Lower James Street

Lower James Street runs into the south side of Golden Square, in the western part of Soho. It is one of four streets named after James Axtell and John Emlyn, the joint owners of Gelding Close when the licence to build was granted in 1673. James Axtell, who employed the carpenter of that name, gave his own name to Upper and Lower James Streets on the eastern side, while John Emlyn named the John Streets to the west.

Golden Square first appeared in 1675, built on land leased from the Crown by Sir William Pulteney. At the partition of Gelding Close that year, all the ground on both sides of Lower James Street fell to James Axtell, and in 1684 fifty-one-year leases of the eastern ground were granted to a group of builders. The square and its approaches drew foreign envoys in the eighteenth century, and by 1900 the area was a centre of the woollen and worsted trade.

Lower James Street is a short connecting street, given over to offices, restaurants and bars, a few steps from the calm of Golden Square and the shops around Brewer Street.