Mayfair, Belgravia, and Bayswater | Page 2

and merchandise, but for musick, showes, drinking,
gaming, raffling, lotteries, stageplays and drolls." It was immensely
popular, and was frequented by "all the nobility of the town," wherein,
perhaps, we see the germs of the Mayfair we know. It must be
remembered that Grosvenor and Berkeley Squares, with their diverging
streets, were not then begun, and that all this land now covered by a
network of houses lay in fields on the outskirts of London, while Hyde
Park Corner was still the end of the world so far as Londoners were
concerned. It was about the end of the seventeenth century that the
above-mentioned squares were built, and at once became fashionable,
and as the May fair continued to flourish until 1708, it must have seen
the growth of the district to which it was to give its name. Though
suppressed, doubtless on account of disorders, it revived again, with
booths for jugglers, prize-fighting contests, boxing matches, and the
baiting of bears and bulls, and was not finally abolished until the end of
the eighteenth century.
But Mayfair is not the only district to be noticed; we have also its
rival--Belgravia--lying south of Hyde Park Corner, which is equally
included in the electoral district of St. George's, Hanover Square. This
electoral district takes in the three most fashionable churches in the
Metropolis, including the mother church, St. Paul's, Wilton Place, and
St. Peter's, Eaton Square, besides many others, whose marriage
registers cannot compete either in quantity or quality of names with
these three. The district can also show streets as poor as some are rich;
it includes not only Park Lane and Piccadilly, but also Pimlico and the
dreary part to the south of Buckingham Palace Road. It is a long,
narrow district, stretching from the river to Oxford Street. As a parish,
St. George's was separated from St. Martin's in 1724, and it is now
included in the city of Westminster, with which it has been associated

from its earliest history. In the charter given by King Edgar to the
monks at Westminster, their possessions were defined as reaching to
the highroad we now call Oxford Street on the north, and to Tyburn
Lane, or Park Lane, on the west. But of this the parishes of St. Margaret
and St. John at Westminster were the City, and the rest lay in the
"Liberties."
The larger portion of the district is included in the ancient estate of Eia,
890 acres in extent, reaching from the Bayswater Road to the Thames,
which was given by William the Conqueror to Geoffrey de Mandeville,
who at his death bequeathed it to the Abbey of Westminster. In
Domesday Book it is divided into three manors of Hyde, Ebury, and
Neyte. Of these the first occupies the site of Hyde Park; Ebury, from
Knightsbridge to Buckingham Palace Road; Neyte, nearer the river,
was the favourite residence of the Abbots. Here John of Gaunt lived,
and here, in 1448, John, son of Richard, Duke of York, was born. The
monks remained in possession until dispossessed by Henry VIII. in
1536. Hyde then became a royal hunting-ground. Neyte, or Neat, and
Ebury remained as farms, which in 1676 came into the possession of
the Grosvenor family by the marriage of Mary, daughter and heiress of
Alexander Davies of Ebury, with Sir Thomas Grosvenor, Bart. With
her came also the Grosvenor Square property, extending from Oxford
Street to Berkeley Square and Dorchester House, and from Park Lane
to South Molton Lane and Avery Row. Other large landholders in the
district are the Crown--Hyde Park, and Buckingham Palace; Lord
Fitzhardinge, the Berkeley estate; the City of London, New Bond Street
and parts of Conduit Street and Brook Street; Earl Howe, Curzon Street;
Sir Richard Sutton, Piccadilly; the Dean and Chapter of Westminster,
Knightsbridge; and the Lowndes family, Lowndes Street and Chesham
Place.
More than a quarter of the district is covered by Hyde Park, 394 acres
in extent. Long before its acquisition by the Crown in 1536 it had been
a favourite royal hunting-ground, and it so continued until Charles I.'s
accession, when it was opened to the public. During this reign, and
until 1736, the world of fashion centred round the Ring, a circular drive
planted with trees, some of which are still carefully preserved on the

high ground near the Ranger's house, though all trace of the roadway
has long been obliterated. The Park was sold by auction during the
Commonwealth, but resumed by the Crown at the Restoration, and in
1670 was enclosed with a brick wall and restocked with deer, who have
left their traces in the name of Buck Hill Walk and Gate, close to the
east bank of the Serpentine. This prettily-laid-out area, formerly known
as Buckden Hill or the Deer Paddock, is now tenanted