A Hidden Street in London's West End

I worked for ten years as a tour guide, driving sight-seers around London in a fleet of classic Mini Coopers. The basic idea was to recreate The Italian Job, by sneaking down back alleys and doing cheeky manoeuvres. Zipping down Lower Robert Street, giving my passengers an unexpected white knuckle ride under a building, was PERFECT for this, and was always my favourite part of the tour!

Many many moons ago as a homeless teen I slept in Lower Robert Street whilst waiting to be helped by "The Connection" and Centrepoint. It was relatively dry, and relatively protected and "warm" thanks to the vents from buildings as that year London had snow....

Affectionally known by Cabbies as "The Bat Cave"

I work in The Adelphi and going through Lower Robert Street after a fire evacuation drill saves me having to wait half an hour to get a lift from the main lobby. Also, The Adelphi is the London HQ for Spotify, Condé Nast, The Economist and other well known companies.

One of my favourite ways to spend a day off is to 'lose myself' in London. I never cease to be amazed at the hidden gems that can be found just by strolling around off the beaten track. So many little passages to explore....

This is similar to Chicago! Chicago has some double-decked and a few triple-decked streets downtown immediately north and south of the Main Branch and immediately east of the South Branch of the Chicago River. The multilevel configuration in Chicago arose from geography and traffic patterns in the Loop. The Loop is a neighborhood named after the elevated tracks above it for Chicago's L system, and the tracks were built by you guessed it...Charles Tyson Yerkes. In most other parts of the rest of the city near the Chicago River, only major streets crossed the river. However, most downtown streets crossed the river, and all of these crossings were bascule bridges, which required height clearances at the approaches to and over the river. Clearances were further necessitated due to the presence of many existing railroad tracks along the river (as in the west bank of the south branch) and tracks that ended at the river (like tracks ending at Randolph Street). Thus, a clearance zone was created along the river at locations that contained many closely spaced crossings. Many double-decked or triple-decked streets were created because they fell within this clearance zone. This also created an anomaly not only in the layout and uses of streets, but also planning of buildings. Generally, the upper levels of the multi-level streets usually serve local traffic. The primary entrances of buildings are usually located on this level. The lower levels generally serve through-traffic and trucks serving businesses along the roads. This level houses the receiving/shipping entrances to the buildings on these streets. As a result, loading docks at street level are noticeably absent. There's also the McCormick Place Busway which opened in 2002 and runs for 4 km from Lower Randolph between Michigan and Columbus in downtown to the center. It uses the lower levels of the multilevel streets near downtown, and surfaces to follow the Metra Electric District right-of-way to outside the South Building of McCormick Place. It is meant to provide a true and unencumbered expressway for visitors to move between downtown hotels and the convention center, but is also used by buses for Soldier Field events, public safety workers, Metra, convention contractors, and Art Institute deliveries, along with providing a secure route for national and international government officials to utilize between the two points. Chicago also has the Chicago Pedway, a network of pedestrian tunnels, ground-level concourses and bridges connecting skyscrapers, retail stores, hotels, and train stations throughout the central business district

When a video starts with "my favorite cheese shop" you know it is going to be a gem.

Many years ago there was a bicycle shop on Lower Roberts Street which is how I first found it. Also used it many times as a motorist to cut from Embankment to Strand as it was much quicker than going via Trafalgar Square.

That "decent wine bar" you mentioned at the end is actually called Gordon's and as a group of friends we've being going there on the 1st Wednesday of each month since about 1977, at least until the Covid lock-downs happened. We had a tradition that as couples started their families they'd bring along their new baby to the 1st Gordon's after their birth. Great fun ! 😎

I used to deliver letters there when i was a postman in the 1980s. I seem to remember an old fella who appeared to reside / work in a caged entrance in the wall??? I think his name was 'Old Bob'? I know sometimes when it rained heavily i would stand and chat to him as we watched the water flow past like a stream

Many years ago Seven Dials had a bit of a reputation, but not for cheese shops.

I am here by the blessing of the Youtube algorithm. I subscribed purely because your narration is top notch. I look forward to hearing more stories from you. With love, from Western USA

Did you know Bob Dylan filmed 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' in which he has the lyrics on a series of large cards was filmed further along the embankment in an scruffy alley at the side of the Savoy hotel.

"buying cheese at my favourite cheese shop" Cheese is love, cheese is life! Here are some cheese facts: The word cheese comes from Latin caseus (where the Spanish queso, Portuguese queijo, and Romanian caș come from) from which the modern word casein is also derived. When the Romans began to make hard cheeses for their legionaries' supplies, a new word started to be used: formaticum, from caseus formatus, or "molded cheese" (as in "formed"). It is from this word that the French fromage, standard Italian formaggio, Catalan formatge, Breton fourmaj, and Occitan fromatge (or formatge) are derived. The earliest evidence of cheesemaking in the archaeological record dates back to 5500 BCE and is found in what is now Kuyavia, Poland, where strainers coated with milk-fat molecules have been found. The earliest evidence of cheesemaking in the Mediterranean dates back to 5200 BCE, on the coast of the Dalmatia region of Croatia. The earliest proposed dates for the origin of cheesemaking range from around 8000 BCE, when sheep were first domesticated. Because animal skins and inflated internal organs have provided storage vessels for a range of foodstuffs since ancient times, it is probable that the process of cheese making was discovered accidentally by storing milk in a container made from the stomach of an animal, resulting in the milk being turned to curd and whey by the rennet from the stomach In 2021, world production of cheese from whole cow milk was 22.2 million tonnes, with the United States accounting for 28% of the total, followed by Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands as secondary producers. In the US, Wisconsin has a long tradition and history of cheese production. Wisconsin's cheesemaking tradition dates back to the 19th century. European immigrants who settled in Wisconsin were drawn to its fertile fields. Soon, dairy farms sprang up around Wisconsin, and farmers began producing cheese to preserve excess milk. In 1841, Anne Pickett established Wisconsin's first commercial cheese factory, using milk from neighbors' cows. A century later, Wisconsin was home to more than 1,500 cheese factories, which produced more than 500 million pounds of cheese per year. In 2010, Wisconsin's cheese production rose to 2.6 billion pounds (requiring the state cheese industry to import a substantial amount of milk from other states to meet production needs). In 2014, Wisconsin produced 2.9 billion pounds of cheese, accounting for 25.4% of all cheese produced in the US

Speaking for myself, I love a bit of Eighteen Century vaulting!

"Oi! You! Hazzard! Diocletian here! You pronounced my name wrong! Git it sorr-tid or you'll git a slap! Geeeeez-a!" (Ed: it is a little known fact that Diocletian was actually born within the sound of Bow Bells - and REALLY hated the hoi polloi getting his name wrong)!

You keep posting your videos just when I'am getting ready for work, I might need a note for my boss. Cheers 😂

The life that Jago leads - cheese and wine.....

I've drove down here a couple of times with a couple of people when parked on those streets(for work dont worry) because it always makes them think wtf when you enter and I feel James Bondy lol

Good video, thank you. More explorations of obscure corners of London, please.