Great Scotland Yard, London

Great Scotland Yard is a street in the St James's district within the City of Westminster, London. This relatively short street links Whitehall to Northumberland Avenue.

This is the street that gave its name to the Metropolitan Police of Greater London, which is called Scotland Yard. The Metropolitan Police force was formed in 1829. It occupied a building at 4 Whitehall Place - the next road parallel to it, but with an entrance at Great Scotland Yard. That was how the Metropolitan Police became known as Scotland Yard. It remained there until 1890, when it moved out of Great Scotland Yard to new premises at Victoria Embankment. At that time, the Metropolitan Police changed its name to New Scotland Yard. In 1967, it moved again to 10 The Broadway, where it is still located today.

How the street Great Scotland Yard got its name is not obscure. The likelihood is that the kings of Scotland used to own properties here prior to the 1707 Union of England and Scotland. Another theory is that a person named Scott lived or owned the property here during the Middle Ages. In any case, Great Scotland Yard has its share of famous people living there including architects Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren as well as poet John Milton.

How to reach Great Scotland Yard

Take the Bakerloo Line, Circle Line, District Line or Northern Line to the Embankment Tube Station and walk from there.

Location map of Great Scotland Yard

List of Streets in London

 Latest updates on Penang Travel Tips

About this website

Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.