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The Aldwych in the Strand, London, was created in 1902 but had been mooted for the previous decade. When the plans were finally agreed a great swath of London's familiar streets were soon to disappear and along with them four of London's great Theatres were to disappear too. The new circular road scheme was named the Aldwych, after the old Wych Street which was one of the casualties of the new scheme. (Arthur Lloyd lived at 39 Wych Street for a short period in 1892.) Also created in the Aldwych scheme was the street now known as Kingsway which reaches all the way up from the Aldwych to Holborn.

Right - Wych Street, one of the casualties of the creation of the Aldwych in 1902 - Click for details.

The four Theatres which disappeared for the construction of the Aldwych were the Olympic Theatre in Wych Street and the Opera Comique in the Strand which were both closed in 1899; the Globe Theatre in Newcastle Street which closed in 1902; and the old Gaiety Theatre in the Strand which closed in June 1902, although the Gaiety would be rebuilt on a new prominent site at the head of the new Aldwych scheme and reopen in 1903. Two other new Theatres would also be constructed on the Aldwych to accompany the Gaiety; the Waldorf and Aldwych Theatres, which were built either side of the new Waldorf Hotel as one huge block in 1905.

There are some wonderful photographs of Wych Street and the surrounding area's demolition from a souvenir brochure published by the London County Council for the opening of Kingsway in 1905 here and here.

The Daily News published a report and a map detailing the proposed scheme in their 17th of August 1900 edition which I have transcribed below.

HOLBORN TO THE STRAND - WHAT THE NEW STREET WILL BE LIKE

From the Daily News, 17th August 1900

Nearly ten years ago, a direct thoroughfare between Holborn and the Strand began to be talked of, but those were the days of the old Metropolitan Board of Works, and talk was all that came of it, under that regime. In the fulness of time, the London County Council came into existence, and after it had settled down to its work, began to consider the ways and means of making the much-needed street. The greatly-debated "Betterment" principle was then introduced and led, with the claims of rival routes, to years of contention and delay. There is a huge official literature on the subject, collected in an immense book, adorned with a bewildering variety of plans, and published by the Council, to which the future hrstorian must bare recourse; but meanwhile, one route has prevailed over all others, property has been acquired, and a beginning has been made at the Strand end of the work.

Right - The Black Line marks the New Streets and the Property to be Acquired and
Demolished. The Tinted Areas indicate Clearances to be made.

The accompanying plans show the route taken by the new street, and the comprehensive character the improvement will assume. Beginning with the sweeping away of Holywell-street, and the inclusion of its site in the roadway of the Strand, the houses on the north side of the Strand, as far as Wellington-street, are to come down, and the new building line set back. At the same time, the land at the western end of St. Mary-leStrand will be thrown into the roadway, and St. Clement Danes will lose its churchyard for the public good. Wellington-street and the open space by St. Clements will be the two great points where the new street will (as seen by reference to the plan) receive and discharge its traffic east and west.

Above - The Original Gaiety Theatre, Strand, London, formerly the Strand Musick Hall - From 'The Sphere' 1950.

The property within the half-circle formed by the two arms is acquired by the Council, and, equally with that to be demolished for the thoroughfare itself, will be torn down and rebuilt. It is here, chiefly, that the interest centres. Within this space four theatres, a great newspaper office, enlarged not more than five years since, and that gaunt and dismal property called "New Inn" are to disappear.

The theatres are the Opera Comique, the Globe, the Olympic, and the Gaiety. Of these the only one with any pretensions to architectural qualities is the last-named, and it is to be rebuilt on a site allotted by the Council on the line of the new thoroughfare, as will also be the case with the "Morning Post" building. It will be noticed that the Lyceum Theatre will occupy a very striking position when these works are completed, fronting a broad, open space, with only a triangular plot (probably not to be built upon) facing it.

Right - A Programme for 'Joan Of Arc' at the Opera Comique in 1891 - Courtesy Ken Claydon - Click to see entire Programme.

Left - A Programme for 'The Glass Of Fashion' at The Royal Globe Theatre - Monday 26th November, 1883 - Click for details.

This western horn of the new street will afford ready communication with Waterloo-bridge, itself already too narrow for modern traffic, and certain to be inconveniently crowded when these works are completed, and when the Great Northern and Strand Electric Railway comes to its terminus close by.

Right - A Programme for 'The Acrobat' at the New Olympic Theatre, Wych Street, Strand in 1890 - Click to see entire Programme. The New Olypic Theatre was built by the respected Theatre Architect W. G. R Spraugue.

The straight course of the new street, from Stanhope-street away through the purlieus of Clare Market to Little Queen-street, Holborn, cuts through a most degraded neighbourhood. Just here, on either side, wide areas of slum property have already been cleared under the provisions of the Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890, at an estimated cost of £216,000, quite apart from the cost of the general improvement scheme. These clearances include the pulling down of Holles-street, Clare street, and the great insanitary area bounded by Stanhope-street, Stanhope-street, Drury-lane, Catherine-street, and White Hart and Blackmoor-streets.

Within the last few weeks a new thoroughfare has been driven through a part of this now vacant land, forming a continuation in a north-easterly direction of York-street, Covent-garden, into Drury-lane, over the ground partly occupied by that loathsome burial-ground in Russell-court, whose horrors were so poignantly described by Dickens in "Bleak House." Through this criss-cross maze of mean streets, which it is difficult to realise was a fashionable neighbourhood in the time of Charles the Second, the route penetrates a vaguely charted region of dingy warehouses and frowzy yards, coming suddenly upon the extensive premises of the Metropolitan Electric Supply Company, to be removed and rebuilt on another site. Finally Little Queen-street is reached, through the buildings of the Army Clothing Factory fronting Great Queen-street. The line of Little Queen-street will be followed and widened, chiefly on the East side, where the furnitute dealers most do congregate. The Holborn Restaurant, on the other side of the street, will remain untouched. Beyond the Holborn to Strand improvement, the Southampton-row widening, to a junction with Theobalds-road, takes up the tale, at a cost of £162,000.

Above - The Aldwych road scheme which was constructed in 1902/1903 and the Gaiety Theatre which fronted it, here shown in 1934 with Stanley Lupino and Laddie Cliff in 'Sporting Love' which ran for 302 performances.

The total cost of these huge works will entirely throw into insignificance the improvement schemes previously undertaken. In its thirty-three years of existence the Metropolitan Board of Works expended £11,500,000 in various projects, or at the rate of £348,000 per annum; but this scheme alone involves a total cost of £4,442,400 for land to be acquired. We must not, however, be too hard upon the old Board, for these things would have been quite impossible in its day. Those times were not ripe for the betterment principle, of which a modification is applied to the property improved by the present scheme; nor was London then so well able to bear the cost of such extensive public works. Not that the cost will in the present case be great, according to the calculation of the County Council; for recoupment by building leases and sales of land is estimated to bring back the whole of those four millions and nearly a half, with the exception of £354,100. To this cost must be added the necessary expenditure for rehousing the working-classes dislodged in these demolition, a sum estimated at £300,000, thus bringing the net cost to the ratepayers to £774,100. For this sum London will obtain a sorely-needed main channel of communication between those two great east to west arteries of traffic, Holborn and the Strand, and may obtain, in the buildings to rise on either side of it, a street worthy of this Imperial city. But such things are yet upon the knees of the gods. With fine thoroughfares like Shaftesbury-avenue and Charing Cross-road lined with wretched old houses or vulgar, flaunting, modern ginshops, we must not speak with too sure a voice of the future of a street yet in themaking.

The above article was first published in The Daily News, 17 August 1900.

There are some wonderful photographs of Wych Street and the surrounding area's demolition from a souvenir brochure published by the London County Council for the opening of Kingsway in 1905 here and here.

Archive newspaper reports on this page were collated and kindly sent in for inclusion by B.F.