Charing Cross roof collapse

The Playhouse Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, located in Northumberland Avenue, near Trafalgar Square. The Theatre was built by F. H. Fowler and Hill with a seating capacity of 1,200. It was rebuilt in 1907 and still retains its original substage machinery. As of November 2021, the theatre has been refurbished and renamed as the Kit Kat Club, home to a new revival of Cabaret with a seating capacity of 550.

The Charing Cross Music Hall was established beneath the arches of Charing Cross railway station in London in 1866 by brothers Giovanni and Carlo Gatti, to replace the former Hungerford Hall. The site had been acquired, together with Hungerford Market, by the South Eastern Railway in 1862, and incorporated into the railway station, which opened on 11 January 1864, resulting in the demolition of the hall.

Toole's Theatre, was a 19th-century West End building in William IV Street, near Charing Cross, in the City of Westminster. A succession of auditoria had occupied the site since 1832, serving a variety of functions, including religious and leisure activities. The theatre at its largest, after reconstruction in 1881–82, had a capacity of between 650 and 700. As the Charing Cross Theatre (1869–1876) the house became known for bills offering a mixture of drama, burlesque and operetta. Among the authors of its burlesques were W. S. Gilbert and H. B. Farnie. Its stars included Lydia Thompson, Lionel Brough and Willie Edouin. In 1876 Thompson and her husband, Alexander Henderson, became lessees of the theatre and renamed it the Folly Theatre. They continued the theatre's customary mix of operetta and burlesque. Their greatest successes were with English adaptations of French opéras bouffes and opéras comiques, most conspicuously Les cloches de Corneville, which began its record-breaking run (705 performances) at the Folly in 1878. In 1879 the comic actor J. L. Toole took over the lease. In 1881 he changed the name to Toole's Theatre and had the building substantially reconstructed. He continued the policy of staging burlesques, but introduced more non-musical comedies and farces. Among the authors who wrote for the theatre were John Maddison Morton, F. C. Burnand and Henry Pottinger Stephens; composers included George Grossmith and Edward Solomon. The theatre was important for beginning the professional careers of many actors, writers and actor-managers. Among the playwrights whose early works were presented at Toole's were Arthur Wing Pinero and J. M. Barrie. Future stars who were members of the company as beginners included Kate Cutler, Florence Farr, Seymour Hicks, Irene and Violet Vanbrugh and Lewis Waller. The lease of the theatre expired in 1895, and the lessor, the Charing Cross Hospital, did not renew it. The theatre was demolished in 1896.

Northumberland Avenue is a street in the City of Westminster, Central London, running from Trafalgar Square in the west to the Thames Embankment in the east. The road was built on the site of Northumberland House, the London home of the Percy family, the Dukes of Northumberland between 1874 and 1876, and on part of the parallel Northumberland Street. When built, the street was designed for luxury accommodation, including the seven-storey Grand Hotel, the Victoria and the Metropole. The Playhouse Theatre opened in 1882 and become a significant venue in London. From the 1930s onwards, hotels disappeared from Northumberland Avenue and were replaced by offices used by departments of the British Government, including the War Office and Air Ministry, later the Ministry of Defence. The street has been commemorated in the Sherlock Holmes novels including The Hound of the Baskervilles, and is a square on the British Monopoly board.

Villiers Street is a street in London connecting the Strand with the Embankment. It is partly pedestrianised; traffic runs northbound only up to John Adam Street, where vehicles must turn right. It was built by Nicholas Barbon in the 1670s on the site of York House, the property of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, whom the street commemorates. A watergate in nearby Embankment Gardens is the only remnant of the mansion and shows the original position of the north bank of the River Thames.John Evelyn lived here in the 17th century and the Irish writer Richard Steele, who founded The Spectator and The Tatler magazines, lodged here from 1712. The Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, now a part of the Imperial College Faculty of Medicine, was founded here in 1834. Prior to 1865, Villiers Street ran down the hill directly to a wharf by the river, known as Villiers Wharf. This was swept away in 1865 by the construction of the Victoria Embankment, with its sewers, and the District line railway. The river was moved back some 50 metres (164 ft) from the foot of Villiers Street.

York House (formerly Norwich Place or Norwich Palace) was one of a string of mansion houses which formerly stood on the Strand, the principal route from the City of London to the Palace of Westminster.

The York Buildings Waterworks' Water Tower was a water tower on the north bank of the River Thames and a dominant feature of the 18th century London skyline. The water tower was a wooden structure, 70 feet high (21 metres) and with an octagonal cross-section. It was erected in the late 17th century on a site at the end of Villiers Street, by the York Watergate, now part of the Victoria Embankment Gardens. The Survey of London includes a drawing (plate 31 in volume 18) showing the building. The prominent position and height of the water tower meant it appeared in many paintings and drawings of London's north bank at the time. These include:

Gate Theatre Studio, often referred to as simply the Gate Theatre, is a former independent theatre on Villiers Street in London.

The Corinthia Hotel London, at the corner of Northumberland Avenue and Whitehall Place in central London, is a hotel and former British Government building, located on a triangular site between Trafalgar Square and the Thames Embankment. Originally opened in 1885 as the Metropole Hotel, its location close to the Palace of Westminster and government offices in Whitehall meant it was commandeered in both world wars. After the Second World War, it was purchased by the Ministry of Defence and used as government offices until it was declared surplus to requirements and sold by Crown Estates in 2007. It was then restored as a hotel and renamed the Corinthia Hotel, a combination of hotel and residential building.

Heaven is a gay superclub in Charing Cross, London, England. It has played a central role and had a major influence in the development of London's LGBT scene for over 40 years and is home to long-running gay night G-A-Y. The club is known for Paul Oakenfold's acid house events in the 1980s, the underground nightclub festival Megatripolis, and for being the birthplace of ambient house. Soundshaft also hosted Future, a regular night on Thursdays run by Paul Oakenfold. At the end of the night, both crowds would come together when the doors connecting Heaven and Future opened for the last couple of songs.

Hungerford Market was a produce market in London, at Charing Cross on the Strand. It existed in two different buildings on the same site, the first built in 1682, the second in 1832. The market was first built on the site of Hungerford House, next to Durham Yard, the town house of the Hungerford family. The house had burned down in 1669 as is recorded in the Diary of Samuel Pepys. It was replaced by a new Italianate market building by Charles Fowler, which opened in 1833. The new market was unsuccessful. It was damaged when the adjoining Hungerford Hall burned down in 1854, and was sold to the South Eastern Railway in 1862. Charing Cross railway station was built on the site and opened in 1864.

The Charing Cross Theatre is a theatre under The Arches off Villiers Street below Charing Cross station. Founded in 1936, the venue occupied several premises in the West End of London before locating to its present site. The current site was once a famous Victorian music hall The Players' Theatre. It was refurbished in 2005 and reopened under new management in 2006 as The New Players Theatre, before being taken under new management by Broadway producer Steven M. Levy and Sean Sweeney in 2011 and the theatre once again had its name changed to the Charing Cross Theatre, with the Players Bar & Kitchen. It is one of the smallest West End Theatres, rebuilt to meet the demands of national and international producers wanting a theatre which offers a degree of intimacy and is the equivalent of an Off Broadway space. With the appointment of Thom Southerland as Artistic Director in 2016, Charing Cross Theatre announced it was turning into a producing house launching with a number of major musicals.