The square was fully built up between 1735 and 1746 by Edward Shepherd from an open area called Brook Field, through which flowed the Tyburn, and where a May fair was held, from which the surrounding area of Mayfair derives its name.[3] A local architect, he was commissioned to develop the site and work was completed in the mid-18th century. It contained paved alleys, a duck pond, and a two-storey market topped by a theatre.[3]
Shepherd Market
During the 1920s this was a rundown area, popular with writers and artists such as Michael Arlen and Sophie Fedorovitch.[4] Arlen rented rooms opposite The Grapes public house and used the public place as the setting for his best-selling 1924 novel The Green Hat, which prompted Anthony Powell to move into the area in 1926.[5]
It has been associated with upmarket prostitutes from its building up until at least the 1980s.[2] When Olivia Manning and her husband Reggie Smith lived at 50a, she found the prostitutes "fascinating".[6] In the 1980s, the then deputy Conservative Party chairman and author Jeffrey Archer allegedly met the prostitute Monica Coghlan in Shepherd Market.[1]
Notable flats
Cass Elliot (Mama Cass) died at Flat 12, 9 Curzon Place (co-fronting Shepherd Market) on 28 July 1974. Keith Moon of The Who died at the same flat on 7 September 1978. The flat belonged to Harry Nilsson[7]
Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare is an English novelist and former politician. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Louth (Lincolnshire) from 1969 to 1974, but did not seek re-election after a financial scandal that left him almost bankrupt.
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.
Park Lane is a dual carriageway road in the City of Westminster in Central London. It is part of the London Inner Ring Road and runs from Hyde Park Corner in the south to Marble Arch in the north. It separates Hyde Park to the west from Mayfair to the east. The road has a number of historically important properties and hotels and has been one of the most sought after streets in London, despite being a major traffic thoroughfare.
Piccadilly is a road in the City of Westminster, London, England, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Court, Heathrow Airport and the M4 motorway westward. St James's is to the south of the eastern section, while the western section is built up only on the northern side. Piccadilly is just under 1 mile (1.6 km) in length, and it is one of the widest and straightest streets in central London.
Ellen Naomi Cohen, known professionally as Cass Elliot, was an American singer. She was also known as "Mama Cass", a name she reportedly disliked. Elliot was a member of the singing group the Mamas & the Papas. After the group broke up, she released five solo albums. Elliot received the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary (R&R) Performance for "Monday, Monday" (1967). In 1998, she was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for her work with the Mamas & the Papas.
Berkeley Square is a garden square in the West End of London. It is one of the best known of the many squares in London, located in Mayfair in the City of Westminster. It was laid out in the mid 18th century by the architect William Kent, and originally extended further south. The garden's very large London Plane trees are among the oldest in central London, planted in 1789.
Bond Street in the West End of London links Piccadilly in the south to Oxford Street in the north. Since the 18th century the street has housed many prestigious and upmarket fashion retailers. The southern section is Old Bond Street and the longer northern section New Bond Street, a distinction not generally made in everyday usage.
Michael Arlen was an essayist, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and scriptwriter. He had his greatest successes in the 1920s while living and writing in England, publishing the best-selling novel The Green Hat in 1924. Arlen is most famous for his satirical romances set in English smart society, but he also wrote gothic horror and psychological thrillers, for instance "The Gentleman from America", which was filmed in 1948 as The Fatal Night, and again in 1956 as a television episode for Alfred Hitchcock's TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Near the end of his life, Arlen mainly occupied himself with political writing. Arlen's vivid but colloquial style "with unusual inversions and inflections with a heightened exotic pitch" came to be known as 'Arlenesque'.
St James's is a central district in the City of Westminster, London, forming part of the West End. The area was once part of the northwestern gardens and parks of St. James's Palace. During the Restoration in the 17th century, the area was developed as a residential location for the British aristocracy, and around the 19th century was the focus of the development of their gentlemen's clubs. Once part of the parish of St Martin in the Fields, much of it formed the parish of St James from 1685 to 1922. Since the Second World War the area has transitioned from residential to commercial use.
Monica Coghlan was an English woman at the centre of a scandal that involved British Conservative politician Jeffrey Archer in 1987. Although he won a libel case against the Daily Star newspaper, which had alleged that he had paid her for sex, it was later established, in legal proceedings in 2001, that he had perjured himself in the trial. Archer was jailed for this in July 2001, receiving a four-year sentence. Coghlan died in a car crash shortly before the second trial began, without having the chance to face him in court before his subsequent conviction.
Curzon Street is a street in Mayfair London, within the W1J postcode district, that ranges from Fitzmaurice Place, past Shepherd Market, to Park Lane. It is named after Sir Nathaniel Curzon, 2nd Baronet, who inherited the landholding during 1715. More houses were built there during the 1720s.
The Public Schools Club is a former London gentlemen's club.
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.
Mount Street is an east–west, quite narrow, archetypal street in the Mayfair district of the City of Westminster, London fronted by many mid-rise buildings, mostly of a narrow frontage. The sides of two very grand hotels flank part of either end of the street. Small, high-end property businesses, investment funds and accountancy businesses punctuate the buildings as well as a row of traditional businesses and conversion-style mansion block apartments or, more generally, authentic such homes.
Half Moon Street is a street in the City of Westminster, London. The street runs from Curzon Street in the north to Piccadilly in the south.
Paternoster, also known as Shepherd and Sheep or Shepherd with his Flock, is an outdoor bronze sculpture of 1975 by Elisabeth Frink, installed in Paternoster Square near St Paul's Cathedral in London, United Kingdom.
The Curzon Mayfair Cinema is a Grade II listed building at 37–38 Curzon Street, London W1, built in 1963–66 by H. G. Hammond for Sir John Burnet, Tait and Partners, architects.
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.
ROR was a British interior design company founded by Robin Cruikshank and Ringo Starr.
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