Fitzrovia News

All Souls School winter fair 2019

2:50 pm, Tuesday, 3 December 2019

All Souls Primary School is holding its annual winter fair this Friday and promises lots of festive and fun activities. There will be lots of stalls to choose from with cakes, popcorn, savoury food, mulled wine and hot chocolate among the many treats on offer. There will [...]

Pub signs of Prince Andrew “are going nowhere” says landlord

1:31 pm, Monday, 25 November 2019

A Fitzrovia pub is gaining a lot of attention over the past week for all the wrong reasons. For the past five years the Duke of York in Rathbone Street has had two large images of Prince Andrew emblazoned on the outside of the building after special permission was granted [...]

Gower Street resurfacing and a confusing set of diversions

12:07 pm, Monday, 25 November 2019

People living on Grafton Way as well as staff and patients at University College Hospital are taking the brunt of the current traffic diversions as Camden Council’s West End Project grinds towards its final act. The air on TfL’s gyratory around the hospital is [...]

Museum is keeping the drama of toy theatre alive with a new exhibition

6:59 am, Monday, 4 November 2019

A special exhibition featuring 14 artists will reflect on the unique collection of dolls, teddy bears, and toy theatres, at Pollock’s Toy Museum in Fitzrovia this month. A Pollock’s Gallimaufry will be a month long event showing works by contemporary artists [...]

Local councillor takes a step closer in contest to become an MP

1:49 pm, Friday, 1 November 2019

A local councillor has made it on to the “long list” of Labour candidates to fight the Cities of London and Westminster parliamentary constituency in December’s general election, reports LabourList. Pancho Lewis, who was first elected last year to [...]

Photographic exhibition revisits Booth’s survey of a district

10:52 am, Tuesday, 29 October 2019

A new exhibition takes a contemporary look through the lens of a camera at the people and places in a London district first described by social reformer Charles Booth more than a century ago. John Angerson, an award-winning photographer and artist in residence at the Old [...]

Ten days of events take off in a moon-gazing celebration of Bloomsbury

10:24 am, Friday, 11 October 2019

The first events of the Bloomsbury Festival are launched today with a moonlight street party in Store Street to celebrate the 50 years since the first moon landing — the theme for this year’s festival. There will be 10 days of events, many of them free, taking [...]

Film: Reclaim housing as a human right, not a commodity

2:03 pm, Thursday, 10 October 2019

The increasing cost of housing and the lack of homes for ordinary people is happening because the wishes of global capital are serviced over and above the needs of the many. As Architects for Social Housing have observed: “Building more homes does not push house and [...]

Bloomsbury, Fitzrovia and the origins of eugenics

7:59 am, Friday, 4 October 2019

In the first of a new two-part documentary on BBC Four, science journalist Angela Saini and disability rights activist Adam Pearson take a walk around Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia to discover the people and the institutions behind the controversial idea that the human race can [...]

Powell’s film masterpiece set in a shadowy Fitzrovia on big screen

6:33 pm, Thursday, 3 October 2019

One of British cinema’s most controversial films, and which was shot on location in and around Rathbone Street in Fitzrovia, will be screened on Friday and followed by a Q&A. Peeping Tom (1960) nearly ruined director Michael Powell’s career after it was [...]

Crucial decisions on ‘Oxford Street District’ by Westminster council sound alarm bells for community groups

1:15 pm, Wednesday, 2 October 2019

Community groups in Fitzrovia and Marylebone are bracing themselves for another battle with Westminster council in advance of crucial decisions being taken on the future of Oxford Street this autumn and winter. While full pedestrianisation of Oxford Street is off the agenda [...]

TfL limits buses to 10mph on Tottenham Court Road after ‘a number of collisions’ with pedestrians

11:16 pm, Tuesday, 1 October 2019

More than five months after Tottenham Court Road changed from one-way to two-way traffic a woman has become the fourth person to be struck by a southbound bus on the same pedestrian crossing. The woman, who has not been named, was hit by a route 29 bus operated by Arriva [...]

Greenery at public open space will be slashed under refurbishment plans

10:44 am, Wednesday, 25 September 2019

Camden Council has signed off plans that will see greenery cut back at Whitfield Gardens public open space in what the local authority says is an effort to save money on maintenance and stamp out public nuisance. It is only eight years since Whitfield Gardens on Tottenham [...]

Architects and engineers can play their part against climate change and habitat loss

10:54 am, Monday, 23 September 2019

Friday’s climate strike saw thousands of adults join the movement started by young people taking action against climate change and species extinction. These included many architects and engineers in Fitzrovia. “More than 100 assembled outside London’s [...]

Fitzrovia business owner says high rents and rates, and Crossrail delay, is putting her business at risk

9:04 pm, Wednesday, 18 September 2019

A Fitzrovia shop owner appeared on BBC’s Inside Out London programme this week to explain how the delay in the opening of Crossrail is affecting her business. Rowena Howie told BBC reporter Tom Edwards that she opened her shop Revival Retro in Fitzrovia in the hope [...]

Westminster council announces consultation on 20 mph limit

9:48 pm, Tuesday, 17 September 2019

Westminster council has finally a got around to consider a 20 miles per hour speed limit across the city with the announcement this week of a public consultation on the plans. If given the go ahead it will mean an end to the two different speed limits in operation on [...]

‘Lost murals’ from Camden Town Hall go on sale at auction

11:03 am, Tuesday, 17 September 2019

A collection of “lost murals” which depict images from the former borough of St Pancras are going on sale at auction next week, reports Spitalfields Life. The three oil paintings which measure nearly six foot by six foot are by artist Cecil Osborne (1909-1996) [...]

Comedy festival brings Edinburgh Fringe acts back to Fitzrovia pub

10:47 pm, Saturday, 14 September 2019

On Wednesday 18 September the “Objectively Funny Festival” returns to the Albany pub on Great Portland Street with acts from all over the comedy spectrum for a marathon 42 shows over 12 days. The festival will be fresh from Objectively Funny’s success as a [...]

Pedestrian crossing on Tottenham Court Road has become a collision hot spot

12:18 pm, Wednesday, 11 September 2019

A light-controlled crossing on Tottenham Court Road has become a collision hot spot after three pedestrians were seriously injured after being struck by buses in almost identical circumstances. Since April emergency services and collision investigators have attended the [...]

Dear Marie Stopes: ‘birth-control opera’ returns as a powerful melodic reminder

9:10 pm, Friday, 6 September 2019

‘Please help me!’ This heart-breaking refrain from Alex Mills’ chamber opera Dear Marie Stopes is drawn from the thousands of letters which Stopes received after her sex manual Married Love was published in 1918. The opera had its stunning premier last year at the [...]