Pamela Jennings (1964–2012), known as Soho Pam, was a homeless English woman who became well known in Soho, London where she begged. She was much loved for her affectionate, polite manner and was the subject of artists and authors.

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Click here to read the Telegraph obituary here.

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Image: By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38891269 

Sat on the Time Life Building on New Bond Street is four abstract pieces by Henry Moore. These were placed here in 1953.

He once asked to buy them back, as he thought they were too high for them to be seen properly.

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Coordinates: 51°30'39.02"N 0°08'34.89"W

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This instrument is one of only 15 carillons in the British Isles, and the only one in London. It is housed in a small spirelet on the roof of No.24 Old Bond Street, which stands on the corner of Old Bond Street and Burlington Gardens. The building was designed by Vincent Harris (1876-1971), who designed a number of significant buildings in the first half of the twentieth century, including the Ministry of Defence Main Building on Whitehall.

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24 Old Bond Street was built as the premises of J.&E. Atkinson Ltd in 1926. The building was later taken over by J. Fox & Co. and later still became the property of the National Farmers Union Mutual Insurance Society Ltd, who currently let space in the building to various businesses. Most of the ground floor shop space is now occupied by Salvatore Ferragamo.

The carillon was built by Gillett and Johnston in 1927 and is a chromatic two octave instrument of 23 bells (in carillons the two lowest semitones are often omitted) with a bass bell of 12-0-16 in G#. It is played from a clavier (a keyboard consisting of batons played with the fists and foot pedals) in the loft of the building, at the base of the spirelet. The spirelet is small, and the bell frame takes up the entire space, meaning that access for maintenance work is difficult. The constraints of space also mean that part of the linkage between the clavier and the bells runs horizontally, and this makes the action significantly heavier than it would otherwise be. As a consequence, the carillon is more difficult to play sensitively. Nevertheless, the bells are of very fine tone, and are a pleasure to listen to in the street, where they can be heard very clearly.

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Coordinates: 51°30'34.19"N 0°08'28.41"W

Source: The Ringing World

The showrooms in Conduit Street, where C.S. Rolls started, they were the London offices and showrooms of Rolls-Royce until 1996.

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Coordinates: 51°30'44.82"N 0°08'30.84"W

The Fine Art Society was founded in 1876 to specialise in  British art and design. One of the world’s oldest art galleries, it pioneered the idea of one-man exhibitions, such as American artist James Whistler's Venetian etchings in 1883.

Originally simply called "The Arcade", but since the shirtmaker H. W. Brettell was patronised by Queen Victoria, it was renamed as the "Royal Arcade".

He opened his shop at No 12 in 1880, a year after the arcade was built to connect Brown's Hotel to Bond Street.

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The royal florist Edward Goodyear used to be located there but was bombed out during World War II and had to relocate.

Parts of Agatha Christie's Poirot episode The Theft of the Royal Ruby were filmed there. The Arcade also appears in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and The Parent Trap.

Admiral Horatio Nelson lived at No 147 New Bond Street in 1797 (it was No. 141 then).

If you every walk past Sotheby's, New Bond Street be sure to take a look at the black basalt statue that sits above the entrance. The statue is a bust of the lioness warrior goddess Sekhmet and is believed to have been carved in ancient Egypt around 1320 B.C. The Sotheby's Sekhmet is supposedly the oldest privately owned statue on outdoor display in London.

The statue came to Sotheby's in the 1800s as part of a collection of Egyptian artifacts, which were subsequently sold for £40. However, the statue's buyer never appeared to collect it, and as such Sotheby's retained the Sekhmet.

Historically, Carnaby Street derives its name from Karnaby House, located to its east and originally erected in 1683. It is not known anymore why the house was called this.

The street was probably laid out in 1685 or 1686. First appearing in the ratebooks in 1687, the street was almost completely built up by 1690 with small houses. A market was developed in the 1820s; This area is also notable as the area about where cholera broke out in 1854 leading to an early application of fundamental epidemiological principles to resolve the crisis. John Snow was a physician who recognised that the cholera cases were concentrated near a pump on Broad Street and communicated that finding using a map-based graphic. That led to locking of the pump and the reduction in cases of cholera in rapid course.

1958 saw the first boutique, His Clothes, opened in Carnaby Street by John Stephen (after his shop in Beak Street burned down) and was soon followed by I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet, Kleptomania, Mates, Ravel, and others.

By the 1960s, Carnaby Street proved popular for followers of both the Mod and hippie styles. Many independent fashion boutiques, and designers such as Mary Quant, Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin. Lord John, Merc, Take Six, and Irvine Sellars were located in Carnaby Street as well as various underground music bars such as the Roaring Twenties in the surrounding streets. With bands such as Small Faces, The Who, and Rolling Stones appearing in the area to work (with the legendary Marquee Club located round the corner in Wardour Street), shop, and socialise, it became one of the coolest destinations associated with the Swinging London of the 1960s.

In October 1973, the Greater London Council pedestrianised Carnaby Street.

There are two Westminster City Council green plaques on Carnaby Street: the first can be found at 1 Carnaby Street and is dedicated to fashion entrepreneur John Stephen, who was responsible for beginning the Mod fashion revolution here. The second plaque, located at 52/55 Carnaby Street, is dedicated to the Mod pop group The Small Faces and their manager Don Arden.In 1966, Harry Fox and Henry Moss together opened the doors of Lady Jane, the first ladies' fashion boutique in the street, to the world. They soon parted company and Harry Fox went on to add Lady Jane Again, Lady Jane's Birdcage, a souvenir shop and a men's wear shop, Sir Harry, to his empire.

Carnaby Street was an already well-enough established phenomenon to be satirized by The Kinks in their early 1966 hit, "Dedicated Follower of Fashion," which contains the line "Everywhere the Carnabetian Army marches on, each one a dedicated follower of fashion".

There is a song by The Jam called "Carnaby Street", written by bassist Bruce Foxton. It was the B-side of single "All Around The World", released in the UK on 8 July 1977, reaching a chart position of number 13. It never appeared on any studio album, but can be found on the collected works of The Jam boxset Direction Reaction Creation.

Carnaby Street The Musical opened in 2013. The show is set in the 1960s.

The Handel House Museum is a museum dedicated to the life and works of the German-born baroque composer George Frideric Handel, who made his home in London in 1712 and eventually became a British citizen in 1727. Handel was the first occupant of 25 Brook Street, which he rented from 1723 until his death there in 1759. Almost all his works after 1723, amongst them many of his best-known operas, oratorios and ceremonial music, were composed and partially rehearsed in the house, which contained a variety of keyboard instruments, including harpsichords, a clavichord and a small chamber organ.

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...And as an added bonus to this museum it also incorporates the upper floors of its neighbour 23 Brook Street, which was the home of rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix in 1968–69. These rooms were used for temporary exhibitions and events, but after fundraising, these and the rest of the rooms from the Hendrix apartment were opened to the public in February 2016 as "Handel and Hendrix in London".

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Coordinates: 51°30'47.01"N 0°08'45.60"W

The Fleming Collection is a large private collection of Scottish art.

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Coordinates: 51°30'29.60"N 0°08'35.55"W

This was a new street laid out in 1736, as part of the redevelopment of Doghouse Close. It was called Bentinck Street (from the family name of the Duke of Portland) and there is a plaque on the south side of the street marked 'Bentinck Street 1736' with an intricately woven and undecipherable monogram surmounted by a ducal coronet. In 1894 the street was renamed Livonia Street, presumably in geographical allusion to the neighbouring Poland Street.

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Coordinates: 51°30'51.00"N 0°08'07.87"W

At the point where Old Bond Street meets New Bond Street you can share a bench with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The two have been locked in silent conversation for more than twenty years.

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The Bronze statues of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill sitting 'talking' together on a bench in called 'Allies' and was gifted by the Bond Street Association to the City of Westminster to commemorate 50 years of peace.

The piece was created by Lawrence Holofcener, and it was unveiled on 2 May 1995 by Princess Margaret.

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Coordinates: 51°30'37.55"N 0°08'32.89"W

Blue Plaques of West End

Charles Rolls (1877-1910)

"Pioneer of Motoring and Aviation worked here 1905 - 1910"

14/15 Conduit Street, Mayfair, W1S 2XJ

Plaque installed: 2010

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George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)

"Composer lived in this house from 1723 and died here"

25 Brook Street, Mayfair, W1K 4HB

Plaque installed: 2001

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Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970)

"Guitarist and Songwriter lived here 1968–1969"

23 Brook Street, Mayfair, W1K 4HA

Plaque installed: 1997

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Prince Talleyrand (1754–1838)

"French Statesman and Diplomatist lived here"

21 Hanover Square, Mayfair, W1S 1JW

Plaque installed: 1978

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