Virginia Woolf’s ‘Oxford Street Tide’

Oxford Street began as a Roman road leading westwards and, with developments to the north by the Cavendish-Harleys, took on its main function as a shopping street from the 1770s. The last public execution at the Tyburn (now Marble Arch) was in 1783.

In her modernist novel, Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf makes fleeting reference to Clarissa Dalloway crossing Oxford Street in 1923 on her mission to buy flowers for an evening party. She appears far more interested in the hat and glove shops of Bond Street than the big department stores of Oxford Street. She then walks up Great Portland Street to Regent’s Park while meeting several friends on the way. How did Virginia Woolf perceive Oxford Street a century ago and how far has it changed?

The Mayor of London’s current plans to transform the western section of Oxford Street raise some interesting questions about how far it can be made an accessible place for all, while not losing its vibrant and dynamic qualities as London’s most famous high street.

Virginia Woolf was born in London in 1882 and lived in the early part of the first decade of the twentieth century in both Gordon Square and Fitzroy Square. She was a regular walker and clearly knew the city very well. One of her favourite activities which she wrote about was street haunting “walking half across London between tea and dinner” on a winter’s evening. In 1931 she wrote one of six essays for Good Housekeeping magazine titled “The Oxford Street Tide”. These essays were later published in Britain by the Hogarth Press and Random House in 1982.

Woolf clearly has reservations about the Oxford Street of her day and may well have preferred the refined drapers’ shops in Bond Street to the hurly burly of the main thoroughfare:

“….it cannot be said that the character of Oxford Street is refined. It is a breeding ground, a forcing house of sensation. The pavement seems to sprout horrid tragedies, the divorce of actresses, the suicides of millionaires occur here with a frequency that is unknown in the more austere pavements of the residential districts.”

She argues that the mind becomes a “glutinous slab” that is bombarded by the “perpetual ribbon of changing sights, sounds and movement”. A bit like today, “motor omnibuses graze the kerb” and “Buses, vans, cars, barrows stream past like the fragments of a picture puzzle”. Woolf goes on to record that the policemen directing the traffic wear white arm bands and, no doubt, face masks against the very high levels of toxic fumes.

Woolf is also rather dismissive of the social status of the street in the 1930s: “Oxford Street, it goes without saying, is not London’s most distinguished thoroughfare. Moralists have been known to point the finger of scorn at those who buy there, and they have the support of the dandies.” She rather snobbishly notes that there are too many sales and reductions and the buying and selling is “too blatant and raucous”. Woolf is much more at home in the more exclusive glove shops and perfumeries of Bond Street. One curiosity she sees on her travels is someone selling tortoises on the corner of a side street: “…to see a woman stop and add a tortoise to her string of parcels is perhaps the rarest sight that human eyes can look upon.”

Today the Mayor of London is progressing a major transformation of the western half of Oxford Street. In the language of the marketeer, transformation of “the public realm” and “a retail experience” for all is accentuated:

“The Mayor of London has set out bold plans to create a new world class destination in the heart of London. Bringing together world leading public realm with cutting edge retail experience, Oxford Street will be transformed.

“Oxford Street will be restored as one of the leading destinations to visit in London. The transformation will celebrate the street’s rich retail history whilst embracing an exciting, modern future.

“Londoners, workers, visitors and businesses will be able to enjoy a lively, diverse Oxford Street which will have something for everyone. From flagship high street stores to the potential for on street events in a beautifully designed public realm, Oxford Street will once again be a place where people want to visit again and again.”

Virginia Woolf pours scorn on the flimsy nature of much of the building along Oxford Street and she notes that “….any day of the week one may see Oxford Street vanishing at the tap of a workman’s pick as he stands perilously balanced on a dusty pinnacle knocking down walls and facades as lightly as if they were made of yellow cardboard and sugar icing”. But perhaps things have changed.

If she was visiting the street today, she would be amazed at the extent to which some of the grander department store buildings have been preserved and converted into other uses. One of the grandest, Selfridges, still survives but has gradually adapted to meet the needs of modern retail and commercial occupants. Others have been listed and converted to new office, leisure and hospitality uses. She might have been even more surprised by the planning arguments surrounding the attempts to conserve (or replace) the buildings of the Marble Arch branch of Marks & Spencer. Woolf concludes: “The charm of modern London is that it is not built to last; it is built to pass.”

Perhaps the biggest surprise to her would be the extent of the opposition to the mayor’s plans from both local residents and Westminster City Council. Much of the traffic Woolf commented on in her essay will simply be transferred to narrow side streets. Meanwhile, “omnibuses” will be diverted on a tortuous route around Cavendish Square between Wigmore Street and the eastern end of Oxford Street. And there is no guarantee that increasing online retail activity will not further reduce the variety of shops or introduce less attractive uses. Yet the current estimate of half a million visitors per day is likely to increase after pedestrianisation creating further demands for street cleaning and law enforcement.

Sources:

Mayor of London, Oxford Street MDC.

Survey of London Volume 53: Oxford Street, Yale University Press, 2020.

Woolf, V. Street haunting: A London Adventure, Yale Review, October 1927

Woolf, V. Oxford Street Tide, in The London Scene, Snowbooks Ltd, 1975.

Woolf, V. Mrs Dalloway, Penguin, 2019.

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