I was asked to write a short introduction to the chapter on the neighbourhood of St Giles in a forthcoming publication by the Central District Alliance, our local Business Improvement District. My text is below.
St Giles owes its existence to a great crossroads - one where business interests and charitable concerns meet. Traders making their way along the Great Northern, Great Western and Oxford Roads met at this junction, in the fields between the cities of London and Westminster. An ideal location to build a leper hospital, which relied on donations from wealthy merchants to meet its running costs. The church attached to the hospital since its foundation in 1101 and dedicated to St Giles, gave its name to the neighbourhood which grew up around it.
The changing fortunes of this place can be summed up as a story of plagues, poets and pop stars – an epicentre of the Great Plague of London with connections to talented writers including Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein - and home to England’s ‘Tin Pan Alley’ where Elton John, David Bowie and The Rolling Stones wrote and recorded songs.
This chapter offers a snippet of this changing history - which is part of my own DNA. Descendants of Irish immigrants, my great-grandparents lived in an overcrowded room on Neal Street. The building later became the birthplace of Punk music and is now an artisan bakery!
Today St Giles is home to a diverse range of businesses - from global tech brands to innovative AI startups, major retail chains and exclusive boutique shops. It’s a hub for creative businesses serving theatres and film making and home to countless universities, colleges and schools.
It’s also a place of great need - attracting people who are homeless, suffering from addiction and poor mental health. The St Giles and St George Charity, now a separate organisation from the church but run by a board comprised of its members, is one of the areas largest charitable benefactors.
No longer surrounded by fields, St Giles is now a neighbourhood at the centre of the city. Despite all the changes over the last nine hundred years it remains a great crossroads - one where business interests and charitable concerns meet - and where all who pass through are warmly welcomed.
Reverend Phillip Dawson,
Curate, St Giles-in-the-Fields
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