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Meard Street is a street in Soho, London. It runs roughly east–west (properly, east-northeast to west-southwest, as elsewhere in Soho), between Wardour Street to the west and Dean Street to the east. It is in two sections, with a slight bend in the middle: the west half is pedestrianised, while the east half is a narrow, single-lane road.
The street is named after John Meard, the younger, a carpenter, later esquire, who developed it in the 1720s and 1730s.[1]
It is prominently featured in photographs and postcards for the tourist trade, due to the pun with French: merde and Italian: merda ("shit").
15 Meard Street served as the exterior of the home occupied by characters played by Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi in the 2013–16 ITV sitcom Vicious.
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The two halves occupy what were originally two separate, non-communicating 17th-century courts. They were developed in two halves: the western half, Meard's Court, in 1722, and the eastern half, Dean's Court (opening off Dean Street, and renamed Meard Street) in 1731/32. As part of the redevelopment of Dean's Court, the two halves were joined in 1732/33.[1]
- Johann Christian Bach (1738–1782), German composer
- Carl Friedrich Abel (1723–1787), German composer and violist
- Vincent Novello (1781–1861), English music publisher and organist[2]
- Anne Pigalle, chanteuse, artiste and Soho club night creator, lived at number 4 from 1985 to 1990
- Batcave, birthplace of English goth subculture
- Sebastian Horsley (1962–2010), artist and dandy; number 7[3][4]
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