The area around Drury Lane was not affected by the
Great Fire of London, and contained decrepit
Elizabethan houses, with projecting wooden
jetties. The Angel Inn public house was at the bottom of the street, by
the Strand. Further west, about halfway along on the north side, was the
New Inn, an
Inn of Chancery where
Sir Thomas More received his early legal education, and, to the south,
Lyon's Inn, another Inn of Chancery where
Sir Edward Coke was a reader in 1578, which was replaced by a
Globe Theatre and the
Opera Comique .
Mark Lemon, editor of
Punch, lived there for a year
James Robson,
Alderman Cadell,
James Dodsley,
Lockyer Davis,
Thomas Longman,
Peter Elmsly, honest
Tom Payne of the Mews-gate,
Thomas Evans of the Strand and
Thomas Davies. South of the western end was
Drury House, the house of
Sir Robert Drury, from which Drury Lane took its name, later rebuilt as
Craven House by the first
Lord Craven (died 1697), and finally turned into a public house, the "Queen of Bohemia", named after his unrequited love,
Elizabeth of Bohemia, the daughter of
James I. This building was demolished – replaced by the first
Olympic Theatre. The artist Louise Rayner 1832-1924 painted the corner of Wych Street showing Symond's Coffee House circa 1880.
Jack Sheppard, the infamous thief, was apprenticed to a carpenter, Mr. Wood, on this street; one of his haunts, the White Lion tavern, was here. The
music hall performer
Arthur Lloyd lived at № 39 in 1892. Around 1780, the brothers George and
John Jacob Astor, who became America's first multimillionaire, ran an instrument store in № 26. ==Cultural significance==