Swallow Street

Swallow Street is a small street in the West End of London, running north from Piccadilly. It is about 341 feet (104 m) long.

The street was previously much longer and stretched as far north as Oxford Street. The first section of the street was built in 1671 as Swallow Close, and was named after the 16th-century tenant Thomas Swallow. On John Ogilby's map of London in 1681, it is shown as running as far as Beak Street, which continues to what is now Oxford Street.

Beak Street was developed by the end of the 17th century, and the road became known as Little Swallow Street as far as Glasshouse Street, then Swallow Street to Oxford Street, ending opposite Princes Street. It was the main road between Piccadilly and Oxford Street by the 18th century, and is marked as such on John Rocque's Map of London, 1746.

In 1815, the majority of the street was demolished to construct Regent Street, a modern thoroughfare designed by John Nash. The former line of Swallow Street is roughly now where properties on the west site of Regent Street are.

A small section of Swallow Street survives to the south, where Regent Street bends away at the Quadrant to reach Piccadilly Circus. The northern part of the street also survives as Swallow Passage and Swallow Place, parallel to the west of Regent Street.

Richard Baxter, a Puritan church leader, preached from rooms hired in Swallow Street between April and November 1676.Thomas Tenison, a future Archbishop of Canterbury, is recorded to have established a chapel of ease in Swallow Street in the late 17th century, during the 1680-1691 period of his incumbency of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and perhaps in response to the huge rise in the population of the parish, from 19,000 in 1660 to 69,000 in 1685.Thomas Frognall Dibdin for a time held a preachership at the chapel.

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