Woburn Walk, Georgian shopping street in Bloomsbury, London, United Kingdom.
Woburn Walk is a pedestrian shopping street in the Bloomsbury area of London, lined on both sides with cream-painted buildings that have distinctive black bow-fronted shop windows at ground level. The street is short and narrow, giving it a corridor-like feel as you walk through it.
Woburn Walk was laid out in 1822 by the builder Thomas Cubitt, making it one of London's earliest purpose-built pedestrian shopping streets. The facades of the buildings have changed very little since then, which is rare for a street in central London.
Woburn Walk is closely associated with the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, who lived here for over two decades and received many of the leading literary figures of his day at his home on this street. A plaque on one of the buildings marks the spot where he stayed.
The street is within easy walking distance of Euston and King's Cross stations, making it straightforward to reach on foot. It is best visited during the day when most of the small shops and cafes along it tend to be open.
When the street was built, the upper floors were designed as private apartments for the shopkeepers below, which was not the norm for retail streets in London at the time. This meant that the people running the shops and their families actually lived in the same building as their businesses, a model that was ahead of its time.
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