Qualla: Soho https://qualla.com/soho 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/soho-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Soho https://qualla.com/soho Soho: Introduction https://qualla.com/soho/ Photo credit Justinc, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 31 August 1854, a cholera outbreak began in a few houses around Broad Street in Soho. Within ten days, more than 500 people were dead. A local doctor named John Snow, sceptical of the prevailing theory that disease drifted through the air as miasma, walked the streets with a notebook and marked the addresses of the sick on a map. The clusters all converged on a single public water pump. Snow persuaded the parish authorities to remove the handle, and the outbreak slowed. The spring below had been contaminated by sewage. The episode became one of the founding moments of modern epidemiology and public health, and a small replica pump still stands by the John Snow pub on what is now Broadwick Street, the handle deliberately missing. The story of Soho is full of moments like that: ordinary streets where something extraordinary happened.

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Image: Justinc | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/soho-wp/gcpv-soho-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Soho: From Hunting Cry to Neighbourhood https://qualla.com/soho/ Photo credit Jim Osley, CC BY-SA 2.0. The name Soho first appears around 1636, derived from a former hunting cry. The land was royal park under Henry VIII, who in 1536 turned the farms into hunting ground. By the late 17th century it had been parcelled into streets, with Soho Square laid out in the 1680s as one of th...

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Image: Jim Osley | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/soho-wp/gcpv-soho-from-hunting-cry-to-neighbourhood.mp3 0:06 2 full Soho: Layers of Arrival https://qualla.com/soho/ Photo credit No Swan So Fine, CC BY-SA 4.0. Soho has always taken in newcomers. French Huguenots fleeing persecution after 1685 founded the French Protestant Church and filled Dean Street and Greek Street. Greek and Italian immigrants in the 19th century opened the cafes and restaurants that gave the area its food culture;...

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

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/soho-wp/gcpv-soho-layers-of-arrival.mp3 0:06 3 full Soho: The Sex Industry, Honestly https://qualla.com/soho/ Photo credit Jim Osley, CC BY-SA 2.0. For more than two centuries Soho was at the centre of London's commercial sex trade. Between 1778 and 1801, the house at 21 Soho Square ran as the White House brothel; the magistrate Henry Mayhew called it notorious. The trade waxed and waned with the law. After the Street Offenc...

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Image: Jim Osley | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/soho-wp/gcpv-soho-the-sex-industry-honestly.mp3 0:06 4 full Soho: Music, Comedy, Film https://qualla.com/soho/ Photo credit Christine Matthews, CC BY-SA 2.0. From 1948 onwards, Soho was the cradle of modern music in Britain. Club Eleven, on Carnaby Street, hosted the first bebop performances in Britain. The Marquee Club on Wardour Street, opened in 1958, gave early stages to the Rolling Stones, the Who, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Pink...

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Image: Christine Matthews | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/soho-wp/gcpv-soho-music-comedy-film.mp3 0:06 5 full Soho: Old Compton Street and the Admiral Duncan https://qualla.com/soho/ Photo credit Thomas Nugent, CC BY-SA 2.0. Old Compton Street, named after the Bishop of London Henry Compton, was laid out in the 1670s and is today the centre of London's most prominent gay village. The Admiral Duncan pub on the corner of Old Compton and Dean Street has served the gay community for decades. On 30 April ...

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Image: Thomas Nugent | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/soho-wp/gcpv-soho-old-compton-street-and-the-admiral-duncan.mp3 0:06 6 full