The Haymarket
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Haymarket is a street in the St. James's district of the City of Westminister in London, England. It runs from Piccadilly Circus at the north to Pall Mall at the south. It houses a number of high class restaurants, two major theatres (the Theatre Royal and Her Majesty's Theatre), a cinema complex, and New Zealand House.
It is part of London's theatre district, the West End, and has been a theatrical location at least since the 17th century. The Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket, designed by John Vanbrugh, opened in 1705. It was intended for legitimate drama, but the acoustics turned out to be more suitable for opera, and from 1710 to 1745, most operas and some oratorios of George Frederick Handel were premiered at this theatre, which was renamed the King's Theatre at the death of Queen Anne in 1714. After Vanbrugh's building had been destroyed by fire in 1790, another King's Theatre on the same site followed. After another fire, His Majesty's Theatre was opened there in 1897, This building, the fourth on the same site, is still in use as Her Majesty's Theatre for major musical productions. Today's Theatre Royal at another site in the Haymarket is a building originally by John Nash (1820), replacing a previous theatre of the 1720s.
In earlier centuries, Haymarket was also one of the most prominent centres of prostitution in London, but this is no longer the case.
The Haymarket runs parallel to Lower Regent Street and together the two roads form a one-way system, Lower Regent Street taking northbound traffic and Haymarket taking southbound traffic. The two roads are classified as part of the A4 road which runs from central London to the West Country.
