Great Queen Street

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Great Queen Street, looking east. Freemasons' Hall is visible on the right.
Great Queen Street, looking east. Freemasons' Hall is visible on the right.

Great Queen Street is a street in central London, England. It is a continuation of Long Acre from Drury Lane to Kingsway (London). It runs from 1 to 44 along the north side, east to west, and 45 to about 80 along the south side, west to east.

Roughly half of the south side is occupied by Freemasons' Hall, the headquarters of the United Grand Lodge of England. The first English Grand Lodge was founded in 1717, which explains the dates on the top of the current building. Their first buildings on this site were replaced in 1860 by the architect Frederick Pepys Cockerell. However, this is the third Freemasons' Hall, which was built by international subscriptions in 1927-33 as a Masonic Peace Memorial after the Great War. It is a grade II listed building, and the only Art Deco building in London that is unaltered and still used for its original purpose. There are 29 meeting rooms and the 1,000 seat Grand Temple, which with the Library and Museum are open to the public with hourly guided tours.

In 1775 the Freemason's Tavern stood at 61-65, now the hotel and “New Connaught Rooms”. Like the original Tavern, the hotel is used by the public as well as by the freemasons for their receptions and dinners: the “New Connaught Rooms” are frequently used for exhibitions, business meetings and award ceremonies. There are conflicting stories about the founding in 1863 of the Football Association to set down the rules of the game. The existing pub “The Freemasons Arms” on Long Acre is sometimes said to be the site of this event, but other sources say it was the “Freemason’s Tavern” where the New Connaught Rooms now stand.

There is a pub called "The Prince of Wales" at 45 Great Queen Street, presumably named after the future George IV who was the Grand Master of the Freemasons in 1809.

The North side of the road is also partly occupied by Masonic regalia shops, Masonic charities and administrative offices. At number 23 is a shop where Masonic regalia are sold. At 30-31 is the “Royal Masonic Trust for Boys and Girls”, a charity to provide an education for the orphaned children of masons.

At about 72 is the “Kingsway Hall Hotel”.

At 31, Great Queen Street lived James Basire, member of the Society of Antiquaries who took on William Blake as an apprentice in 1772. During 1837 to 1840 the painter Richard Dadd lived in Great Queen Street, while studying at the Royal Academy.

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