Gerrard Place

Gerrard Place is the short street at the eastern end of Gerrard Street, running down towards Shaftesbury Avenue and Newport Place. It sits within the cluster of streets, including Gerrard Street, Lisle Street, Macclesfield Street, Newport Place and Dansey Place, that together form London's Chinatown.

The wider area takes its name and street pattern from the development of the 1670s and 1680s on land once held by Charles Gerard, 1st Earl of Macclesfield. For its first centuries this was a fashionable then increasingly mixed quarter of coffee houses, taverns and nightlife. The Chinese community established itself here from the 1950s, after the earlier Chinatown in Limehouse declined; cheap rents and a taste for Chinese food among servicemen returning from the Far East drew restaurants, supermarkets and other businesses to the streets around Gerrard Street.

From the late 1980s Gerrard Street and parts of the surrounding lanes were pedestrianised, and Chinese gates, street furniture and a pagoda were installed. Gerrard Place carries traffic and foot trade at the edge of that pedestrian zone, marking the boundary between Chinatown and the theatres of Shaftesbury Avenue. Its restaurants and shops form part of the same Chinatown economy.