Fleet Street

For the television series tentatively titled Fleet Street, see Boston Legal.

Fleet Street is a famous London street, traditionally the home of the national press. Despite the fact that all the major newspapers have now moved out of their Fleet Street offices (most to the Docklands), the street's name continues to be used as a synonym for the British press. The last major news office, Reuters left in 2003.

At Temple Bar to the west, as Fleet Street crosses the boundary out of the City of London, it becomes The Strand; to the east it evolves into Ludgate Hill. The nearest tube stations are Temple, Chancery Lane, and Blackfriars. It is very close to City Thameslink station.

The street is named after the River Fleet which it once bridged. (Today the river flows underground.)

Fleet Street is the setting of the fictitious play, Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

There is also a Fleet Street in Temple Bar, Dublin

Fiction and drama about Fleet Street

• Howard Brenton & David Hare: Pravda (1985) (about a Rupert Murdoch-like character)
• Amanda Craig: A Vicious Circle (1996) (about a fictitious British newspaper tycoon and the world of publishing in general)
• Michael Wall: Amongst Barbarians (1989) (Similar to Lily d'Abo in My Name Is Legion, a white British working class couple takes money from a tabloid in order to be able to help their son.)
• Evelyn Waugh: Scoop (1938) (Here, the fictional African country is called Ishmaelia, and the paper's name is The Daily Beast.)
• A. N. Wilson: Scandal (1983) (about how a political scandal is created by the tabloid press).
• A. N. Wilson: My Name is Legion (2004).

Non-fiction

• Fritz Spiegl: Keep Taking the Tabloids. What the Papers Say and How They Say It (1983)
• A. N. Wilson: London: A Short History (2004)

See also

• Holborn, with a description of the surrounding area.
• History of British newspapers.
• List of United Kingdom newspapers.
• Madison Avenue