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Piccadilly Circus Facts & Worksheets

Piccadilly Circus is a road junction in West End London, Westminster.

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Piccadilly Circus connects to Piccadilly, a highway named after a home belonging to one Robert Baker, a tailor noted for selling piccadills, or piccadillies, a term used for various types of collars.

See the fact file below for more information on Piccadilly Circus, or you can download our 27-page Piccadilly Circus worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

  • The street was initially named Portugal Street in honor of Catherine of Braganza, King Charles II’s queen consort, but by 1743, it had been renamed Piccadilly.
  • Piccadilly Circus was founded in 1819 at the intersection on Regent Street, which was being built on the site of Lady Hutton’s house and garden; the intersection was then known as Regent Circus South, and it did not become recognized as Piccadilly Circus until the mid-1880s1880s, with the reconstruction of the Regent Street Quadrant and the renovation of Shaftesbury Avenue. The circus also lost its rounded form during the same period.
  • Piccadilly Circus tube station opened on the Bakerloo line on March 10, 1906, and on the Piccadilly line in December of that year. The station was completely rebuilt in 1928 to accommodate increased traffic. The first electric advertisements appeared at the junction in 1910.
  • From 1923, electric billboards were installed on the front of the London Pavilion. Electric street lamps were only introduced in 1932 to replace the gas street lamps. The Circus became a one-way roundabout on July 19, 1926. The first streetlights were installed on August 3, 1926.
  • During WWII, many service members’ clubs in London’s West End catered to American soldiers stationed in the country. So many prostitutes approached the soldiers that they earned the moniker “Piccadilly Commandos,” and both Scotland Yard and the Foreign Office debated the potential damage to Anglo-American ties.
  • Piccadilly, Regent Street, Shaftesbury Avenue, the Haymarket, Coventry Street (onwards to Leicester Square), and Glasshouse Street are now linked by the Circus. It is close to the West End’s major shopping and entertainment districts.

DEVELOPMENT

  • At the beginning of the 1960s, it was decided that the Circus needed to be redeveloped to allow more traffic flow. In 1962, Lord Holford proposed a “double-decker” Piccadilly Circus, with the upper deck serving as an elevated pedestrian concourse linking the buildings around the Circus’ boundary and the lower deck serving solely as a traffic deck, with most of the ground-level pedestrian areas removed to enable a greater vehicle flow. This notion persisted for the rest of the 1960s.
  • In 1972, a final concept proposed three octagonal towers to replace the Trocadero, Criterion, and Monico buildings.
  • The Holford proposal is mentioned in the short documentary “Goodbye, Piccadilly,” which was made by the Rank Organization in 1967 as part of their Look at Life series when it was still widely thought that Holford’s recommendations would be implemented. Apart from considerable ground-level pedestrianization around its south side in the 1980s, Piccadilly Circus has subsequently. undergone major renovation. 
  • Irish republican militants have repeatedly targeted the Circus. An explosion happened on June 24, 1939, but no one was injured. A bomb injured 16 individuals on November 25, 1974.
  • One Sherwood Street in Piccadilly Circus is under construction, with plans to build a six-story building with three basement levels in the space behind the billboards. This will include new commercial office space, retail space, and housing units.

TOP SIGHTS

  • The Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain at Piccadilly Circus was built in 1893 to commemorate Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury’s charitable services. It was removed from the Circus twice and relocated once.  The first time was in 1922, to allow the construction of Charles Holden’s new tube station right beneath it. The fountain was restored in 1931. 
  • During WWII, the fountain was demolished for the second time and rebuilt with advertising hoardings. In 1948, it was returned. When the Circus was rebuilt in the late 1980s, the entire fountain was relocated from the center of the junction at the start of Shaftesbury Avenue to its current location at the southwestern corner.
  • Starting in 1908 with a Perrier sign, Piccadilly Circus was ringed by illuminated advertising hoardings on buildings. However, only one tower still has them, the one in the northwestern corner between Shaftesbury Avenue and Glasshouse Street. 
  • The site is unnamed, but the addresses are 44/48 Regent Street, 1/6 Sherwood Street, 17/22 Denman Street, and 1/17 Shaftesbury Avenue; it has been owned by property investor Land Securities Group since the 1970s.
  • The Criterion Theatre is located on Piccadilly Circus’ south side. Aside from the box office, the entire theatre, with almost 600 seats, is underground and accessible by stairs. Columns support both the dress circle and the upper circle, limiting the views of many seats inside.
  • The theatre was designed by Thomas Verity and opened on March 21, 1874, despite initial plans for it to be a concert hall. It had to close in 1883 to enhance ventilation and replace gaslights with electric lighting, and it reopened the following year. The theatre closed in 1989 and underwent substantial renovations before reopening in October 1992.
  • The London Pavilion is located on the northeastern side of Piccadilly Circus, on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Coventry Street. 
  • The earliest structure bearing the name was a music hall built in 1859. Shaftesbury Avenue was created on the previous Pavilion site in 1885.
  • A new London Pavilion, which also served as a music hall, was built. Electric billboards were installed on the building’s side in 1924. The County Fire Office structure, with a Britannia statue on the roof, dominates the north side of the circus, on the corner of Glasshouse Street. John Nash constructed the original structure as the extreme southern extremity of his Regent Street Quadrant.
  • The previous County Fire Office was dismantled in 1924 and replaced with a similar but much coarser edifice designed by Reginald Bloomfield, although maintaining the Britannia statue. 
  • It was the only structure in the Circus to be affected during the Blitz, with a few window panes blown out. The structure is grade II classified. Overall, The Circus is well recognized for its video display and neon signs installed on the northern corner structure, as well as the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain and Anteros monument.

Piccadilly Circus Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle that includes everything you need to know about Piccadilly Circus across 27 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use worksheets that are perfect for teaching kids about Piccadilly Circus, a road junction in West End London, Westminster.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

  1. Piccadilly Circus Facts
  2. Connect the Sights!
  3. Over the Years…
  4. 4 PICS, 1 PLACE
  5. Thre3 Years
  6. Locate the Street
  7. All About Piccadilly
  8. Analyze the Street
  9. #THEBEST
  10. LONDON’S SPOT
  11. Sing Along!

Frequently Asked Questions

In which city is Piccadilly Circus?

Piccadilly Circus is one of London’s most popular tourist destinations. It is well-known for the statue of Eros, which people often use as a meeting point.

What is famous about Piccadilly Circus?

The Piccadilly Circus junction is recognized for its neon signs, varied exhibits, and the Eros fountain in the center of the intersection. Piccadilly Circus includes a range of theatres, shopping malls, and restaurants that are both old-school and modern.

What is the most popular part of Piccadilly Circus?

The southeast end of Piccadilly Circus is home to a Victorian fountain topped with the statue of Eros.

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Link will appear as Piccadilly Circus Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, September 11, 2022

Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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