Beech Street is a street in the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

. It was formerly known as Beech Lane and was named after Nicholas de la Beche, a lieutenant of the

Tower of London The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is sep ...

in the reign of Edward III in the 14th century. Beech Street, London

It runs west-east, from its junction with

Aldersgate Street Aldersgate is a Ward of the City of London, named after one of the northern gates in the London Wall which once enclosed the City. The Ward of Aldersgate is traditionally divided into Aldersgate Within and Aldersgate Without, the suffix den ...

and Long Lane in the west, to the junction with Whitecross Street,

Silk Street Silk Street (, Xiushui Street, literally meaning "beautiful water Street"), aka Silk Market or Silk Street Market, is a shopping center in Chaoyang District, Beijing, that accommodates over 1,700 retail vendors, notorious among international to ...

and

Chiswell Street Chiswell Street is in Islington, London, England. Historic England have seven entries for listed buildings in Chiswell Street. Location The street, in St Luke's, Islington, runs east-west and forms part of the B100 road. At the west end it b ...

in the east. The eastern junction marks the boundary of the City with Islington: Whitecross and Chiswell (north and east) are in Islington, while Beech and Silk (west and south) are in the City. The majority of the street is in a pseudo-tunnel under the Barbican estate. On 18 March 2020 the street became the UK's first "zero emission street", only allowing access to pedestrians, cyclists, and

zero emission vehicle A zero-emission vehicle, or ZEV, is a vehicle that does not emit exhaust gas or other pollutants from the onboard source of power. The California definition also adds that this includes under any and all possible operational modes and conditions ...

s. This remained in effect until September 2021, and in December that year members of the City of London corporation voted for a public consultation into making the scheme permanent. Access to several of the Barbican car parks is from Beech Street.

References

Streets in the City of London {{Coord, 51, 31, 14.21, N, 0, 5, 40.35, W, scale:1563_region:GB, display=title