On the north, beginning between St. Martin's Church and the National Gallery, issues St. Martin's Place, continued by CHARING CROSS ROAD, a broad thoroughfare cut in 1887, through a formerly congested and squalid region, to provide direct communication with Oxford Street and marking roughly the east border of Soho. Since the abolition of Booksellers' Row Charing Cross Road has become the chief mart in London for second-hand books. On the 'island' in the roadway immediately beyond St. Martin's Church is the monument (designed by Sir George Frampton and erected by public subscription in 1920) to Nurse Edith Cavell, who was shot by the Germans at Brussels in 1915. On the left, adjoining the National Gallery, is the National Portrait Gallery, on the north side of which is a statue of Sir Henry Irving (1838-1905), the actor, by Brock (1910). On the opposite side of the street are the Westminster City Hall, the Garrick Theatre, and Wyndham's Theatre. No. 22, on this side, is the office of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which maintains a fleet of 218 lifeboats on the British coasts and, since its foundation in 1824, has been the means of saving 60,301 lives, including 5322 endangered by hostilities during the Great War. The institution, engaged in this noble national task, is supported entirely by voluntary subscriptions. On the left is an entrance to the Alhambra Theatre. Farther on we cross Cranbourn Street, which leads west, past the Hippodrome and Daly's Theatre, to Leicester Square and east to Long Acre and Covent Garden. At Cambridge Circus Charing Cross Road intersects Shaftesbury Avenue. Thence to Oxford Street.
