Charing Cross Road is located in London´s West End just to the west of Covent Garden. It is a book lover´s paradise, a musician’s candy store – the literary and musical history of this street is buzzing from the moment you walk the pavement. Once the book centre of the world, Charing Cross Road is infamous for being a place where book lovers and musicians flock to find, buy and sell special equipment and fables. Best known for its antique bookshops, you can only begin to imagine the variety of characters that have lost hours in a day scouring the shelves for an old copy of To Kill A Mockingbird or a first edition Jane Austen or Dickens or……whatever they can get their hands on! For those that are serious about books and authors alike, it’s an unworldly experience - a trip back in literary time.
Starting at Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross Road runs north to Oxford Street where it ends and becomes Tottenham Court Road. Take a bus all the way, or you can jump on the Underground from Leicester Square Tube Station, right in the heart of the West End. Along the way, party lovers will find Astoria, the music venue home to the dance music night, G-A-Y, delicious cafes and restaurants, Phoenix Theatre, amongst others, and of course specialised bookstores for art, crime, romance, sport, comics and music. The northern end of Charing Cross Road, near St Giles Circus, houses the modern bookstores like Borders, Foyles and Blackwells, for those with something specific in mind.
Not to be over-shadowed by books, on nearby Denmark Street, nicknamed in the 1920´s “Tin Pan Ally”, there are some of the best music stores in Europe. This street has been attracting musicians since the early 1900´s. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix have all recorded at some stage in the streets´ basements. The music bookstore Helter Skelter is a must on any music lovers list of ¨to do´s¨. What was first the Regent Sounds Studio for the likes of Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix, The Kinks and the Rolling Stones, then a comic bookstore from the late 70´s, it reopened in 1995 as Helter Skelter. Anyone with a passion, or obsession!, for music and its history must experience this library of music gold.
With such an artistic mix in one long street, and its surroundings, you can’t help but smile and feel like you have stepped back in time as you enter a bookstore on Charing Cross Road. And as you stroll down Denmark Street, you may just find yourself humming the tune to Your Song, as written by Elton John on the rooftops of Tin Pan Ally.
Charing Cross Road is without a doubt one of the busiest, most eclectic and interesting streets in the West End.
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