Cecil Court - Trivia

Trivia

• In 1776 Abraham Raimbach the line engraver of "Village Politicians," "Blind Man's Buff" and others, after David Wilkie, was born in Cecil Court. Macmichael, J. Holden (1906): The Story of Charing Cross and its Environs, p. 190.
• The Aestheticist periodical The Dome was published at number 7 between March 1897 and July 1900.
• Watkins Books, the oldest bookshop in London to specialise in esoterica, has the longest continuous business history on the street, having occupied their current premises at 21 Cecil Court since 1901.
• Harry Potter's Diagon Alley is widely believed to be inspired by Cecil Court just off Charing Cross Road, London.
• Booksellers William and Gilbert Foyle, founders of the world famous Foyles, opened their first West End shop at 16 Cecil Court in 1904, before moving onto the current site in Charing Cross Road in 1906. Low, David (1973): With All Faults, pp 16–20
• In the 1930s Cecil Court became a well known meeting place for Jewish refugees, which in 1983–84 inspired R.B. Kitaj to paint Cecil Court W.C.2. (The Refugees), a work now in the Tate Collection.
• In March 1961 Elsie Batten, a 59 year old assistant in an antique shop at 23 Cecil Court, was stabbed to death. Her murderer, Edwin Bush, was identified and caught within days (he confessed and was hanged) following the circulation of identikit pictures — the first case to be solved using identikit in the UK.
• In 1967 David Drummond opened Pleasures of Past Times at 11 Cecil Court, specializing in memorabilia of the performing arts and "printed items evocative of a leisured age", making him the longest-serving bookseller on the street.
• In 2006 Cecil Court was a location for the filming of Miss Potter, starring Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor.
• In 1983 the British commercial telephone directory company Yellow Pages filmed their famous Fly Fishing by J. R. Hartley in Cecil Court. The character was played by the actor Norman Lumsden.
• In July 2010, Tenderpixel Gallery organized the Flicker Alley Festival in Cecil Court, which celebrated the heritage of early British Cinema. Vinyl stickers in the style of blue heritage plaques were put on shop windows across the court, indicating which productions companies were located in each address between 1900 and 1915. Several lectures were organized, and the first Alice in Wonderland film (Hepworth, 1903) was screened in Tenderpixel Gallery with live musical accompaniment.
• Cecil Court appeared in the 1 December 2010 episode of The Apprentice.