In the Middle Ages, what is now Soho was known as Saint Giles Field, a farmland belonging to the Convent of Abingdon and the master of Burton St Lazar (Burton Lazars) Hospital in Leicestershire, who owned a leper (leprosy) hospital in St Giles in the Fields. In 1536, the land was taken by Henry VIII (Henry VIII of England) as a royal park for the Palace of Whitehall.Estate and Parish History 
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In the 1660s the Crown granted Soho Fields to Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans. He leased 19 of its 22fromSymbol to Joseph Girle, who gained permission to build and promptly passed his lease and licence to bricklayer Richard Frith in 1677. Frith began the development. In 1698 William III (William III of England) granted the Crown freehold of most of this area to William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland. Meanwhile, the southern part of Soho was sold by the Crown in parcels in the 16th and 17th centuries, with part going to Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester (Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester).
Despite the best intentions of landowners such as the Earls of Leicester and Portland to develop the land on the grand scale of neighbouring Bloomsbury, Marylebone and Mayfair, Soho never became a fashionable area for the rich. Immigrants settled in the area, especially French Huguenots who poured in from 1688, after which the area became known as London's French quarter.
The French church in Soho Square was founded by Huguenots in the 17th century. By the mid-18th century, the aristocrats who had been living in Soho Square or Gerrard Street had moved away. Soho's character stems partly from the ensuing neglect by rich and fashionable London, and the lack of redevelopment that characterised the neighbouring areas.
By the mid-19th century, all respectable families had moved away, and prostitutes, music halls and small theatres had moved in. Soho's population increased rapidly during this time, reaching 327 inhabitants per acre by 1851; then one of the most densely populated areas of London. Houses became divided into tenements with chronic overcrowding and disease. A serious outbreak of cholera in 1854 around Soho caused the remaining upper-class families to leave the area. A considerable number of hospitals were built to cope with the health problem, with six being constructed between 1851 and 1874.
In the early 20th century, foreign nationals opened cheap eating-houses, and the neighbourhood became a fashionable place to eat for intellectuals, writers and artists. Arthur Ransome has two chapters of Bohemia in London (1907) about Old and New Soho, and about Soho coffee-houses like the ''Orange'', ''The Moorish Café'' and ''The Algerian''.
A detailed mural depicting Soho characters, including writer Dylan Thomas and jazz musician George Melly, is in Broadwick Street, at the junction with Carnaby Street. In fiction, Robert Louis Stevenson had Dr. Henry Jekyll set up a home for Edward Hyde in Soho in his novel, ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde''. Joseph Conrad used Soho as the home for ''The Secret Agent'', a French immigrant who ran a pornography shop.
From the 1930s to the early 1960s, Soho folklore states that the pubs of Soho were packed every night with drunken writers, poets and artists, many of whom never stayed sober long enough to become successful; and it was also during this period that the Soho pub landlords established themselves.
Soho was part of the ancient parish of St Martin in the Fields (St Martin in the Fields (parish)), forming part of the Liberty of Westminster. As the population started to grow a new church was provided and in 1687 a new parish of St Anne (St Anne Within the Liberty of Westminster) was established for it. The parish stretched from Oxford Street in the north, to Leicester Square in the south and from what is now Charing Cross Road in the east to Wardour Street in the west. It therefore included all of contemporary eastern Soho, including the Chinatown area. The western portion of modern Soho, around Carnaby Street was part of the parish of St James (Westminster St James), that was split off from St Martin in 1685.