Talk:20 Frith Street

Dubious veracity

Parts of this article would seem to contradict the facts stated in the Survey of London (Volumes 33 and 34, Parish of St Anne, Soho), which, although published in 1966, is still regarded as the definitive architectural history of this locality.

In particular, the article asserts multiple times, without providing a legitimate citation at any point, that the house in which Mozart stayed was demolished and rebuilt by William Cooze in 1858. The Survey of London never mentions any such rebuilding, stating only that: "A shop front had been inserted in the ground storey in the early or mid nineteenth century."

The article includes a description of the 18th-century house, quoting from the Survey of London but omitting a fundamental preceding sentence, italicized here: "The front of the house is shown in a photograph of 1908. Quite apart from its association with Mozart, it is of interest as one of the best early eighteenth-century fronts known to have existed in the street." If a photograph of the early 18th-century house could be taken in 1908, it can't have been pulled down and rebuilt at any point in the 19th century.

The photograph in question is mentioned in the article, immediately after the quotation from the Survey, but in a such way as to imply support for the unproven assertion that the house had by then been rebuilt in a similar style to its predecessor.

Rather than having been demolished and rebuilt in 1858, it seems far more likely that the four-storey house in which Mozart stayed survived until 1930, when it was replaced by the present five-storey building, which includes the rear stage door to what is now the Prince Edward Theatre.

Russ London (talk) 20:43, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

References