This Month’s Magazine
Street features
Every Covent Garden Street has its own history, some more desirable than others.
Please select street below and meet some of Covent Garden’s characters over the years.
- Please choose a street from the below -
Portugal Street
Portugal Street today lies south of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, branching off from the busy Kingsway, yet the origins of its name lie in an ancient nearby thoroughfare known as Portugal Row which was named after Catherine of Braganza (1638-1705) queen consort of Charles II and daughter of John IV of Portugal.
Historical records show that Catherine, a Roman Catholic whose dowry included Bombay and Tangier, was never popular with the people. English Conspirator Titus Oates even accused her of plotting to poison the King, however Charles protected her from these accusations.
Portugal Street has a rich theatrical history dating back to 1660 when Sir William D’Avenant opened the Lincoln’s Inn Theatre (or Duke’s Theatre as it was known in its early days) on the site of an indoor tennis court. It was renowned for being the first London Theatre to have a proscenium arch and the first to use movable and changeable scenery. Its fame was cut short when D’Avenant’s company moved away in 1671 after which the site was used as a temporary home for Thomas Killigrew’s company. The building later reverted to use for tennis until 1695 when it was refitted as a theatre by Actor Thomas Betterton, Playwright William Congreve, Mrs Bracegirdle and Mrs Barry, opening with Congreve’s Love for Love. Later, Congreve’s successful The Mourning Bride was first produced here. In 1714 the theatre was refitted by John Rich and hosted the first ever pantomime, rising to fame again in 1728 with John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera. The theatre was later used as a barracks, an auction room and a china warehouse. It was demolished in 1848 to make way for an extension to the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.
Portugal Street is also noted for its colourful resident, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester and English Poet who lived next door to the theatre in the mid 1600s. Wilmot was notorious; in the words of Samuel Johnson, "in a course of drunken gaiety and gross sensuality... with an avowed contempt of decency and order, a total disregard to every moral... he lived worthless and useless, and blazed out his youth and health in lavish voluptuousness". Courage against the Dutch at sea made Wilmot a hero and, although his life was short, his lively and somewhat obscene writings are still admired today, most of his poetry not having been published under his name until after his death.
Portugal Street is also recorded as being the last place in London to have stocks which remained here until 1820 whilst the public house at No. 28 is a successor to the Magpie and Stump which Pickwick visits in the Pickwick Papers.
After the building of Kingsway, the block between Portugal Street and Sardinia Street was taken up by American impresario Oscar Hammerstein’s magnificent London Opera House in 1911. Designed by Bertie Crewe, it was a failure as a house for opera and in 1916 was transformed into a cinema by Sir Oswald Stoll. In the 1950s, a mixed programme was restored to the theatre with productions including over 600 performances of Kismet and Titus Andronicus with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh.
In 1957-60, the theatre was rebuilt as part of an office block to fulfil London County Council requirements and was reopened as a theatre in 1970, boasting ‘infra-dig’ rosewood panelling, a stained glass mural and Aztec-influenced mosaic sculptures on the canopy. The theatre later presented the Paul Raymond revues Birds of a Feather and Oh! Calcutta. This period left trapdoors in the auditorium ceiling (the ‘tart-traps’) for airborne entrances and a dolphin tank (complete with dolphins Penny and Pixie) beneath the stage. The dolphins themselves have since passed into legend as the only ghosts the theatre boasts! Currently owned by the London School of Economics, the theatre, now renamed the Peacock after a major donation from a former alumnus, is a lecture theatre by day and home of Sadler’s Wells’ West End programme by night. Its 60s décor has been replaced by bold new styling in the bars and front of house areas although the intriguing stained glass mural has survived in the Circle bar.
