Living in Soho: area guide to homes, schools and transport

Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood switched on the lights with a big shopping bonanza and street party and, with an eye to sustainability, the trust says everything in the display is made from recycled or repurposed materials and will be reused once Christmas is over for another year.

Soho has been scrubbing up nicely for decades, throwing out its sex shops and dubious haunts and consigning prostitution and shady dealing to the history books.

But an air of risqué living still hangs about this central London neighbourhood and it would be a loss for it not to feel slightly on the wrong side of the street, a bit dangerous, a bit still willing to deal.

This district is full of architectural surprises. Streets of Georgian houses, many adorned with blue plaques celebrating famous residents, and the area’s many theatres, townhouse clubs and independent cafés and restaurants, make this one of London’s most fascinating and lively places to live.

In recent years warehouse and office-to-residential conversions have brought new incomers, with the population doubling from less than 1,500 at the turn of the millennium to 3,000-plus today.

Estate agent CBRE says Soho is a magnet for young entrepreneurs and also for empty-nesters who have downsized from family homes in the suburbs.

About 57 per cent of homes are rented rather than owner-occupied. The delayed Crossrail project has left its fingerprint on the area. Derwent London is developing two enormous office buildings called 1 and 2 Soho Place over the new Tottenham Court Tube station on the corner of Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road, and a replacement 600-seat theatre for the lost Astoria, due to open in 2021.

Part of Oxford Street further west was torn down for a new entrance to the Tube station under Galliard’s Tottenham Court Road West scheme, causing some disruption to local businesses with The London Gin Club in the Star Café building in Great Chapel Street waiting a year for repairs to its flooded basement. Locals were not happy.

Soho’s biggest landlord Soho Estates, the company started by Paul Raymond of Raymond Revuebar strip club/theatre fame, is now run by his granddaughters Fawn James and India Rose James and recently completed the redevelopment of Walker’s Court, the once-seedy cut-through between Brewer Street and Berwick Street.

The scheme is described as a reimagining, with the Boulevard Theatre in what was The Comedy Store where Alexei Sayle, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders cut their comedy teeth; an extension to The Box nightclub and the reopening of the legendary Madame Jojo’s.

The iconic neon Raymond Revuebar sign has been reinstalled at the entrance on Brewer Street.

The Boulevard Theatre opened in October with a production of Dave Malloy’s song cycle Ghost Quartet to rave reviews.

Artistic director Rachel Edwards — who had the genius idea of staging a production of Sweeney Todd in a pie shop in Tooting, a show that transferred to the West End and then New York — recently announced the theatre’s 2020 programme that includes plays by Cormac McCarthy and revivals of plays by Athol Fugard, Lucy Prebble and Billy Roche.

Soho’s saddest sight, though, is the number of homeless people sleeping on its streets, some in tents precariously balanced on pallets.

The Evening Standard last month launched The Homeless Fund, a two-year campaign to tackle homelessness, while The House of St Barnabas, a private members’ club and charity dedicated to getting the homeless into work, has a “penny chute” at the corner of Soho Square and Greek Street where donors can post their loose change.

The property scene

There are fine Georgian houses in Soho. In D’Arblay Street, a four-bedroom example with traditional interior and roof terrace is for sale at £4.95 million, while in St Anne’s Court, Make Architects Timothy Tan and Christina Leung have given a strikingly modern interior makeover to a five-storey, four-bedroom Georgian house that’s on the market for £4.9 million.

Soho has many period conversions above ground-floor restaurants or shops, plus warehouse conversions and more recent office-to-residential schemes. At Soho Lofts in Richmond Mews, a two-bedroom warehouse is on the market priced £2.35 million.

New-build homes

Tottenham Court Road West is a Galliard development of 81 studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom flats in two blocks in Dean Street, one fronting Oxford Street, designed by architects Hawkins\Brown with interiors by Nicola Fontanella of Argent Design, who has worked for Madonna and Naomi Campbell.

Sales are off-plan for completion in summer 2022. Studios start at £975,000, with one-bedroom flats at £1,495,000, two-bedroom flats at £1.69 million and three-bedroom flats from £2.4 million. Call Galliard on 020 7620 1500.

First-time buyers

Westminster Home Ownership Accelerator gives Westminster residents up to £54,500 towards the cost of buying a home anywhere in London, following a period renting a subsidised flat, allowing them to accumulate savings.

In Lanhill Road in Maida Vale there are one-bedroom flats available at £1,007 a month and two-bedroom flats at £1,576.94 a month.

Renting in soho

This is popular pied-à-terre territory and with so many people working crazy hours in the restaurant industry there is always demand for rental homes in the area. Studios start at around £1,500 a month, with one-bedroom flats at around £2,000 a month and two-bedroom flats at about £2,500 a month.

Soho’s most impressive rental homes are the short-let flats — the minimum rental is 90 days — in Denman Place, next to Ham Yard Hotel, all of which are individually designed by the hotel’s Kit Kemp.

Rents start at £2,300 a week for a studio and range up to £6,500 a week for a three-bedroom duplex.

Transport

This central London district benefits from Underground stations at each of its four corners. Oxford Circus is on the Bakerloo, Central and Victoria lines; Tottenham Court Road is on the Central and Northern lines; Leicester Square is on the Northern and Piccadilly lines and Piccadilly Circus is on the Bakerloo and Piccadilly lines.

All stations are in Zone 1 and an annual travelcard costs £1,404.

Council

Westminster council is Conservative controlled. Band D council tax for 2019/2020 is £753.85.

Shops and restaurants

In the firmament that is Soho’s ever-changing eating and drinking scene, some things seem never to change. Italian delis, I Camisa & Son in Old Compton Street and Lina Stores in Brewer Street — the latter recently branched out with a restaurant in Greek Street — are stalwarts, along with coffee and tea merchant, Algerian Coffee Stores in Old Compton Street and French patisserie Maison Bertaux in Greek Street. Gone, though, and lamented are Hungarian restaurant The Gay Hussar, a Labour Party haunt which closed in May last year; and the Coach & Horses, now taken over by the Fuller’s pub chain, but once famous for “London’s rudest landlord” Norman Balon, and drinking legend, the late journalist Jeffrey Bernard.

Soho has two one-star Michelin restaurants: tapas restaurant Barrafina in Dean Street and Jason Atherton’s Social Eating House in Poland Street.

Other favourite restaurants are Levant-influenced The Palomar in Rupert Street; hot coals restaurants Blacklock in Great Windmill Street and Kiln in Brewer Street; Neil Borthwick – Angela Harnett’s other half – at the French House in Dean Street; Spanish restaurant Copita in D’Arblay Street; sleek and simple 10 Greek Street; Bao in Lexington Street, Peruvian Ceviche in Frith Street and romantic French bistro Andrew Edmunds, also in Lexington Street. Brasserie Zédel in Sherwood Street is part of Chris Corbin and Jeremy King’s empire.

The Groucho Club in Dean Street started the fashion for members clubs in Soho. Others followed, including Soho House in Greek Street and Blacks Club in Dean Street, where Dean Street Townhouse is a boutique hotel and all-day dining room.

Open space

Soho is a tightly packed urban area where the pattern of streets has remained largely unaltered since the 18th century. Soho Square and Golden Square are small pockets of green space where workers take their packed lunches on sunny days, but that is about it.

Green Park to the south can be a good 10-minute walk away from Soho.

Leisure and the arts

Soho is the centre of London’s theatreland and the addition of the Boulevard Theatre, an intimate new venue in Walker’s Court, is welcome. Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Frith Street has been going strong since 1959.

Primary

Soho Parish Primary School in Great Windmill Street is rated “good” by Ofsted.

The nearby “outstanding” primary school is St Clement Danes CofE in Drury Lane, Covent Garden. Other primaries nearby and rated “good” are All Souls CofE in Foley Street, Fitzrovia, and St Joseph’s RC in Macklin Street, Covent Garden.

Comprehensive

There are two “outstanding” girls’ state comprehensive schools and a sixth form college; they are: St Marylebone CofE (ages 11 to 18) in Marylebone High Street and, in Westminster, Grey Coat Hospital (ages 11 to 18) in Greycoat Place, and Harris Westminster Sixth Form (ages 16 to 18) in Tothill Street. Westminster City (boys, ages 11 to 18) in Palace Street in Westminster is judged “good”.

Further education

Fans of life-long learning are lucky with two specialist designated colleges offering a wide range of courses: CityLit in Keeley Street in Covent Garden and Mary Ward Centre in Queen Square in Holborn.

Private

Central London has a good choice of private schools, many catering for international families: École Jeannine Manuel (co-ed, ages three to 18) in Bedford Square in Bloomsbury is a French/English bilingual school; The Royal Ballet School (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) is in Floral Street, Covent Garden; EIFA International (co-ed, ages two to 18) in Portland Place, Marylebone, is another French/English bilingual school; Queen’s College (girls, ages four to 18) in Harley Street; Portland Place (co-ed, ages eight to 18) in Portland Place; Eaton Square Upper School, Mayfair (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Piccadilly; Wetherby Senior School (boys, ages 11 to 18) in Marylebone Lane; Southbank International (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) also in Portland Place and the high-achieving Westminster School (boys, ages 13 to 18, with girls in the sixth form) in Dean’s Yard.