Mayfair derives its name from a fair held in May in fields around the site of today’s Shepherd Market. In the 1660s three large mansions, including Burlington House (now the Royal Academy) were erected on the north side of Piccadilly. These were followed by smaller scale high quality, speculative residential development. Early development was slow …
Category: W1
Regent Street, W1
Regent Street is one of the most important examples of town planning in the country. It was first laid out by John Nash in the early 19th century to create a new processional route from Regent’s Park in the north to Carlton House in the south (the present site of CarIton House Terrace). The route …
Marylebone
Marylebone is an area in the City of Westminster North of Oxford Street and South of Regents Park. Edgware Road forms the western boundary and Portland Place forms the eastern boundary with the area known as Fitzrovia. Marylebone gets its name from a church, called St Mary’s, that was built on the bank of a …
The Fascination of London – Mayfair, Belgravia, and Bayswater
Mayfair, Belgravia, and Bayswater – The Fascination of London by Geraldine Edith Mitton Mayfair is at the present time the most fashionable part of London, so much so that the name has come to be a synonym for wealth or pride of birth. Yet it was not always so, as he who runs may read, …
Old Park Lane, W1
Old Park Lane was formerly the southern extention of Park Lane when the latter was a simple country lane on the boundary of Hyde Park, separated from it by a brick wall. Once known as Tyburn Lane, the whole of Park Lane led from Piccadilly to Tyburn (Marble Arch). Before even that it was known …
1766: Hyde Park
A PLAN of HYDE-PARK with the CITY and LIBERTIES of WESTMINSTER &c. Shewing the several IMPROVEMENTS propos’d by architect John Gwynn (1766). This plan shows renovations in Hyde Park and around Westminster. Two Royal palaces have been planned, in Hyde Park and Green Park. The red lines show an intention to regularise the street plan, replacing …