Oxford Street

A main road in central London, England; one of London's principal shopping thoroughfares, containing department stores as Selfridges and John Lewis. It forms the boundary between the City of Westminster and the former borough of St Marylebone. It is crossed halfway along its length by Regent Street. Oxford Street follows the site of a Roman road that ran from London to Silchester.

The Pantheon, a fashionable entertainment centre, stood near the eastern end of the street from 1772 until 1867. The eastern extension, known as New Oxford Street, was added in 1847.

The street has been known at different times as ‘the way from Uxbridge’, ‘the road to Oxford’, and ‘Tyburn road’ (as it led to the gallows at Tyburn). It was eventually named after Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford, who married the daughter of the Duke of Newcastle, who owned land in St Marylebone.