MAYFAIR WEST

    

     This is my Monopoly Swan Song, Opus Magnus, what you will. I have to admit I’ve been dragging it out, like the last cigarette before facing the firing squad.

     Mayfair is an area bounded by four Monopoly properties - Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane. It also contains the whole of Bond Street and Vine Street. So, appropriately, my final offerings from the Monopoly board cherry-pick the bits I missed.

     There’s a lot to see in one visit, so I’ve divided my findings into two parts, west and east. There are maps at the end.

     Much of Mayfair is still owned by the Grosvenor family, their name derived from the French Gros Veneur (fat hunter). The average price for a house in Mayfair is around £9.5 million.

38 Hertford Street (2)

    In the 1950s the musician’s unions created ‘needle time’ which limited BBC radio to just 30 hours of recorded music per week. The BBC had a monopoly on the airwaves and commercial radio was not allowed by law. So Radio Luxembourg was a godsend for us Boomers. It also gave us our first taste of commercial broadcasting.

    The Chesterfield (3) was formally the Shepherd’s Tavern where Wendy Richard’s father was once publican.  Born Wendy Emerton* she played Miss Brahms in Are You Being Served? (1972-1985) and Pauline Fowler in Eastenders (1985-2006). Despite being born in Middlesbrough, Richard had a cockney accent which also brought chart success in 1962 on the quirky Come Outside, a chart-topper for Mike Sarne. Early in her career she appeared in two Carry On films, was Private Walker’s girlfriend  in Dad’s Army and had a small role – which didn’t make the final cut - in the Beatles Help! 

                                     *”As far as I know, no relation”, says our pal Don Emerton.

    Mayfair became well-known for its annual “May Fair”, established in 1686. But the fair, which lasted for fifteen days, became increasingly downmarket with boxing, bull-baiting and (oddly) semolina-eating contests. Petty crime and prostitution was commonplace and the fair was moved to Fair Field in Bow in 1764.

      Shepherd Market is the small area of narrow streets and squares with a village feel where the May Fair was originally held – marked by the plaque above the Al Hamra Lebanese Restaurant (4) in Trebeck Street. 

       Until relatively recently Shepherd Market was the haunt of prostitutes - Jeffrey Archer famously met Monica Coughlan here.

      Ye Grapes (5) is a Victorian pub in the heart of Shepherd Market where the harlots plied their trade. But the area has cleaned up its image and the pub is now a friendly watering-hole festooned with stuffed animals. Reasonably priced English and Thai food is served.

     Nancy Mitford, the eldest of the Mitford sisters, worked as an assistant at G Heywood Hill bookshop (6) at 10 Curzon Street during World War II. The semi-autobiographical Pursuit of Love (1945) and Love in a Cold Climate (1949) were her best known novels. 

     During the 1950s Mitford, intending it as a joke, invented the concept of “U” (upper) and “non-U” language. But after many took it seriously, Mitford was considered an authority on manners and breeding.

     The shop is featured in John le Carre’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

     The resplendent Crewe House (7), one of Mayfair’s last regency buildings, was built by Edward Shepherd who laid out Shepherd Market in the 1730s. It is now the Saudi Arabian Embassy.

     The junction of Chesterfield Street and Charles Street (8) is plaque paradise with several close together including the double whammy of Anthony Eden and Beau Brummell at 4 Chesterfield Street ….

     Having flitted like a butterfly(© Ray Davies) around Piccadilly and Pall Mall, I’ve already written enough about Beau Brummell.

    Anthony Eden is generally considered to be one of the least successful of the 20th century British Prime Ministers, being best remembered for his blunders during the Suez crisis. He was the first of fifteen British prime ministers to be appointed by Queen Elizabeth II in her seventy-year reign.

     Shortly before Somerset Maugham was born the French government instigated a law under which all boys born on French soil to foreign parents would automatically be French citizens and liable for military conscription. As a consequence a maternity ward was set up inside the British embassy in Paris – which was legally recognised as UK territory – and it was there that Maugham was born. His plaque is on Shaw house, which has no connection to George Bernard.

     Caroline Norton left her husband in 1836. He sued her close friend Lord Melbourne, Prime Minister at the time, for adultery. The jury rejected the claim, but Caroline failed to get a divorce and was denied access to her three sons. Her subsequent campaigning was instrumental in leading to the Custody of Infants Act 1839, the Matrimonial Causes Act 1839 and the Married Women's Property Act 1870.

    Until Charles III, William IV was the oldest person to assume the British throne, aged 64. At the time of his death William was succeed by his niece Victoria. He actually had eight surviving children. But they were all the illegitimate offspring of actress Dorothea Jordan with whom he cohabited for twenty years.

     The Earl of Rosebery is reputed to have said that he had three aims in life: to win the Derby, to marry an heiress, and to become Prime Minister. He managed all three although wasn’t much good at the last one.  Rosebery’s most famous horses were Ladas who won the 1894 Derby, Sir Visto who did it the following year (Rosebery was Prime Minister on both occasions), and Cicero in 1905.  In 1878, Rosebery married Hannah de Rothschild, only child and sole heiress of the Jewish banker Mayer Amschel de Rothschild, at the time Britain’s richest woman.  Rosebery was widely known as a brilliant orator, outstanding sportsman, writer and historian, connoisseur and collector. Sadly, he had more enthusiasm for all these activities than he did for politics.  When he died in 1929 Rosbery’s estate of £1.5 million (equivalent to £97 million today) made him the richest prime minister ever.

      (NB: according to the Sunday Times' Rich List for 2022, the net worth of Rishi Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, is estimated to be around £730 million).

      Nearby, at 19 Curzon Street (9), is the house where an altogether more successful PM, died …..

 

     During the Cold War the lamppost outside number 2 Audley Square (11) was used as a message drop by the spies of the Russian Secret Service. If you inspect it closely there is a small door on the side. The casting for Dr No took place next door, at number 3.

        In its heyday the Rank Organisation was based in 38 South Street (13) ….

      J. Arthur is still used in cockney rhyming slang for “wank” (slang for masturbation), although “I’m going for a Jodrell” (Bank) is now a more common derivation.

     The most tranquil place in Mayfair has to be the charming Mount Street Gardens (16). The sheltered, warm, location allows exotic species to survive including a Canary Islands Date Palm and Australian Silver Wattle. Mount Street once had an earthwork called Oliver’s Mount, said to have been hastily built as a defence by Oliver Cromwell when it was thought Charles I was heading towards London following the Battle of Edgehill.

      The wedding ceremony in the film Love Actually was shot in the Grosvenor Chapel.         Watch it here. 

The wifi code is caviar2020.

      In 1975, for no particular reason, Scott’s was twice attacked by the IRA. On the first occasion a bomb exploded in the restaurant, killing a 59-year-old man. The police had noticed the IRA sometimes attacked the same location twice. So, a month later, when the IRA fired through a window at Scott’s from a Ford Cortina, two plain clothes police officers were on duty to give chase in a London taxi. Four gunmen eventually barricaded themselves in a council flat with two hostages in what became known as the Balcombe Street siege. Lasting from 6-12 December, the siege came to an end when the Balcombe Street Gang released their hostages and surrendered.

      Famously, in 2013, Scott's was the scene of a row between Charles Saatchi and his then wife Nigella Lawson. Photographs were published in the Sunday People of Lawson being grabbed around the neck by Saatchi, later described by him as a “playful tiff”.

UPDATE:

February 10, 2023

     Lunch in Scott’s with my friend Bob James:

    I’d been meaning to splash out at Scott’s for some time, if only to check out if it is actually the best seafood restaurant in London.

     It’s definitely in the £££ bracket and my effort at ‘smart casual’ still felt a bit scruffy. Maybe I should have dug out my cuff links. I felt more relaxed after Bob noticed that one philistine had removed his tie and stuffed it in his top pocket.

     I was tempted to order my usual ‘haddock, chips and mushy peas’ but figured it had been planted on the menu to root out those of us born north of Watford. An attempt to outwit them by ordering in French failed as we couldn’t get beyond frites. So we both went for the fish of the day, a delicious lemon sole, accompanied by a nice bottle of muscadet. I use the adjective ‘nice’ in an attempt to suggest I’m knowledgeable when it comes to wine. But in truth, for me, any white wine that’s chilled and alcoholic qualifies as nice. Also, let’s face it, Scott’s aren’t going to serve anything that isn’t nice. For dessert I opted for the Bakewell pudding with ice cream and Bob had the vanilla crème brûlée with Yorkshire rhubarb, both très bien. Sadly, there were no celebs to spot, or no-one we recognised. I thought for a moment Dawn French was on the next table before remembering she had lost weight. Maybe all the A-listers now go to the Mayfair Chippy (see below).

     Anyhow, the food and atmosphere is better than nice, so we would certainly recommend Scott’s for a special occasion – perhaps more special than padding out a Monopoly Challenge.

                   .... when you go to the loo, check out Scott's magnificent downstairs dining room.

    Statues of Ronald Reagan and Dwight D Eisenhower which formerly stood in front of the embassy have been put into storage with seemingly no decision as to where they will end up.  During the Second World War Grosvenor Square was nicknamed Eisenhower Platz. And Eisenhower is still remembered with a plaque at 20 Grosvenor Square. 

     Despite spending 35 years in the US Army and serving in two world wars, Eisenhower never saw active combat.  He thought the name Shangri-La too fanciful for a presidential retreat. So, he changed it to Camp David, in honour of his 5-year-old grandson David.

     UPDATE (17/4/23): 

     

     A large statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a 9/11 memorial garden remain. Historians consistently rank Roosevelt, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as the three greatest presidents. 

    The memorial lists the names of all British citizens thought to have perished on that day.  

        

     Long before Eisenhower came to Grosvenor Square, John Adams lived at number 9. He was to become the second US president, from 1797 to 1801 and the first to live in the White House. Benjamin Franklin said of Adams, "He means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of his senses."

     Adams died on July 4, 1826. On his deathbed he whispered, “Thomas Jefferson survives.” But this wasn’t the case as Jefferson had passed away five hours earlier. So, fifty years to the day after signing the Declaration of Independence, two of its signatories died.

    “What a remarkable fifty years they have been for the world …. Think what we would have missed if we had never heard the Beatles.”          Queen Elizabeth II (speaking in 1997)

     “Hearing the Beatles as a boy was like a gulp of freedom.”                                                                                                                                           Vladimir Putin (back in the USSR)

    Unfortunately for the Fab Four the nearby Mayfair Chippy (21) in North Audley Street didn’t exist until 2015 …..

      The cafe has two Michelin rosettes. So, £31 for delicious cod, chips, mushy peas and a coke was to be expected – and way cheaper than Scott’s. Also, I ended up sitting next to Rio Ferdinand (closer than he ever got to Fernando Torres). The former England star was lunching with a football agent (Jamie Moralee, I think). Disappointingly their conversation was bland and mainly one-way ….”blah, blah, blah, 100k, blah, blah, blah, 200k, etc, etc.
     You’ll have to take my word for this instance of celeb shoulder-rubbing. I’m not one to ask for a selfie but one guy did. He told Rio he was a big fan and also an Arsenal supporter (well, which is it?)

     Next door to the Mayfair Chippy is Mercato Mayfair (21), a stunning food court in what was once a church .....

   

      I went for the nasi lemak, and was not disappointed. A similar meal may be a tenth the price at a Malaysian hawker stall; but you won't get the stained-glass windows. 

      With its proximity to Grosvenor Square, St Marks was once known as the 'American Church'. President Eisenhower and Eleanor Roosevelt are known to have worshipped there. But, with dwindling attendances, it was deconsecrated by the Church of England in 1974 and finally reborn as this popular sustainable community market.

1.    Down Street Station

2.    38 Hertford Street (Radio Luxembourg)

3.    Chesterfield Arms

4.    Al Hamra (May Fair plaque), Trebeck Street

5.    Ye Grapes

6.    Heywood Hill bookshop

7.    Crewe House

8.    Chesterfield St/Charles St junction

9.    Disraeli plaque, 19 Curzon Street

10.   Curzon Square

11.   2 Audley Square

12.   Charles X plaque, 72 South Audley Street

13.   J Arthur Rank, 38 South Street

14.   Punch Bowl

15.   Farm House

16a. alley between 49 & 51 South Street leading to ….

16.   Mount Street Gardens

17.   Grosvenor Chapel

18.   Scott’s, Mount Street

19.   Grosvenor Square

20.   57 Green Street, yeah, yeah, yeah

21.   Mayfair Chippy & Mercato Mayfair