Oxford Street has long been London’s most famous street, famed for its shopping. Now, many Londoners argue that it’s the busiest and most crowded places in the city, full to the brim with shoppers hitting the stretch of deals awaiting.
But despite Oxford Street’s reputation as the busiest shopping destination in the city, what many people may not know is its long and fascinating history that spans all the way back to Roman London and that even takes a gruesome turn.
A Roman road
Long before Oxford Street became an iconic shopping destination, it was originally part of the Roman road Via Trinobantina which ran from Essex to Hampshire via London and became one of the major routes to get in and out of Roman London. The name was taken from a local tribe that previously ruled the area prior to the Roman invasion of London. Via Trinobantina served as an open-air market where goods such as cattle, wine, fish, fabrics and vegetables were sold alongside money trading/lending.
A gory Middle Ages
During the Middle Ages the road became known as Tyburn Road and was named after a village that stood at the intersection between Edgware Road and Oxford Street, right by the Marble Arch. This junction was the site of the Tyburn Gallows, otherwise known as the Tyburn Tree, where numerous criminals were publicly executed and met their gruesome end.
Prisoners who were sentenced to death would have arrived from Newgate Prison located just inside the City of London and made their way through Tyburn Road to reach the wooden gallows. The journey from the prison to the Tyburn Tree could take up to three hours as the roads would be full of onlookers hoping to get a final look at the prisoners condemned to death. The execution and the parading of the prisoners were to act as deterrents to crime so spectators were welcomed on execution days, and huge crowds were typical. Viewing platforms were even made to give a better view of the execution for those who could afford to pay for their place on the platforms.
During the 1570’s it was recorded that 704 prisoners lost their lives at the Tyburn Tree, for crimes ranging from murder to stealing cattle. In 1759 the structure was taken down and replaced with a gallows that could be put up and dismantled whenever needed until 1873 when the last execution at the Tree took place.
A plaque on the ground by Marble Arch commemorates where the gallows used to stand. The Tyburn Convent located just off of Marble Arch is a place of devotion for the Catholic martyrs of the Reformation, some of whom met their deadly end just around the corner at the Tyburn Tree. Within the Convent, you can find relics of some of those who lost their lives at the Tree including bones, blood-stained linen, hair, and even fingernails at the shrine in the basement.
The reputation of Tyburn Road as a place where hangings would regularly take place, along with the bear baiters and rowdy theatres on the road, meant that it was a place where the middle and upper classes would avoid. During this period, most of the area was residential and filled with slums and poor housing.
London’s very own Pantheon
Did you know that London had a building that rivalled Rome’s Pantheon? Designed by James Wyatt, the Pantheon on Oxford Street opened in 1772 and was a place of entertainment for high society, including foreign ambassadors, dukes, and duchesses. As you can figure, the building’s architecture was inspired by the Roman Pantheon and had its own central dome interior in the main rotunda that guests would marvel at as they entered. A fire in 1792 had burnt the building to the ground and was rebuilt in 1795, although it never managed to regain the same success it once had.
After a short stint as a bazaar, the building was demolished again to make way for a branch of Marks and Spencer which opened in 1938 and signaled the street’s new period as a retail destination. The building still stands tall in that very same spot with numerous extensions and rebuilds over the years and has become somewhat of a landmark on Oxford Street. Only the façade has remained the same, along with the little nod to its history from the sign of The Pantheon atop of the building.