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Location: Mayfair, City of Westminster, London, England
Coordinates: 51.508755°N 0.14743°W
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Mayfair:
Mayfair is an area of central London, by the east edge of Hyde Park, in the City of Westminster. The district is now mainly commercial, with many former homes converted into offices for major corporations headquarters, embassies and also hedge funds and real estate businesses. There remains a substantial quantity of residential property as well as some exclusive shopping and London's largest concentration of luxury hotels and many restaurants. Rents are among the highest in London and the world.
History of Mayfair:
Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today.
1618: Date of the oldest cottage in Mayfair. It was destroyed in the Blitz in late 1940. A plaque in Stanhope Row, near Shepherd Market, marks its former site.
Until 1686: The May Fair was held in Haymarket. Mayfair was part of the parish of St Martin in the Fields
1677: Sir Thomas Grosvenor, 3rd Baronet married Mary Davis, heiress to part of the Manor of Ebury; thus the Grosvenor family gained 40 hectares (100 acres) of Mayfair.
1686: The May Fair moved site to where Shepherd Market is now.
Mid 17th century to mid 18th century: Most of the Mayfair area was first built on as a fashionable residential district, by a number of landlords, the most important of them being the Grosvenor family, which in 1874 became the Dukes of Westminster.
1724: Mayfair became part of the new parish of St George Hanover Square, which stretched to Bond Street in the south part of Mayfair and almost to Regent Street north of Conduit Street. The northern boundary was Oxford Street and the southern boundary fell short of Piccadilly. The parish continued west of Mayfair into Hyde Park and then south to include Belgravia and other areas.
1764: The May Fair was banned at Shepherd Market because the well-to-do residents of the area disliked the fair's disorderliness, and it moved to Fair Field in Bow in the East End of London.
19th century: The Rothschild family bought up large areas of Mayfair.
The north side of Grosvenor Square in the 18th or early 19th century. The three houses at the far left form a unified group, but the others on this side are individually designed. Most later London squares would be more uniform.
The freehold of a large section of Mayfair also belongs to the Crown Estate.
The district is now mainly commercial, with many offices in converted houses and new buildings, including major corporate headquarters, a concentration of hedge funds, real estate businesses and many different embassy offices, namely the large US consulate taking up all the west side of Grosvenor Square.[4] Rents are among the highest in London and the world. There remains a substantial quantity of residential property as well as some exclusive shopping and London's largest concentration of luxury hotels and many restaurants. Buildings in Mayfair include both the Canadian High Commission and the United States embassy in Grosvenor Square, the Royal Academy of Arts, The Handel House Museum, the Grosvenor House Hotel, Claridge's and The Dorchester.
The renown and prestige of Mayfair could have grown in the popular mind because it is the most expensive property on the British Monopoly set.
The old telephone district of MAYfair (later 629) changed east of Bond Street to REGent (later 734)........Wikipedia >>
