St Christopher's Place
St Christopher's Place is a pedestrianised passage in Marylebone, running north from Oxford Street to Wigmore Street in the W1U postal area, with a narrow width and intimate scale that sets it apart from the broader commercial streets of the district. It lies within the Stratford Place conservation area and its nearest Underground station is Bond Street.
The passage was formerly known as Barrett's Court, named after John Barratt, a local landowner. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century it functioned as a slum alley, a common condition for the narrow back courts tucked behind the principal Georgian terraces of this part of Marylebone. The physical character of the west side changed in 1872 through the intervention of Octavia Hill, the social reformer, who had the properties rebuilt as model workers' lodgings, an early example of managed philanthropic housing in central London.
The street's retail identity developed through the twentieth century, and it is now recognised for independent boutiques and restaurants in smaller units that contrast with the major retailers on Oxford Street immediately to the south. The combination of a nineteenth-century social history, conservation area designation, and a compact pedestrian environment makes St Christopher's Place one of the more characterful passages connecting Oxford Street to Marylebone's quieter interior streets.
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