Why London’s West End?

The West End of London is the ritziest end and it has been that way for a very, very long time. But has anyone ever stopped to ask why this is? Is it just because of fashion – the rich and famous live there, so more rich and famous people move there to show they belong to that particular set and so the cycle continues? You could easily be forgiven for believing this, but there is a practical reason why: it’s to do with the weather (of course – this is England!). The prevailing winds in London blow from west to east, which means that the smoke of London was blown from the west onto the east rather than the other way round. And let’s face it: if you have to roll out the red carpet regularly and have it nice and clean, then it’s easier to do carpet cleaning where the smoke isn’t than try to get the carpets clean in the east (not that the East End is a grubby place – far from it – but that’s another story and another article).

The Dark Side of London

While much of the West End was inhabited by the wealthy, the famous and the respectable (which sometimes, but not always, overlapped) plus their servants, at least in former days, some areas picked up something of a reputation for being a little seedy. Soho, for example, became the West End’s red-light district, in contrast to, say, St James’s. We’ll draw a discreet veil (or maybe a very thick carpet) over what went on in Soho’s brothels, but what you may not know is that not all the ladies of easy virtue working in the area in times gone by were full-time professionals – in the Victorian and Edwardian days, underpaid housemaids would moonlight (literally) as “dollymops”, doing the cleaning during the day and doing… other things… in the evenings to supplement a meagre income.

Carpet Cleaning in Past Times

One more reputable name associated with Soho in the West End is not as well known as it should be. This is the physician and medical researcher John Snow, who made a discovery that was every bit as vital and radical (in its day) as the research by Lois Pasteur in France. John Snow noticed that cholera had broken out in Soho, and it wasn’t for lack of cleanliness: the maids (whether they were dollymops or not) were diligent in their cleaning of carpets rugs and upholstery, but the disease still spread. In the end, John Snow realised that contaminated water was to blame, and one particular pump was condemned and removed from use. This pump – still minus the handle so it can’t be used – is still standing, even after the ravages of the Blitz – as is a pub nearby named after John Snow.

Here is a little video on the history of carpet.

Recently, Soho has tried to attract businesses of all sorts back to it, as well as the erotica and music scene (one internationally famous store in Soho is Agent Provocateur, purveyor of hot lingerie and more). In the “I Love Soho” campaign, the carpet cleaning professionals got called out so a clean red carpet could be rolled out for the likes of Charlotte Church and Paris Hilton.