Wetherell Mayfairs Fitnes Properties

Sue Attwood goes in search of Regency London and finds much of it still just as described in Georgette Heyer's historical novels.

"It is the greatest bore to go out walking with any of them," remonstrates Frederica, the heroine of Georgette Heyer's eponymous novel, when reproved for walking without a maid, "because they will dawdle or say their shoes hurt them". Maidless myself, and in comfortable shoes, I stand at the top of the steps from the Mall to Waterloo Place and Regent Street beyond, and have an impression of how Regency London looked: magnificent. Then I begin to walk.
THE WALK
1 From the steps, look left towards The Athenaeum Club. It was built over the western corner of the Regent's demolished Carlton House and Wellington, who was a member, had a mounting block, which is still there, placed on the opposite pavement.
Walk left into Pall Mall, and first right into St James's Square, where Deborah Grantham's aunt had her gaming parlour in Faro's Daughter. Numbers 20 and 33 are by Robert Adam. At 16, on the site of what is now the East India Club, the Regent was dining with Mrs Boehm on June 21 1815 when Major Percy, four French eagle standards protruding from the window of his post-chaise-and-four, clattered into the square to confirm the victory at Waterloo.
2 In King Street, opposite Christie's, is the site of Almack's Assembly Rooms, now a modern office building. Turn left down narrow Heyeresque Crown Passage and right into Pall Mall before going up the right-hand side of St James's Street. At number 3, Berry Bros & Rudd, wine merchants, display huge coffee scales on which Beau Brummell, Byron, boxer Tom Cribb and others were weighed, their details recorded in ledgers which you can ask to see. Apothecaries charged to weigh their customers; Berry's, then a grocery shop, did not. I asked if they sold Mountain Malaga as provided by Kit Fancot in False Colours. Sadly, they don't.
3 Tucked against Berry Bros is a passage leading to tiny Georgian Pickering Place, number 5 appears in Regency Buck as a gaming hell, and across the way at Truefitt & Hill, number 17, they've been selling cut-throat razors and pomade since 1805. Lock & Co, at number 6, began as hatters in the 17th century. The Duke of Sale in The Foundling has a Lock hat. "He was not a flash cull… He was a gentleman of high breeding. His hat bore the name of Lock upon the band". Inside the shop, in a glass case, are hats Lock made for Wellington and Nelson.
4 At number 37, near the top of St James's, is White's, with its infamous bow-window. No respectable lady would be seen in this street of gentlemen's clubs but in The Grand Sophy the heroine scandalously drives a curricle "the length of that disgraceful street".
Beau Brummell notoriously sat in the window with other dandies observing the passers-by. They would not acknowledge "salutations from acquaintances in the street if they were seated in the window".
5 Turn right into Piccadilly, like Judith Taverner in Regency Buck, who then knew herself to be "in the heart of the fashionable quarter". Follow her past Hatchards, the bookshop, "with its bow windows filled with all the newest publications", then cross over to Albany where Captain Ware had his set of chambers in The Foundling. Byron lived here, and Heyer herself.
6 Go back a hundred yards and up Burlington Arcade, built in 1819. At the top, turn left, then left again into Old Bond Street. At the bottom, turn right into Piccadilly, crossing the road at the Ritz. Go into Green Park, skirt the Underground renovations and follow the path parallel to Piccadilly. Just beyond the Park Lane Hotel, which you can see over the hedge, is a grassy mound covering the demolished Ranger's Lodge where Frederica's Baluchistan hound ignominiously "herded" the Green Park cows.
7 Backtrack a couple of hundred yards, emerge from the park by the blue iron gates, cross to Half Moon Street where the Sheringhams settled in Friday's Child, and make a beeline for The Only Running Footman in Charles Street for refreshment, possibly with a Georgette Heyer novel for company.

What to avoid
Mount Street appears in various Heyer books but was "improved" in the 19th century and is now Victorian.
Don't attempt to enter Hyde Park by the Stanhope Gate like many of Heyer's characters. The gate was removed when Park Lane was widened. Try the Curzon, Achilles or Apsley Gates.
Don't bother looking for the Temple of Concord or the Queen's Basin in Green Park. Both are long gone.
Avoid overdoing the alcoholic refreshments en route, as in "Take a look at poor Prinny, he's a lesson to us all" – The Grand Sophy.
FURTHER INFORMATION
A printable map of Mayfair in 1811 can be found at www.oldlondonmaps.com/1811pages/1811MAIN.html. The walk might continue with a detour through the 18th-century enclave of Shepherd’s Market, emerging opposite the Saudi Embassy (18th-century Crewe House) in Curzon Street. Beau Brummell’s home in Chesterfield Street is nearby and the walk might end in Hyde Park. Georgette Heyer: Biography of a Bestseller by Jennifer Kloester (William Heinemann, £20) is published on October 6.

THE BEST HOTELS FOR HEYER FANS
Haymarket Hotel £££
Convenient for the National Portrait Gallery and the beginning of the walk (1 Suffolk Place; 020 7470 4000; www.firmdale.com; doubles from £312 per night).
Flemings Hotel £££
In a pretty street which features in Friday’s Child (7-12 Half Moon Street; 020 7499 0000; www.flemings-mayfair.co.uk; doubles from £378).
Dukes Hotel £££
For those possessed of “an easy competence”, tucked away discreetly in a courtyard off St James’s (St James’s Place; 020 7491 4840; www.dukeshotel.com; doubles from £420).

THE BEST RESTAURANTS
The Only Running Footman ££
Foodie pub said to have been much frequented by the servants of “the neighbouring gentry” and recommended in False Colours as a good place to start a rumour spreading (5 Charles Street; 020 7499 2988; www.therunningfootmanmayfair.com).
Fortnum & Mason ££-£
Suppliers of preserves, honey and dried fruits to Wellington’s officers. Mr Heathersett in April Lady offers Nell Cardross a consoling ice cream at Gunter’s. The Parlour Restaurant on the first floor of Fortnum’s provides the same service (181 Piccadilly; 020 7734 8040; www.fortnumandmason.com).
Wiltons £££
Scarily expensive classic, established 1742 selling oysters in the Haymarket. Excellent traditional British food fit for Heyer heroes (55 Jermyn Street; 020 7629 9955; www.wiltons.co.uk).

THE INSIDE TRACK
National Portrait Gallery (St Martin’s Place; 020 7306 0055; www.npg.org.uk) has a dazzling second-floor display of Regency portraits.
Apsley House (149 Piccadilly; 020 7499 5676; www.apsleyhouseguide.co.uk) is Wellington’s London home where he personally supervised the redecoration in the Regency style. Look out for the paintings, the 90ft Waterloo Gallery and the Sèvres dinner service commissioned by Napoleon for the Empress Josephine.
Spencer House (27 St James’s Place; 020 7514 1958; www.spencerhouse.co.uk). Magnificent 18th-century private palace, remodelled by Henry Holland who was engaged by the Prince Regent to work on Carlton House. Eight state rooms. Hour-long guided tours. Sundays only (not January or August).

Taken from The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/londonandsoutheast/8789783/Regency-London-Let-a-romantic-novelist-be-your-guide.html

Mayfair and its near neighbour St James's have been synonymous with style, success and celebrity for centuries. Today, Mayfair is the world's most expensive office location – easily outstripping New York and Tokyo for rents achieved. At the same time, the value of residential accommodation has soared.

A Grosvenor Square flat sold 25 years ago for £200,000 would fetch £4 million today. But it wasn't always that way. There had been a scattering of private houses in the countryside west of the City of London since Elizabethan times, but it was the plague in 1665 and the Great Fire of London in 1666 that drove the development boom in St James's. Work began on Bond Street just 17 years later. The name Mayfair came from an annual May Fair held in a boggy field near the Tyburn brook in what is now Shepherd Market. It began 20 years after the Great Fire in the reign of James II and quickly became a bawdy affair "for musick, showes, drinking, gaming, raffling, lotteries, stageplays and drolls".

The May Fair was condemned by the authorities for its "lewd and disorderly practices", although it was also said to have been immensely popular and frequented "by all the nobility of the town". Featuring booths for jugglers and prize fighters and bear and bull baiting, it continued for 78 years until it was finally brought to an end by new residents who had moved in alongside it and objected to the noise. Still, fairs are demountable and the May Fair – which had originally been held in Haymarket anyway – moved on to Fair Field in Bow. All that remains today is a blue plaque in Shepherd Market – and the name Mayfair, which has shrugged off its "lewd and disorderly" tag to become a byword for quality.
Mayfair through the years

1667
Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans develops Jermyn Street in St James's, once part of the same royal park as Green Park and St James's Park.

1677
Sir Thomas Grosvenor marries Mary Davies.The "hundred acres" of the Manor of Ebury – including much of what will become Mayfair – pass into the Grosvenor family.

1683
Sir Thomas Bond and a group of other developers buy Clarendon House from Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albermarle and begin to develop Bond Street,Albermarle Street and Dover Street.

1686
The May Fair is established on Brook Field (named after the Tyburn brook, which runs through it) later to become Shepherd Market. It soon becomes a bawdy affair.

1698
Berkeley Square is created to a design by architect William Kent on the site of the gardens of Berkeley House, the home of Sir John Berkeley.

1708
The Grand Jury of Westminster passes judgement on the May Fair:"Disorderly persons do rendezvous and draw and allure young persons and servants to meet to game and commit lewd and disorderly practices."

1707
Fortnum & Mason established.

1710
Sir Richard Grosvenor obtains a licence to develop Grosvenor Square and the surrounding streets.

1721
Development of the Grosvenor estate begins.

1735
Builder Edward Shepherd constructs Shepherd Market on the site of the May Fair. It consists of butchers' shops at the lower level, and a theatre where plays were staged during the Fair.

1750
The Punch Bowl opens on Farm Street.

1764
The May Fair, which had wilted under the fierce gaze of Queen Anne, re-establishes itself under George I. It finally falls foul of gentrification when a group of new residents, including the Earl of Coventry, take out the 18th century equivalent of a noise abatement order.The fair moves on.

1805
The newly created Earl Grosvenor buys Gloucester House, a small residence, on Park Lane for £20,000.The property is developed and expanded over many years. In 1889 it becomes one of the first houses in London to have electricity. It remains in the Grosvenor family until World War 1, when it is requisitioned by the government. It is now redeveloped as the Grosvenor House Hotel.

1818
John Nash draws up the master plan for Regent Street and Regent's Park.

1819
Lord George Cavendish creates the Burlington Arcade.

1906
The Ritz on Piccadilly opens to the public on May 24.

1931
Sir Robert McAlpine completes the Dorchester hotel.

1942
Dwight D Eisenhower and his staff move into hotels and flats around Grosvenor Square, which is unofficially renamed Eisenhower Platz by GIs

1960
The American Embassy in Grosvenor Square is completed to designs by Eero Saarinen.