Why is Soho called Soho? The hunting cry, checked

Ask anyone in a Soho pub why it is called Soho and you will get the same answer: it was a hunting cry. That answer is right, as far as anyone can tell. But the details, the date and the Duke of Monmouth, are where the story gets told wrong. Here is what the sources actually say.

The cry

"So-ho" was a cry shouted by huntsmen when the hounds were let loose on a hare, a cousin of "tally-ho". Wordorigins traces it back a very long way: a Scottish seal from 1307 shows a hare with the motto "Sohou Sohou", and a hunting manual from around 1420 by William Twiti, huntsman to Edward II, tells you to cry "so-how" three times as you uncouple the hounds for a hare. The Survey of London notes evidence that hunting took place over the land west of what is now Wardour Street, and Tony Shrimplin of the Museum of Soho told the Allusionist that Henry VIII took the area as hunting ground for his palace at Whitehall. Before the bricklayers arrived, this was farmland and grazing, with hounds running across it.

The date

The year you will see most often is 1636: that is when, according to Wikipedia and many guides, the name first appears for this part of London. We went looking for proof, and it is less tidy than that. The Allusionist, the language podcast, puts the first written use at 1632, and the etymology dictionary Etymonline says only that the district has been called Soho since at least the 1630s.

The earliest record quoted by the Survey of London, the standard history of the parish, is from 1641, when a woman called Anna Clerke was bound over to keep the peace after "threteninge to burne the houses at So: ho". Those houses, the Survey says, were a group of wayside cottages on the east side of what is now Wardour Street, just north of Bourchier Street. So the honest version is this: the name was in use by the 1630s, the 1636 date is the one everybody repeats, and the oldest piece of evidence you can read for yourself is a threat to set fire to some cottages. Which is very Soho.

From cottages to a district

The Survey describes how the name of that little group of cottages spread. In the 1650s the land was still pasture, and Faithorne and Newcourt's map of 1658 shows no buildings. By the late seventeenth century twenty-two acres of pasture, Kemp's Field and Bunch's Close, were often being called Soho Fields, and around 1671 Sir Christopher Wren complained to the King about unlicensed building in "the Fields adjoyning to So Hoe". Once the parish of St Anne was carved out in 1686, the name gradually stretched to cover its streets and squares, and later the streets west of Wardour Street too.

The Duke of Monmouth

The other story you will hear is that Soho is named after the Duke of Monmouth's battle cry. Monmouth, Charles II's eldest illegitimate son, had a great house on Soho Square, and he is said to have used "Soho" as the rallying call for his men at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685. But, as the Allusionist points out, the place had already been called Soho for at least fifty years by then. If Monmouth shouted it, he was shouting the name of the place where he lived, not giving it one.

Does anyone really know?

Not completely. Tony Shrimplin, chair of the Museum of Soho, told the Allusionist that "no one actually knows", though there is a lot of evidence for the hunting cry. Why one corner of the royal hunting grounds kept the name and the rest did not is still a mystery. We are happy to leave it as one.

Where to tell the story

Walk up Wardour Street to the corner of Bourchier Street, where the cottages stood, then take the story somewhere it will be appreciated. The French House on Dean Street bans phones, so you will have to tell it properly. Order a half and start with the woman who threatened to burn the houses. And if the argument runs late, Bar Italia on Frith Street is open until 4am. Stand at the counter, order an espresso and settle it there.