Qualla: Piccadilly https://qualla.com/piccadilly en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/piccadilly-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Piccadilly https://qualla.com/piccadilly Piccadilly: Introduction https://qualla.com/piccadilly/ Photo credit Victor Grigas, CC BY-SA 2.0. The street owes its name to a collar. Around 1611, a tailor named Robert Baker bought land here and prospered making piccadills — stiff decorative collars fashionable among the wealthy. He built a house called Pikadilly Hall. The name stuck to the street long after Baker died, the collars went out of fashion, and the stately homes of the aristocracy replaced his modest development. Cities remember what people forget to erase.

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Image: Victor Grigas | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/piccadilly-wp/gcpv-piccadilly-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Piccadilly: The Road to Reading https://qualla.com/piccadilly/ Photo credit Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0. Before it had a name, the route was known as the road to Reading or the way from Colnbrook — a practical description of a road heading west out of London. It has been a main thoroughfare since at least medieval times, predating London's growth beyond its walls. By 1663, the stree...

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Image: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/piccadilly-wp/gcpv-piccadilly-the-road-to-reading.mp3 0:06 2 full Piccadilly: Rothschild Row and the Clubs https://qualla.com/piccadilly/ Photo credit KTo288, CC BY 2.5. By the 19th century, Piccadilly had become a measure of wealth. Nathan Mayer Rothschild moved his banking premises to No. 107 in 1825. Other members of the Rothschild family built mansions nearby with ballrooms and marble staircases; the western end of the street was colloquially...

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Image: KTo288 | CC BY 2.5

]]> Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/piccadilly-wp/gcpv-piccadilly-rothschild-row-and-the-clubs.mp3 0:06 3 full Piccadilly: The Difficult Decades https://qualla.com/piccadilly/ Photo credit Ricardalovesmonuments, CC BY-SA 4.0. Piccadilly's 20th century was not straightforwardly grand. Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Reece recalled people queuing outside a Piccadilly branch of Boots for heroin pills in the late 1940s. By the 1960s, the street and its surrounding area were notorious as the centre of London's illega...

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Image: Ricardalovesmonuments | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/piccadilly-wp/gcpv-piccadilly-the-difficult-decades.mp3 0:06 4 full Piccadilly: Piccadilly in Imagination https://qualla.com/piccadilly/ Photo credit No Swan So Fine, CC BY-SA 4.0. The street appears in more novels, plays, songs, and films than almost any other in London. E. W. Hornung's gentleman thief Raffles lives at the Albany — a residential conversion at the western end that also housed Prime Ministers William Ewart Gladstone and Edward Heath. Jack Wo...

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Image: No Swan So Fine | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/piccadilly-wp/gcpv-piccadilly-piccadilly-in-imagination.mp3 0:06 5 full