which was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1672, Fleet Street became the spiritual home of the UK media - the church drew ‘scribes’, who would copy books by hand prior to the introduction of printing, thus forging the street’s connection with the written word.
The popularity of newspapers grew in the early 19th Century and Fleet Street became home to papers such as The Times, Daily Express and The Daily Telegraph. While the giant printing presses were housed in the cavernous basements of buildings, some of which went down as deep as three floors, the whole street vibrated when the presses ran in the evening, printing the following day’s news. In the 1980s, the newspaper businesses started to leave the street, opting for electronic printing operations in Wapping. The last journalists left Fleet Street in 2016, when the Dundee-based Sunday Post closed its London office.
OUR HISTORY
OUR HISTORY
Fleet Street’s name today is synonymous with the newspaper industry, but the area’s links to the church and literary patrons run even deeper through its cultural history.
Documented as early as the 14th century, the Grade-II listed Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese tavern at 145 Fleet Street, is among the oldest in London. Despite being destroyed and rebuilt following the Great Fire of 1666, the pub remains a landmark of the area.
The literary associations to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese are closely linked to the Quarter’s rich heritage with regular patrons including Charles Dickens, John Milton, Mark Twain, P.G Wodehouse, Alfred Tennyson and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 18th-Century poet, playwright and revered lexicographer Dr Samuel Johnson frequented the rebuilt tavern regularly, while living in his townhouse on Gough Square.
It was thanks to St Bride’s Church, which was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1672, Fleet Street became the spiritual home of the UK media - the church drew ‘scribes’, who would copy books by hand prior to the introduction of printing, thus forging the street’s connection with the written word.
The popularity of newspapers grew in the early 19th Century and Fleet Street became home to papers such as The Times, Daily Express and The Daily Telegraph. While the giant printing presses were housed in the cavernous basements of buildings, some of which went down as deep as three floors, the whole street vibrated when the presses ran in the evening, printing the following day’s news. In the 1980s, the newspaper businesses started to leave the street, opting for electronic printing operations in Wapping. The last journalists left Fleet Street in 2016, when the Dundee-based Sunday Post closed its London office.
