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Prospero is the main protagonist of The Tempest, a character with magical powers who finds himself shipwrecked on an island. He has the ability to control the weather, the conditions on the island, and also the actions and movements of people and the spirits who also live on the island. Today, Shakespeare’s name seems almost commonplace as our admiration for the Bard as grown in the centuries since his death. But it wasn’t always the case, as late as March 27, 1866, a letter to The Times complained that many of the great figures of English history had been ignored in London’s street nomenclature. “We have one little out-of-the-way terrace called Shakespeare” (a reference to small group of houses around a pub named after the Bard in Holloway Road – now gone), Civis wrote. The letter seems to have had an effect as this is one of a small cluster of streets not far from the Holloway Road that are named after characters from Shakespeare’s plays. This road was first mentioned around 1885. Nearby streets include Miranda Road, Cressida Road, Lysander Grove, Lysander Mews, and Parolles Road.
