Ebury Street, Belgravia. This part of the street has been renamed Mozart Terrace after the composer Wolfgang Mozart, who in 1764 stayed at the house to the left of the lamp post and composed his first symphony there.
A smaller sub-manor called Ebury or Eybury, containing the hamlet Eye Cross, was originally part of the manor (and are derivations in name). Ebury and a corruption of it, Avery,[2] appear as modern place and street names.
Ebury in modern place and other names
Ebury survives as a place name in: Ebury Street, Belgravia, Ebury Square, Ebury Wharf and Ebury Bridge, which crosses the former Grosvenor Canal. The name Avery, also found in many street names in SW1, is a corruption of Ebury.[3]
The modern hereditary title Baron Ebury, was created in 1857 for Robert Grosvenor, the owner of the estate, of an ancient and prominent gentry family of Cheshire. The names of some of the family's Cheshire estates now feature as street names in the former manor of Ebury, most notably Eaton, Belgrave and Eccleston. One of Grosvenor's business enterprises was the Watford and Rickmansworth Railway, also known as the "Ebury Line", in Hertfordshire. The railway no longer exists and has been converted into the Ebury Way hiking trail.
Eia was a rural manor during the early medieval period, on land adjacent to the River Tyburn (a reduced catchment form of which flows beneath the courtyard and south wing of Buckingham Palace), immediately west and north of Thorney Island, on the Thames, which became the site of Westminster Abbey.[4][5]
At about the time of the Domesday Book of 1086, the manor of Eia was divided into three smaller manors: Hyde (the north-western part), Ebury (or Eyebury/Eia) (central area) and La Neyte or Neat (to the south-east). Neyte was a small island in the marsh (in what is now Pimlico), on which a house was built for the Abbot of Westminster.[7] Neyte may have been the inspiration for Knightsbridge, considerably beyond the north side, which centred on a bridge over water on one of the great, Roman-founded, roads leading west-south-west from the City of London.
By the 12th century a ford crossing on the River Tyburn, before its loss known as Cow Ford, was the site of a hamlet: Eye Cross. Its location is unknown; probably it was in and/or beside the south of Buckingham Palace Gardens.[8]
In 1531 King Henry VIII acquired the Hospital of St James (later St. James's Palace)[9] from Eton College, a royal foundation founded in 1440 by King Henry VI endowed with many royal lands. In 1536 on the Dissolution of the Monasteries the Manor of Ebury became one of the many possessions of Westminster Abbey which reverted to the Crown (which is considered the foundation of all land ownership)[10] and the Court of Augmentations. This meant the site that would become Buckingham Palace returned to royal ownership, almost 500 years after William the Conqueror had given it away.[11]
By the early 17th century, the lease of the manor had passed through the hands of many different people. Eye Cross had ceased to exist and the area of the former village was mostly wasteland.[12] During the reign of King James I (1603-1625), part of it was sold, freehold, (including the future site of Buckingham Palace). On the rest James established a 4-acre (16,000m2)mulberry garden (near the north-west corner of the present palace).[13] Before 1650 Clement Walker, in his work Anarchia Anglicana, referred to "new-erected sodoms and spintries" – both terms referring to male prostitution – in "the Mulberry Garden at S. James's".
Buckingham Palace, principal façade; it was originally built to the design of Edward Blore and completed in 1850. It acquired its present appearance (shown above) following a 1913 remodelling by Sir Aston Webb.
During the late 17th century Ebury's freehold passed from Sir Hugh Audley to his great-great-niece Mary Davies. Audley and Davies were key figures in the development of Ebury Manor into a suburb of the City of London, now comprising Mayfair, Belgravia and Park Lane. They are commemorated by today's North Audley Street, South Audley Street and Davies Street, all in Mayfair. Much of Mary's inheritance now forms part of the Grosvenor Estate.
Buckingham House, the mansion that now forms the core of Buckingham Palace, was built in 1703 by John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby to the design of William Winde.[14] In 1761 the mansion returned to the ownership of the royal family (which had retained the adjoining site of the Mulberry Garden), when it was sold to King George III,[15] for either £21,000[16] or, possibly, £28,000.[17]
Footnotes
↑ J.E.B. Gover, 1922, The Place Names of Middlesex, London, Longmans, p. 22.
↑ Girling, Brian; 2013, Belgravia & Knightsbridge Through Time, Stroud, Glouc., Amberley Publishing Limited, p. 62.
Buckingham Palace is a royal residence in London, and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and royal hospitality. It has been a focal point for the British people at times of national rejoicing and mourning.
Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, Trafalgar Square and much of the West End cultural centre including the entertainment precinct of West End Theatre.
The City of Westminster is a London borough with city status in Greater London, England. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It contains a large part of central London, including most of the West End, such as the major shopping areas around Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Bond Street, and the entertainment district of Soho. Many London landmarks are within the borough, including Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Whitehall, Westminster Cathedral, 10 Downing Street, and Trafalgar Square.
Mayfair is an area in London, England and is located in the City of Westminster. It is in Central London and part of the West End. It is between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane and one of the most expensive districts in the world.
Pimlico is an area of Central London in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by Victoria Station, by the River Thames to the south, Vauxhall Bridge Road to the east and the former Grosvenor Canal to the west. At its heart is a grid of residential streets laid down by the planner Thomas Cubitt, beginning in 1825 and now protected as the Pimlico Conservation Area. The most prestigious are those on garden squares, with buildings decreasing in grandeur away from St George's Square, Warwick Square, Eccleston Square and the main thoroughfares of Belgrave Road and St. George's Drive. Additions have included the pre–World War II Dolphin Square and the Churchill Gardens and Lillington and Longmoore Gardens estates, now conservation areas in their own right. The area has over 350 Grade II listed buildings and several Grade II* listed churches. At the western edge of Pimlico, on the borders of Chelsea, Pimlico Road has become known in recent years for its interiors and design stores.
Belgravia is a district in Central London, covering parts of the areas of the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
The River Tyburn was a stream in London, England. Its main successor sewers emulate its main courses, but it resembled the Colne in its county of Middlesex in that it had many distributaries. It ran from South Hampstead, through Marylebone, Mayfair, St James's parish/district and Green Park to meet the tidal Thames at four sites, grouped into pairs. These pairs were near Whitehall Stairs, and by Thorney Street, between Millbank Tower and Thames House. Its much smaller cousin, the Tyburn Brook, was a tributary of the Westbourne and the next Thames tributary.
Grosvenor Group Limited is an internationally diversified property group, which traces its origins to 1677 and has its headquarters in London, England. It has a global reach, now in 62 international cities, with offices in 14 of them, operated on behalf of its owners, the Duke of Westminster and his family. It has four regional development and investment businesses and a portfolio of indirect investments. Its sectors include residential, office, retail, industrial, along with hotels.
Cities of London and Westminster is a constituency returning a single Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons in the United Kingdom Parliament. As with all constituencies, the election is decided using the first past the post system of election. From its creation at the 1950 general election to the 2024 general election, the constituency had always elected the candidate nominated by the Conservative Party.
Westminster St George's, originally named St George's, Hanover Square, was a parliamentary constituency in Central London. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system of election.
Ebury Street is a street in Belgravia, City of Westminster, London. It runs from a Grosvenor Gardens junction south-westwards to Pimlico Road. It was built mostly in the period 1815 to 1860.
Victoria Square is a small, rectangular garden square in Westminster, Greater London, beginning some 50 metres south of the remaining stables of the Royal Mews and 150 metres north of Victoria bus station, which stands in front of Victoria Station. It has a statue of the young Queen Victoria.
Thomas Cundy the younger was an English architect, son of another architect of the same name. He joined his father's practice and ultimately succeeded his father as surveyor of the Grosvenor Estate, and held the position during the main phase of the development of Belgravia and Pimlico by the contractor Thomas Cubitt.
St George Hanover Square was a civil parish in the metropolitan area of Westminster, Middlesex, later Greater London, England. The creation of the parish accompanied the building of the Church of St George's, Hanover Square, constructed by the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches to meet the demands of the growing population. The parish was formed in 1724 from part of the ancient parish of St Martin in the Fields in the Liberty of Westminster and county of Middlesex. It included some of the most fashionable areas of the West End, including Belgravia and Mayfair. Civil parish administration, known as a select vestry, was dominated by members of the British nobility until the parish adopted the Vestries Act 1831. The vestry was reformed again in 1855 by the Metropolis Management Act. In 1889 the parish became part of the County of London and the vestry was abolished in 1900, replaced by Westminster City Council. The parish continued to have nominal existence until 1922. As created, it was a parish for both church and civil purposes, but the boundaries of the ecclesiastical parish were adjusted in 1830, 1835 and 1865.
Hugh Audley, also known as The Great Audley, was an English moneylender, lawyer and philosopher. Following his death, he was the feature of a popular 17th-century pamphlet titled The way to be rich according to the practice of the Great Audley, which compared his humble beginnings to his ultimate fortune.
Sir Thomas Grosvenor, 3rd Baronet was an English Member of Parliament, and an ancestor of the modern day Dukes of Westminster. He was the first member of the family to build a substantial house on the present site of Eaton Hall in Cheshire.
In British usage, the term townhouse originally referred to the opulent town or city residence of a member of the nobility or gentry, as opposed to their country seat, generally known as a country house or, colloquially, for the larger ones, stately home. The grandest of the London townhouses were stand-alone buildings, but many were terraced buildings.
This is a list of the etymology of street names in the London district of Mayfair, in the City of Westminster. It utilises the generally accepted boundaries of Mayfair viz. Marble Arch/Cumberland Gate and Oxford Street to the north, Regent Street to the east, Piccadilly to the south and Park Lane to the west.
This is a list of the etymology of street names in the London districts of Pimlico and Victoria. The area has no formally defined boundaries – those utilised here are the generally accepted ones of: Vauxhall Bridge Road to the north-east, the river Thames to the south, the Victoria railway line, Buckingham Palace Road/Buckingham Gate/Grosvenor Gardens to the west and Lower Grosvenor Place/Bressenden Place to the north. Victoria is a vaguely defined area, but is generally used to refer to streets immediately around the station of that name.
This is a list of the etymology of street names in the London district of Belgravia. The following utilises the generally accepted boundaries of the area viz. South Carriage Drive to the north, Grosvenor Gardens/Place/Square to the east, Buckingham Palace Road/Victoria railway line to the south-east and Chelsea Bridge Road, Lower Sloane Street/Sloane Square/Sloane Street to the west.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
