15 Facts About Fitzrovia

Fitzrovia is a district of central London, England, near the West End.

Fitzrovia has never been an administrative unit, so has never had formal boundaries applied, but the somewhat grid-like pattern of local streets has lent itself to informal quadrangular definitions, with Euston Road to the north, Oxford Street to the south and Great Portland Street to the west.

Fitzrovia is named after either Fitzroy Square or the Fitzroy Tavern, a public house situated on the corner of Charlotte Street and Windmill Street .

Name Fitzrovia came into use in the late 1930s among an artistic, bohemian circle that were among the pub's customers.

Core area of Fitzrovia has its roots in the ancient manor of Tottenham Court – first recorded as Þottanheale, from a charter from around AD 1000 .

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Much of Fitzrovia was developed by minor landowners, and this led to a predominance of small and irregular streets – in comparison with neighbouring districts like Marylebone and Bloomsbury, which were dominated by one or two landowners, and were thus developed more schematically, with stronger grid patterns and a greater number of squares.

Site of the Middlesex Hospital, a large part of Fitzrovia, had been acquired by the property developer Candy and Candy which demolished the hospital to make way for a housing and retail development called Fitzroy Place.

Fitzrovia was a notable artistic and bohemian centre from roughly from the mid-1920s to the present day.

Fitzrovia is the location of Pollock's Toy Museum, home to erstwhile Toy Theatre, at 1 Scala Street.

Fitzrovia Chapel, in Pearson Square, is a Grade II* listed building which hosts exhibitions throughout the year.

Books about Fitzrovia include: London's Old Latin Quarter, by E Beresford Chancellor, published by Jonathan Cape, 1930; Fitzrovia, by Nick Bailey, published by Historical Publications, 1981,.

In October 2014, The Fitzrovia Partnership teamed up with local resident Griff Rhys Jones to create the Dylan Thomas in Fitzrovia festival, a week of poetry, art and comedy across the area, celebrating the life and times of Dylan Thomas in the area.

Name Fitzrovia was revived when the first Fitzrovia Festival was held in 1973.

The adoption of the name by the campaign groups, covering self-defined areas, meant the name Fitzrovia became applied to a fairly well defined area, one larger than that to which it was once loosely applied.

An advice and information service and community projects, including the annual Fitzrovia Festival, are delivered from the Neighbourhood Centre.