As well as ’The Muffin Man’ who lived on Drury Lane, according to the famous nursery rhyme, the road was the location of the very first J Sainsbury store which opened in 1869.
But the street is much older – it originated as an early medieval lane which connected St Giles Hospital for lepers with the fields of Aldwych Close which were owned by the hospital.
Suffolk barrister Sir Robert Drury built a mansion called Drury House on the lane in the 1500s. After the death of his great-great-grandson (another Robert Drury) the property became the London house of the Earl of Craven. After that it was a pub called the Queen of Bohemia, his reputed mistress. The remains of the house, which had been progressively demolished, were finally cleared in 1809.
The site of the houses and gardens were built over as Drury Lane had become one of the worst slums in London, dominated by prostitution and gin palaces.
Things changed in 1905, when the eastern end was cleared to make way for the developments of Kingsway and the Aldwych.
The western end contained the ’Theatre Royal, Drury Lane’ even before 1905 when theatregoers and slum dwellers were located next to one another.
