Wetherell Mayfairs Fitnes Properties

One of the words for a suit in Japanese is “sabiro” – thought to be a corruption of Savile Row. Try it. Evisu, the Japanese fashion house, has a shop in Savile Row called Sabiro. One of the words for a suit in Japanese is “sabiro” – thought to be a corruption of Savile Row. Try it. Evisu, the Japanese fashion house, has a shop in Savile Row called Sabiro. One of the words for a suit in Japanese is “sabiro” – thought to be a corruption of Savile Row. Try it. Evisu, the Japanese fashion house, has a shop in Savile Row called Sabiro.

Beau Brummel, the Regency dandy, is credited with the invention of both the suit and the necktie – neither of which did him much good. After falling out with the Prince Regent, he fled to France where he died in 1840 penniless and insane from syphilis.

Until the 17th century the area was known as Portugal (after Portugal Street). Later on so many members of the Rothschild family had mansions at the western end of Piccadilly that it became unofficially known as Rothschild Row. (Alfred Rothschild astonished pedestrians by racing his carriage along Piccadilly, pulled by zebras). A persistent rumour that prostitutes were known as “dilly's” in the 17th century, and men went to the district to “pick” one has been discounted. The name comes from the work of tailor Robert Baker who made a fortune in the 16th and 17th centuries from piccadills, stiff collars made from lace – seen in portraits of Queen Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh.

Hay Hill originally led down to the valley of the River Tyburn (Ty Burn – two brooks), and the river still flows under Mayfair and St James’s today. Originating in the Hampstead hills, it reaches the Thames at Pimlico. Oxford Street and Park Lane were originally called Tyburn Road and Tyburn Lane. Brook Street is also named after the Tyburn. In 1666, a French watchmaker – Robert Hubert – was hanged at Tyburn gallows after claiming to have started The Great Fire of London. His claim was palpably false – he said he started the fire in Westminster, which was untouched – but a scapegoat was needed. After the hanging, the crowd tore apart his body.

Grosvenor Square is mentioned in the first line of Scarlet Begonias – by the legendary US rock group The Grateful Dead. Mick Jagger wrote Street Fighting Man after witnessing a riot outside the US Embassy in 1968. David Bowie’s iconic album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars features a cover shot taken in Heddon Street – now Regent Street’s food quarter. Rock star Ian Hunter – former lead singer with 1970s glam-rock band Mott the Hoople – regularly sings A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square in his concerts. The song was written by Eric Maschwitz while staying at the Ritz in the 1940s.

It was Lord Byron’s valet, James Brown, who established Brown’s Hotel in Dover Street in 1837. Alexander Graham Bell (right) made Britain’s first telephone call from there in 1876. Agatha Christie’s At Bertram’s Hotel is based on Brown’s. Guests have included Napoleon III, Rudyard Kipling and Teddy Roosevelt.

Eero Saarinen, the architect who designed the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, received his first critical recognition in 1940 – for the design of a chair. It went into production at the Knoll furniture company. Frances Knoll was a family friend.

Mayfair’s most eccentric dentist was Martin von Butchell (1735- 1814). When his wife, Mary, died in 1775 he had her embalmed and turned her into a visitor attraction to drum up more business. Doctors injected the body with preservatives and colour additives to give a glow to her cheeks and gave her glass eyes. The body, dressed in a lace gown, was embedded in plaster of Paris and placed in a glass topped coffin – which was put on display in von Butchell’s window. When he remarried, his second wife demanded that he get rid of his first wife’s corpse. It ended up in the Royal College of Surgeons, where 166 years later it was blown up in a German bombing raid.

Architect John Nash (1752-1835) didn't do quite so well with Regent Street as he did with Buckingham Palace and Marble Arch He designed Regent Street as a ceremonial route from the Prince Regent's palace at Carlton House to Regent's Park, which was part of the master plan, starting in 1818. Less than a century later the Nash buildings were demolished. What you see today follows the style set by Sir Reginald Blomfield at The Quadrant near Piccadilly Circus.

Mount Street was named after Oliver’s Mount – a Civil War fort in what is now Grosvenor Square gardens. It stood against the Royalists from 1642 to 1647.There was another fort opposite Apsley House at Hyde Park Corner.