London’s main shopping street goes car-free from 26 October, and since there is more to it than chain stores, here is how to walk it and where to turn off
Walking Oxford Street After Pedestrianisation
For years my advice to visitors about Oxford Street was brief. Go once, on a weekday morning, and do not expect to enjoy it.
The shops were fine. The street was the problem. A canyon of buses nose to tail, pavements too narrow for the crowds, and a general air of being herded.
That advice is about to need revising. As a fashion trade site reported when the date was announced, Oxford Street will become free from cars from 26 October. A round-up of what is new in the city lists a high street without cars among this year’s changes.
So here is a fresh guide, for people who have never been and for those who swore they would never go back.
The Basics
Oxford Street runs east to west for about a mile and a quarter, from Tottenham Court Road at one end to Marble Arch at the other. Oxford Circus, where it crosses Regent Street, is roughly the middle.
It is the busiest shopping street in Europe. Around three hundred shops. Something like half a million visitors on a busy day.
The traffic-free stretch is the central section, between the department stores at the western end and Oxford Circus. Check a current map when you arrive, as the arrangements are being introduced in stages and some cross streets remain open to vehicles.
Getting There
Four Underground stations sit on the street itself: Marble Arch, Bond Street, Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road. Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road are also on the Elizabeth line, which is the quickest way in from Heathrow.
A tip. Oxford Circus station is the most crowded on the network and is sometimes closed for a few minutes at busy times to let the platforms clear. Bond Street is calmer and has step-free access.
Buses no longer run along the pedestrianised part. They use parallel streets. If you are used to hopping on a bus down Oxford Street, you will now need to walk or go one stop on the Central line.
Walking It, West to East
I suggest starting at Marble Arch and walking toward Tottenham Court Road. It is very slightly downhill and you end near Soho, where there is somewhere to sit down.
Marble Arch itself is a triumphal arch that once stood in front of Buckingham Palace and was moved here in 1851. On a traffic island nearby is a small plaque marking the site of Tyburn, where London hanged its criminals for six hundred years. The route the condemned took from prison to the gallows was the road you are about to walk.
The first great landmark is Selfridges, on your left. It opened in 1909, founded by an American who more or less created the modern department store. The building is magnificent. The food hall on the ground floor is worth a visit even if you buy nothing.
Carry on past Bond Street station. On the right is the turning for New Bond Street, where the very expensive shops are.
Oxford Circus is the crossroads with Regent Street. Look left and right for the curve of the buildings.
East of the Circus the shops become more ordinary and the crowds younger. The street ends at Tottenham Court Road, by a tall 1960s tower.
Allow an hour without stopping. Nobody manages it without stopping.
Where to Turn Off
The real pleasure of Oxford Street is in what lies thirty yards to either side. Most visitors never find it.
St Christopher’s Place. A narrow passage on the north side, almost opposite Bond Street station, marked by a small clock. It opens into a pretty square of cafes and independent shops. You would walk past it a hundred times.
The Wallace Collection. Five minutes north of Selfridges in Manchester Square. A grand town house full of paintings, armour and French furniture, including one of the most famous portraits in the world, of a cavalier who is not actually laughing. It is free. It has a courtyard restaurant under a glass roof. It is my favourite museum in London and it is never crowded.
South Molton Street. A pedestrian lane running diagonally south from Bond Street station toward Mayfair. Smart small shops.
Liberty. Just south of Oxford Circus, on Great Marlborough Street. A department store in a Tudor-revival building made from the timbers of two warships. Famous for printed fabrics. Go in for the staircases alone.
Carnaby Street. Behind Liberty. The centre of fashionable London in the 1960s and now a pedestrian quarter of shops and restaurants.
The Photographers’ Gallery. On a side street just south of Oxford Circus. Small, good, with a cafe.
Soho. Everything south of the eastern half of the street. Restaurants, bars, theatres. This is where to have lunch.
When to Go
Weekday mornings are quietest. Shops open at about ten. Most stay open until nine in the evening, and until six on Sundays, when the law restricts hours for large stores.
Saturday afternoon is the busiest time of the week. In the six weeks before Christmas it is the busiest place in Britain.
The Christmas lights are usually switched on in early November. With no traffic this year, standing in the middle of the road to look up at them will be possible for the first time.
Is It Worth It?
I should give you both views.
Enthusiasts say the change will transform the street: room to walk, places to sit, cleaner air, something closer to the great pedestrian avenues of other European capitals.
Sceptics point out that removing the traffic does not change the shops. Much of Oxford Street is chain stores you will find in any city, and for some years there was a rash of shops selling sweets and souvenirs. Residents in the surrounding streets worry about where the buses and taxis have gone. People with limited mobility have asked how they are meant to reach the middle of a long street with no vehicles on it.
My own view is that it was worth doing and that the street is only as good as what you find on it. Use it as a spine. Walk a stretch, turn off, come back.
Practicalities
Pickpockets work crowded shopping streets everywhere. Keep your phone in a front pocket and your bag closed.
Public toilets are scarce. The department stores have them. So does the Wallace Collection.
Visitors from outside the United Kingdom can no longer reclaim sales tax on shopping. That scheme ended some years ago.
And wear comfortable shoes. It is a mile and a quarter, and you will do it twice.
The London Prat has been jostled on this pavement since 1961 and considers the change in its English satirical news on shopping without traffic and its UK satirical news about walking down the middle of the road. Bohiney Magazine covers the American version, which is indoors and has a food court.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
