175-9 Oxford St, now a retail and office development, was in 1912 the site of the world’s first ever motor museum, and included Britain’s first ever petrol-engined car, the 1894 Bremer.
Next to the Coliseum theatre this 200 yard alley connects St.Martin’s Lane and Bedfordbury. Just 15 inches wide at its narrowest point (a London record) only one person at a time can use it!
This is London’s oldest live music venue and jazz club. It opened during the war in 1942. Many of its earliest performers and patrons were American soldiers, including Glen Miller.
The Coliseum opened in 1904 as a ‘people’s palace of entertainment’. During WW2 it became a canteen for air raid wardens, and Winston Churchill once addressed them from the theatre stage.
