Chenies Street

Chenies Street is a street in Bloomsbury, London, that runs between Tottenham Court Road and Gower Street. It is the location of a number of notable buildings such as Minerva House, the Drill Hall and a memorial to The Rangers, 12th County of London Regiment. North Crescent starts and ends on the northern side of Chenies Street.

Chenies Street runs between Tottenham Court Road in the west and Gower Street in the east. Alfred Place joins the street on its south side, Huntley Street on the north, and Ridgmount Gardens/Ridgmount Street crosses the street at its eastern end. North Crescent is on the northern side of the street.

Chenies Street was built around 1776 on land belonging to the Bedford Estate. It was named after Chenies Manor in Buckinghamshire, originally owned by Anne Sapcote, who was the wife of John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford. Before Chenies Street was built, Cox's Gardens was located at the eastern end of the plot. Chenies Street has been extensively changed since it was first laid out, being rebuilt in the mid-nineteenth century and again in the twentieth century on the north side.

The writer Fanny Burney (1752–1840) lived at 23 Chenies Street in 1812–13.

Watchmaker Thomas Earnshaw (1749–1829) died at his home in the street.

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909), whose literary works scandalised Victorian Britain, lived at 12 North Crescent.

East to west:

Minerva House in North Crescent is a former car showroom and workshop that is a Grade II listed building with English Heritage. It is now a media agency. The building was designed by George Vernon in Portland stone ashlar for the Minerva Motor Company, 1912–13. The Minerva company originated in Belgium as a manufacturer of bicycles, before branching out into early forms of motorbikes and then motor cars. Charles Rolls was a Minerva dealer in England. The design of the building includes three large bays on the ground floor flanked by two entrance ways each marked Minerva House. Above are three storeys of offices with a statue of Minerva on the top floor. The building and the rest of the crescent once looked out on to gardens until the deep-level shelter was built during the Second World War.

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