Wells Street is a street in the

City of Westminster The City of Westminster is a London borough with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in Greater London, England. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It contains a large par ...

. It runs from

Riding House Street Riding House Street is a street in central London in the City of Westminster. History Riding House Street (originally Lane) started off as a straight and narrow connection between Edward Street in the west and Great Titchfield Street in the eas ...

in the north to

Oxford Street Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running between Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road via Oxford Circus. It marks the notional boundary between the areas of Fitzrovia and Marylebone to t ...

in the south. It is crossed by Mortimer Street and Eastcastle Street. It is joined on its western side by Marylebone Passage and on the eastern side by Booth's Place and Wells Mews.

St Andrew's church

Wells Street was once the location of St Andrew's, a

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ...

, completed to designs by

Samuel Daukes Samuel Whitfield Daukes (1811–1880) was an English architect, based in Gloucester and London. Family background Daukes was born in London in 1811, the son of Samuel Whitfield Daukes, a businessman with coal mining and brewery interests, who b ...

in 1847, which was deconstructed and rebuilt in its entirety in

Kingsbury Kingsbury may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Kingsbury, London, a district of northwest London in the borough of Brent ** Kingsbury tube station, London Underground station * Kingsbury, Warwickshire, a village and civil parish in Warwickshi ...

, Middlesex, in 1933–34.St Andrew’s Church, formerly in Wells Street, now at Kingsbury, Middlesex.
Survey of London,University College London, 1 April 2016. Retrieved 5 September 2017. The site was then vacant and used as a car park before offices were built on it which are now occupied by the University of Westminster. Flats known as St Andrew's Chambers were built adjacent to the site around 1900. St Andrew's was said to have the best parish church choir in London. In February 1864, the choir, directed by Joseph Barnby, performed two

anthem An anthem is a musical composition of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also refers more particularly to sho ...

s by

Alice Mary Smith Alice Mary Smith (married name Alice Mary Meadows White; 19 May 1839 – 4 December 1884) was an English composer. Her compositions included two symphonies and a large collection of choral works, both sacred and secular. Biography Smith was ...

; this is believed to be the first time that

liturgical music Liturgical music originated as a part of religious ceremony, and includes a number of traditions, both ancient and modern. Liturgical music is well known as a part of Catholic Mass, the Anglican Holy Communion service (or Eucharist) and Evensong, ...

composed by a woman was performed in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

. The actress

Sarah Bernhardt Sarah Bernhardt (; born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; 22 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including by Alexandre Dumas fils, ...

married Aristide Damala at St Andrew's in 1882. In 1890 Count Alexander Munster's marriage to Lady Muriel Hay at St Andrew's was depicted on the front page of ''

The Illustrated London News ''The Illustrated London News'', founded by Herbert Ingram and first published on Saturday 14 May 1842, was the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. The magazine was published weekly for most of its existence, switched to a less freq ...

''.''The Illustrated London News'', No. 2669, Vol. XCVI, 14 June 1890, p. 1.

Businesses

The Susan Small fashion business was based at number 76. The singer Sandie Shaw also owned a fashion business there, in 1968. It is also home to the

Cartoon Museum The Cartoon Museum is a London museum for British cartoons, caricatures and comic strips, owned and operated by the Cartoon Art Trust (Registered Charity 327 978). It has a library of over 5,000 books and 4,000 comics. The museum issues catalog ...

, home to Britains cartoon and comic art heritage.

Notable buildings

It contains listed buildings: * The Champion public house. *St Margaret's House.

References

External links

*
Survey of London: Wells Street
', Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Streets in the City of Westminster Fitzrovia {{london-road-stub