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De Hems

Pubs in Soho
De Hems exterior
De Hems exterior

De Hems is a café, pub and oyster-house in the Chinatown area of London just off Shaftesbury Avenue. It made its name purveying oysters and now sells beers from the Low countries such as Grolsch and Heineken with Dutch food such as bitterballen and frikandellen.It is on the site of the Horse & Dolphin coaching inn which was built in 1685 and had been owned by bare-knuckle boxer Bill 'The Black Terror' Richmond in the early 19th century. This was rebuilt in 1890 by the accomplished pub architects, Saville and Martin, for the publican, Mr Crimmen. It was renamed The Macclesfield, being in Macclesfield Street, and was soon leased by a retired Dutch sea captain called "Papa" De Hem who ran it as an oyster-house, charging a shilling and fourpence ha'penny for a serving. It was patronised by fin-de-siècle literati such as the poet Swinburne, who travelled 10 miles daily to eat oysters at the long marble bar, and George Sims who wrote a quatrain in praise: When oysters to September yield,and grace the grotto'd Macclesfield,I will be there, my dear De Hem,to wish you well and sample them.The rhyme alludes to the common proverb that it is only safe to eat oysters when there is an R in the name of the month — after the hot summer months from May to August. The grotto referred to was The Shell Room upstairs, created from the discarded oyster shells which decorated its walls — some 300,000 at their peak. Only a few now remain but the bar now claims to sell a similar number of pints of Oranjeboom each year. In the early 20th century, literary figures such as Clemence Dane continued to purchase the establishment's oysters, stout and champagne for their theatrical celebrations. In the 1920s, it became the hangout of gangsters too. When World War I started, patriotic Papa De Hem gave his staff £50 each to return to their threatened country. During World War II, after Holland actually fell to the German invasion, Dutch resistance exiles then met regularly at the pub which became their unofficial headquarters. Another patron at that time was the notorious spy, Kim Philby, who was friendly with the chef, who wore a tall white hat.In 1959, it was renamed De Hems in honour of the captain and then, in the 1960s, it became popular with music industry people such as Alan Price, Georgie Fame and Andrew Loog Oldham, manager of the Rolling Stones. At the turn of the new century, the venue hosted a comedy club — the Oranje Boom-Boom Cabaret — which included the debut of The Mighty Boosh.In the early 21st century, De Hems was popular as a place to celebrate and follow the successful Dutch football team. During the 2010 World Cup, hundreds of fans had to be turned away and manager Sian Blair had to hire a security staff of seven bouncers for the occasion. The upstairs and downstairs bars each accommodated a hundred cheerful revellers for these big matches.In July 2015, the venue began hosting a new comedy club, Linde Boom Boom Comedy Night,.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article De Hems (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

De Hems
Horse and Dolphin Yard, London Chinatown

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N 51.512 ° E -0.1313 °
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Horse and Dolphin Yard

Horse and Dolphin Yard
W1D 5BP London, Chinatown
England, United Kingdom
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De Hems exterior
De Hems exterior
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Shaftesbury Avenue
Shaftesbury Avenue

Shaftesbury Avenue is a major road in the West End of London, named after The 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. It runs north-easterly from Piccadilly Circus to New Oxford Street, crossing Charing Cross Road at Cambridge Circus. From Piccadilly Circus to Cambridge Circus, it is in the City of Westminster, and from Cambridge Circus to New Oxford Street, it is in the London Borough of Camden. Shaftesbury Avenue was built between 1877 and 1886 by the architect George Vulliamy and the engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette, to provide a north–south traffic artery through the crowded districts of St. Giles and Soho. It was also part of a slum clearance measure, to push impoverished workers out of the city centre. Although the street's construction was stalled by legislation requiring rehousing some of these displaced residents, overcrowding persisted. Charles Booth's Poverty Map shows the neighbourhood makeup shortly after Shaftesbury Avenue opened. The avenue is generally considered the heart of London's West End theatre district, with the Lyric, Apollo, Gielgud and Sondheim theatres clustered together on the west side of the road between Piccadilly Circus and Charing Cross Road. At the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road there is also the large Palace Theatre. Finally, the north-eastern end of the road has another large theatre, the Shaftesbury Theatre. Also on Shaftesbury Avenue is the former Saville Theatre, which became a cinema in 1970. It was first known as ABC1 and ABC2 but, since 2001, it has been the Odeon Covent Garden. Another cinema, the Soho Curzon, is located about halfway along the street. Between 1899 and 1902, no. 67 Shaftesbury Avenue was the location of the Bartitsu School of Arms and Physical Culture, which is the first commercial Asian martial arts training school in the Western world.Shaftesbury Avenue marks the boundary of three discrete West End areas. The subsection of the road from Piccadily Circus to Cambridge Circus marks the southern border of Soho. Of that subsection a slightly shorter stretch thereof, from Great Windmill Street to Cambridge Circus, denotes the southern edge of the Soho gay village. Overlapping the gay village boundary, the still-shorter part of the street from Wardour Street to Greek Street marks the interface between gay Soho and London's Chinatown. The number of Chinese businesses on the street has been on the increase. On the ground level in Aug 2007, there were two traditional Chinese medicine practices, five Chinese restaurants, three Chinese supermarkets, three Chinese travel agents, two Chinese mobile phone outlets, a Chinese cake shop, two Chinese hair salons, a Chinese fishmonger, a Chinese newsagent, a Chinese bureau de change, and three Chinese banks.In the evening, street artists gather on the pavement outside the HQ of ICE - International Currency Exchange and Raphaels Bank (previously the home of NatWest) at the Piccadilly Circus end of Shaftesbury Avenue, and produce portraits for the tourists.

Soho
Soho

Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was developed from farmland by Henry VIII in 1536, when it became a royal park. It became a parish in its own right in the late 17th century, when buildings started to be developed for the upper class, including the laying out of Soho Square in the 1680s. St Anne's Church was established during the late 17th century, and remains a significant local landmark; other churches are the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory and St Patrick's Church in Soho Square. The aristocracy had mostly moved away by the mid-19th century, when Soho was particularly badly hit by an outbreak of cholera in 1854. For much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation as a base for the sex industry in addition to its night life and its location for the headquarters of leading film companies. Since the 1980s, the area has undergone considerable gentrification. It is now predominantly a fashionable district of upmarket restaurants and media offices, with only a small remnant of sex industry venues. London's gay community is centred on Old Compton Street in Soho. Soho's reputation as a major entertainment district of London stems from theatres such as the Windmill Theatre on Great Windmill Street and the Raymond Revuebar owned by entrepreneur Paul Raymond, and music clubs such as the 2i's Coffee Bar and the Marquee Club. Trident Studios was based in Soho, and the nearby Denmark Street has hosted numerous music publishing houses and instrument shops from the 20th century onwards. The independent British film industry is centred around Soho, including the British headquarters of Twentieth Century Fox and the British Board of Film Classification offices. The area has been popular for restaurants since the 19th century, including the long-standing Kettner's which was visited by numerous celebrities. Near to Soho is London's Chinatown, centred on Gerrard Street and containing several restaurants.

56 Dean Street
56 Dean Street

56 Dean Street, based in Dean Street in London's Soho district, is the city's largest sexual health clinic. Part of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, it also has a second branch, Dean Street Express, at 34 Dean Street, which offers a fast-turnaround testing service. As of 2017, the clinic was the largest HIV clinic in Europe. In addition to its specialism in HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases, it also offers general sexual health care services, including contraception. The clinic also runs TransPlus - the UK’s first integrated NHS gender dysphoria, sexual health and HIV service. 56 Dean Street is recognised internationally for its innovation, particularly in regard to its engagement of London's higher-risk communities as well as HIV epidemic management. HIV combination prevention is the multi-factoral approach to addressing the HIV epidemic. It includes; engagement of high risk communities in regular HIV testing condom awareness and use easy access to HIV-PEP (Post-Exposure Prophylaxis) quick-start HIV treatment; once diagnosed HIV positive, patients are prescribed HIV ART (Anti-Retroviral Therapy) within days after diagnosis, quickening their journey to an uninfectious status, to reduce the number of infectious people within communities, and slowing the spread of infection in communities. This is called Treatment as Prevention PrEP, which can protect HIV negative people from HIV infection. The clinic has made the provision of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) a priority. Behavioral advice, support and psychosocial interventions (eg, chemsex support, sexual wellbeing information education, support community awareness of all the above.with the result that new HIV infection rates in London have dropped dramatically since the introduction of these interventions.