Qualla: Fitzrovia https://qualla.com/fitzrovia en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:14 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/fitzrovia-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Fitzrovia https://qualla.com/fitzrovia Fitzrovia: Introduction https://qualla.com/fitzrovia/ Photo credit Westminster City Council, CC BY-SA 4.0. The name "Fitzrovia" was born on a pub crawl. Sometime in the early 1940s, a Sri Lankan poet named Meary James Thurairajah Tambimuttu — known simply as "Tambi" — was guiding the writer Julian MacLaren-Ross through a circuit of Charlotte Street taverns when he gestured at the surrounding streets and declared them "Fitzrovia." The name stuck, though the neighbourhood it described had no official boundaries, no administrative existence, and to this day appears on no government map. What it has, instead, is a century of extraordinary residents and a stubborn genius for reinvention.

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Image: Westminster City Council | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/fitzrovia-wp/gcpv-fitzrovia-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Fitzrovia: Son of a King's Bastard https://qualla.com/fitzrovia/ Photo credit Sobranie-Cocktail, Public domain. The streets of Fitzrovia carry the names of their aristocratic landowners like a genealogical puzzle. The FitzRoy family — whose surname is Norman-French for "son of the king" — derived from Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton, an illegitimate son of Charles II and Barbara Villier...

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Image: Sobranie-Cocktail | Public domain

]]> Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/fitzrovia-wp/gcpv-fitzrovia-son-of-a-kings-bastard.mp3 0:06 2 full Fitzrovia: Where the Bohemians Drank https://qualla.com/fitzrovia/ Photo credit User:Mahlum, Public domain. By the 1930s, Fitzrovia had developed a second identity as London's bohemian quarter, cheaper than Soho and less respectable than Bloomsbury. Virginia Woolf lived at 29 Fitzroy Square from 1907 to 1911, before her Bloomsbury years. Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine had lived on Ho...

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Image: User:Mahlum | Public domain

]]> Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/fitzrovia-wp/gcpv-fitzrovia-where-the-bohemians-drank.mp3 0:06 3 full Fitzrovia: The Tower That Lost Its Top https://qualla.com/fitzrovia/ Photo credit David Castor (dcastor), Public domain. Fitzrovia's most visible landmark today is the BT Tower on Cleveland Street, one of London's tallest structures. For a time it had a revolving restaurant at the top, open to the public — until a bomb exploded there in October 1971, claimed by the Angry Brigade, a far-left anarchi...

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Image: David Castor (dcastor) | Public domain

]]> Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/fitzrovia-wp/gcpv-fitzrovia-the-tower-that-lost-its-top.mp3 0:06 4 full Fitzrovia: The People Live Here https://qualla.com/fitzrovia/ Photo credit Thomas Nugent, CC BY-SA 2.0. Fitzrovia's identity nearly dissolved in the 1960s and 1970s as offices consumed its housing stock and the bohemian community dispersed. The recovery came from an unlikely source: a local festival. In 1973, organizers seeking to reclaim the district as a residential neighbourhood...

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Image: Thomas Nugent | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/fitzrovia-wp/gcpv-fitzrovia-the-people-live-here.mp3 0:06 5 full Fitzrovia: Charlotte Street and Its Descendants https://qualla.com/fitzrovia/ Photo credit Thomas Nugent, CC BY-SA 2.0. Charlotte Street became the spine of British advertising for much of the 20th century, home to agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi and TBWA, and it remains thick with restaurants. The fashion industry, once the dominant trade of the area's warehouses and workshops, gave way to m...

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Image: Thomas Nugent | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/fitzrovia-wp/gcpv-fitzrovia-charlotte-street-and-its-descendants.mp3 0:06 6 full