Monopoly 17 - Strand

Many good things have come out of Germany, not the least of which is the original English language. Not surprising when you consider that the tribes settling in England in the fifth -7^th centuries, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes were all from areas hat are now part of Germany. The language they spoke – which we’ll call Old English for convenience sake - was actually a dialect of Old German. If you know modern German, you’ll know that 'strand' is a word which means beach. This is also what it meant in Old English. After the Roman legions were recalled to Rome for good, Londinium (Roman London) was pretty much deserted. Over a period of time an Anglo Saxon trading settlement grew along the banks of the River Thames, extending along the shoreline – beach – of the Thames  from west of Londinium. His settlement was called Lundenwic.

In Anglo – Saxon times the River Thames was wider then it is now. The Strand is not very close to the northern bank of the Thames at all now, but this is a relatively recent development. At Lundenwic’s height, the road we call the Strand was right by the shore, hence the name.

King Alfred the Great, in the late 9^th century, ordered people out of Lundenwic and into the old Londinium. However the Strand remained an important thoroughfare, and retained its name unchanged for well over a thousand years.

The Strand is part of the main route linking Westminster with the old City of London. It ends where the medieval City walls once stood. This was marked by the gateway shown in the sketch, Temple Bar. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the relatively narrow gateways caused increasing traffic congestion and so it was carefully taken down. It was bought by Lady Meux, the wife of a brewing magnate, and erected in the grounds of their house, Theobalds Park. In fact I visited it in Theobald’s Park in 2003 on the day before work began to deconstruct it and rebuild it in the shadow of St. Paul’s, just off our next property, Fleet Street.