St Anne's Court is an alleyway that connects Dean Street and Wardour Street in London's Soho district. Parts of it can be dated back to the late 17th century.[1]
Sites in St Anne's Court included the "model lodgings" designed by William Burges in 1864-66 for the banker and philanthropist Lackland Mackintosh Rate,[2] for whom Burges subsequently work at Milton Court, Dorking, Surrey. At St Anne's, Rate wanted a commercial rental property. The result was a series of thirty lodging rooms to be let to artisans. The building was of brick with cast-iron piers. Crook describes the result as "Burges's favourite 13th-century French, pared to the bone."[2] The building has subsequently been demolished.
Sites also include the former Trident Studios and the 1970s science fiction bookshop Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed. In the 1980s, a basement in St Anne's Court was home to Shades Records, a store specialising in extreme forms of Heavy Metal such as "Death Metal" and "Thrash Metal". As the only such store in the country, it played a particularly important role in the growth of those music genres in the UK.[3]
- ^ "Dean Street Area: Portland Estate, St. Anne's Court, eastern range - British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
- ^ a b Crook 1981a, p. "240"
- ^ Story, Every Record Tells A. (9 April 2012). "Shades Records – The Greatest Record Store There Ever Was: A Tribute for Record Store Day". Retrieved 21 April 2019.