Great Queen Street is a street in the West End of central London in England. It is a continuation of Long Acre from Drury Lane to Kingsway. It runs from 1 to 44 along the north side, east to west, and 45 to about 80 along the south side, west to east. The street straddles and connects the Covent Garden and Holborn districts and is in the London Borough of Camden. It is numbered B402. Early history The street was called "Queen Street" from around 1605–9, and "Great Queen Street" from around 1670. In 1646 William Newton was given permission to build fourteen large houses, each with a forty-foot frontage, on the south side of the street. Although he did not build all the houses himself, selling on some the plots, they were constructed to a uniform design, in a classical style, with Ionic pilasters rising through two storeys from the first floor to the eaves. The regular design of the houses proved influential. According to John Summerson they "laid down the canon which put an end to gabled individualism, and provided a discipline for London's streets which was to endure for two hundred years." In 1710, the Great Queen Street Academy was founded here with Godfrey Kneller as its first governor. Recent history In about 2005 a local architect's practice won a competition to create a small, new square by redesigning the Great Queen Street junction with Drury Lane. The London Borough of Camden saw the potential of improving this junction as it was on their walking corridor between Leicester Square and Holborn. It was realised that to make this the best space for walking the traffic signals should be designed out as they were more of a hindrance than a help to pedestrians. Thus the Great Queen Street scheme created the trend for traffic signal removal in the UK, which together with removing guard railings and lighting columns it set a new standard for decluttering. It was also the first scheme to explain how shared space works and can be designed, and how to make it inclusive. Then to ensure that the space was more than just paving it was necessary to provide some seating. This was difficult in an area with a high crime and anti-social behaviour due to it being on the edge of the night time economy in Covent Garden and one block from a