Long Acre is such an old street that the street-numbering still follows the medieval pattern. Instead of the modern style, with odd numbers on one side, and even numbers on the other, houses 1 to 77 are on the South Side, and 78 to 144 on the North Side.
At Number 69 to 5 – where we find a modern office block named “Acre House” today – a man named Joseph Sheppard is recorded as selling the first 'hobby horses', in 1819. The 'hobby horse' was really more of a scooter with a saddle – there were no pedals, and no brakes, and the rider punted himself along using his feet on the ground. In the 20th century British fire-engines were made in Long Acre, at the former Merryweather factory, until 1950, at №63 Long Acre.
At 132 Long Acre in 1929 the Scottish engineer John Logie Baird made a first public demonstration of a television broadcast in history. Unfortunately Baird's system was too primitive to be popular. He went into the history books, but more practical TV-sets made by his rivals displaced his invention from the market . The entire North side of Long Acre was owned by the publishers Odhams from 1890 until 1970 – they wrote, edited and printed everything on the premises. They produced major British magazines such as “John Bull”, “Woman's Own”, and the official listing of the British nobility, 'Debrett's Peerage”. At the South end of Long Acre, it meets a famous theatrical street – Drury Lane.