Earlier this year, Chris and I created a Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning letters blog site, where we’ve been posting the letters between the two poets that documents their 1.5 year courtship. During the period of those letters, Elizabeth Barrett lived in London, at 50 Wimpole Street. So, since we were going to be in London for Chris’ conference last week, I’d thought about tracking down that street, to see if there was still a house at that address.

However, we got to London and I promptly forgot all about it amid the unseasonably warm temperatures. Well, at least that’s my excuse – it was too hot to think!

Anyway,  I didn’t remember that I’d wanted to find Wimpole Street until Saturday morning, while we were on our way clear across town to meet up with a friend. Luckily, our friend  had a smart phone, and he kindly looked up Wimpole Street online, to see where it was.  As it turned out, our hotel was a mere 15 minute walk from Wimpole street. So, that evening Chris and I headed over there to check it out.

The Barretts lived at 50 Wimpole Street, and there are two plaques on the front of the house that’s at that address that commemorate that fact, although apparently the house that’s at that address now isn’t the original house that Elizabeth actually lived in.

But, at least it is a house at the correct address. One can imagine that it could be like the one Elizabeth Barrett lived in with her wicked father (he forbade her and all of his children from ever geting married), her kind sister (who helped organized Robert Browning’s secret visits) and assorted other relatives. It was from the house at this address that Elizabeth escaped from in order to elope with Robert Browning, thereafter to live out a happily-ever-after with him in Italy. I know,  her life story has several fairy-tale aspects, but really, it’s all true.

Anyway, the photos below are of the house that’s currently on the street where she lived.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that the end of that last sentence, as well as the title of this post, have been deliberately manipulated by me just so I could work a gratuitous mention of a Broadway show tune.

But in fact the show tune actually was made for this post. Let me explain.

As you might recall, the song in question, On the Street Where You Live, comes from My Fair Lady, which is based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion.  In the story, Shaw’s heroine, Eliza Doolittle, stays at the at the house of Professor Henry Higgins. It’s where she’s living when Freddy Eynsford-Hill, her erstwhile suitor, sings that love song about her while waiting on the street where she lives.

What you may not have recalled right off  is that according to Shaw’s text, Henry Higgins lived at 27a Wimpole Street. Which means that the street where Eliza lived — i.e. the street that Freddy sings about — is indeed Wimpole Street, the same street where Elizabeth Barrett lived.

Fact and fiction converge with a Broadway show tune.  it doesn’t get much better than that in a blog post, IMHO. 😉

Anyway, photos below are all of the street where they all lived. Enjoy.

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P.S. Jeremy Brett played Freddy in the movie My Fair Lady, and he’s the actor you’ll see in the clip I linked to above. However, his singing voice was dubbed by a man named Bill Shirley. So, I always assumed that Jeremy Brett couldn’t sing. However, when searching for that My Fair Lady clip on YouTube, I stumbled upon another clip of Jermey Brett singing on a TV show with Twiggy, and it turns out that he could sing!  Click here for the clip: the first song is a bit slow, but I thought the rest were kind of fun.