Soho takes its name from an old hunting cry shouted across royal fields
Long before the theatres, jazz clubs and film studios, Soho was farmland that Henry VIII seized in 1536 as a royal hunting park. Its name, first recorded around 1636, comes from a huntsman's call, the same shout the Duke of Monmouth used to rally his troops at Sedgemoor in 1685.
In the Middle Ages the fields belonged partly to Abingdon Abbey and partly to a Leicestershire hospital order that ran a leper house at St Giles. After Henry VIII took them for the Palace of Whitehall, the Crown sold them off in pieces: Queen Mary disposed of about 7 acres in 1554, most of the rest went between 1590 and 1623, and Charles II sold the last 2 acres in 1676. In the 1660s the Earl of St Albans leased most of Soho Fields to Joseph Girle, who handed the building work to the bricklayer Richard Frith. Soho Square was laid out in the 1680s for wealthy residents, and a new parish of St Anne was created in 1687.
The aristocrats had mostly left by the mid-19th century, and in 1854 the district suffered a severe cholera outbreak. Entertainment moved in instead. The Windmill Theatre, Paul Raymond's Revuebar, the 2i's Coffee Bar and the Marquee Club made it a nightlife hub, Trident Studios recorded there, and nearby Denmark Street filled with music publishers and instrument shops. Restaurants such as Kettner's drew celebrities, and Chinatown grew up around Gerrard Street next door.
Through much of the 20th century Soho was known for its sex industry as well as for film companies, and it remains the heart of Britain's independent film business, with the British Board of Film Classification and Twentieth Century Fox's UK headquarters. Since the 1980s gentrification has brought upmarket restaurants and media offices, leaving only traces of the old trade, while Old Compton Street anchors London's best-known gay village.
Soho has never had official borders. By convention it covers about one square mile between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road, the last three all 19th-century additions. Its name has travelled: Hong Kong's SoHo lies south of Hollywood Road, New York's south of Houston Street with a nod to London, and Málaga has its own Soho quarter.
Source: Soho
