20 Frith Street

20 Frith Street is a building in the Soho district of London. It is located on the east side of Frith Street, close to the junction with Old Compton Street. The building which currently occupies the site of 20 Frith Street was built in 1858 by William Coorze to replace a house which dated from c1725, which itself may have replaced an even earlier building.

When the house was built in around 1725 there were fewer houses in the street (which for a period was named Thrift Street), because the north end was taken up by Monmouth House. At the time, the grounds of Monmouth House (now demolished) extended from the south side of Soho Square to Queen Street (now Bateman Street); and so during some of the eighteenth century the house's address was 15 Thrift Street. The most famous inhabitant at this address was Wolfgang Mozart, who lived there aged eight from September 1764 during his grand tour of Europe with his father and his sister.

The site gained its current address of No. 20 Frith Street some time after 1773 when Monmouth House was pulled down, and more houses began to be built on its former grounds at the north end of the street. The eighteenth-century building at No. 20 was demolished and rebuilt in 1858, and since 1930 it has served as the stage door entrance for the Prince Edward Theatre situated on Old Compton Street. A blue plaque commemorates Mozart's stay.

The house which formerly occupied the present site of No. 20 was built in about 1725–6, when it was occupied by Lewis Aubert, a wine merchant.

The 18th-century house was described in the 1966 Survey of London:

"Quite apart from its association with Mozart, it is of interest as one of the best early eighteenth-century fronts known to have existed in the street. Built of brick, it was four storeys high and three windows wide, although the fourth storey may have been a later addition. The windows had segmental gauged arches and the jambs were probably dressed with red brick, while within the openings were slightly recessed boxframes. There was no bandcourse between the second and third storeys, but above the latter was a moulded brick cornice returned at either end. A shop front had been inserted in the ground storey in the early or mid nineteenth century."

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