Leicester Street

Leicester Street links the north-west corner of Leicester Square towards Lisle Street, on the southern fringe of Soho. It was laid out as part of the development of the Leicester estate in the late seventeenth century. The bricklayer Richard Frith, who also laid out Soho Square, was the principal contractor for Lord Leicester, and the contemporary houses in Lisle Street, Leicester Street and the surrounding ground were built under leases granted from the 1680s.

In the early 1690s the southern part of the parish counted Gerrard Street as the best inhabited, with Leicester Square and Leicester and Lichfield Streets following close behind. As the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries passed, the private houses gave way to shops, commercial offices and hotels, many bearing French names and serving the French visitors for whom Leicester Square was a convenient base.

Today Leicester Street sits within easy reach of both the cinemas and crowds of Leicester Square and the Chinese restaurants and shops that define neighbouring Lisle Street and Chinatown. It remains a working connecting street, used by those moving between the square and the older parts of Soho around Greek Street.