The May FairI often wander around the streets of Mayfair during my lunch hour and gaze upwards in awe at the elegant buildings and fascinating blend of architectural styles developed over almost three hundred years. I love to look at a building and imagine the history it has absorbed within its bricks and mortar and the lives it has protected within its walls. I fantasize of jumping into HG Wells’ Time Machine and transporting myself back to a more gentrified Mayfair, to a time before the bustling lunchtime service of Heddon Street’s fine eateries, before Bond Street’s homage to retail therapy and before The Beatles rooftop concert at Apple Corps HQ on Saville Row. But as time machines are still only mad equations on a top secret drawing board somewhere and as the chances of them ever allowing me to be captain of their prototype are pretty slim, I decided to investigate the ‘old fashioned’ way and trawl through the internet to discover Mayfair’s past.
Apparently the Mayfair of a few hundred years ago would be almost unrecognisable from the Mayfair of today. It was mostly farm land, and the River Tyburn – now hidden deep below its streets and redirected through the sewers – ran through it. The area itself was named after the infamous fifteen-day fair which was established by James II in the 1680’s and took place on the site of what is now known as Shepherd’s Market. Whilst it was initially for the sale of livestock, this fair soon expanded to include booths dedicated to mirth and merriment including theatres, jugglers, boxers, gambling tables, puppeteers and sausage stalls.
However, the gentrification of the area in the seventeenth century killed the festival off as many grand houses were built upon the site by a number of landlords, the most important of them being the Dukes of Westminster, the Grosvenor family. The Berkeley’s and the Burlington’s where also prominent landowners and developers and their names now grace the placard’s of Mayfair’s fine street’s and squares. I was elated to discover that Heddon Street was developed by a builder called Harrison who was granted a license by the King in 1672 to erect buildings that would not be of annoyance to local resident Lord Burlington, whose mansion was newly built nearby. The buildings erected during Harrison’s tenancy stood for about fifty years, after which they were swept away by the general redevelopment which affected the whole of the Pulteney estate from the 1720’s.
In 1811 when King George III stepped down, his son became the Prince Regent. As the prince greatly admired Napoleon’s urban planning in Paris he hired the architect John Nash to create a new, formal processional way from the Prince Regent’s Palace, Carlton House, in Pall Mall to Regent’s Park.
Nash’s vision was Regent Street and it took over a decade in planning and construction, cutting through the existing network of tiny streets. From the outset, Regent Street was conceived as a shopping street and it was intended to cut a clean path between the then slums of Soho and the fashionable streets and squares of Mayfair. The result, with the impressive curve of the Quadrant and the formation of Piccadilly and Oxford Circuses, was a masterpiece of town planning. Development of the area for commercial use continued well into the 1900’s. Today, Regent Street represents the largest concentration of value in The Crown Estate’s portfolio. It is part of the core of the Estate, both commercially and historically.
So, I pull the fast forward lever and three hundred years on from the infamous fair, Mayfair is mainly an exclusive commercial village within the heart of Westminster. Companies now inhabit the beautifully converted houses and executives entertain their clients in the numerous private members clubs and chic bars. Embassies, investment corporations, media giants and elegant hotels have replaced the street entertainers and the sausage stalls. But the rich architectural heritage remains and Debello House is part of this incredible structural tapestry. Our elegant serviced office building has been lovingly restored and maintained and I would like to think that Debello Group has reintroduced a rather large and somewhat extended family back into Mayfair.