The Location & History of Mayfair
Mayfair extends east of Hyde Park, south of Oxford Street, west of Regents Street and north of Green Park. It is a fashionable district that includes the most important retail shopping activity in the United Kingdom.
Most of the area was first developed between the mid 17th century and the mid 18th century as a fashionable residential district, by a number of landlords, the most important of them the Grosvenor family. The freehold of a large section of Mayfair also belongs to Queen Elizabeth II.
Mayfair has been owned by the Grosvenor family since 1677 and takes its name from the 15-day May Fair, once held here every year. The May Fair moved from Haymarket to the site of today's Curzon Street and Shepherd Market in 1686 but a century later it was suppressed by the local nobility for lowering the tone of the neighbourhood.
Mayfair's expansive and handsome architecture has always attracted the very wealthy.
For nearly 300 years the most influential people in the land have enjoyed its elegant squares, broad Georgian thoroughfares and beautiful parks. Mayfair also boasts the capital's most exclusive shops, hotels, restaurants and clubs.
Mayfair is dominated in the north by three large squares: Grosvenor, Hanover and Berkeley.
The vast Grosvenor Square, which houses the US Embassy, has a statue of Franklin D Roosevelt at its centre.
Mayfair's commercial district lies from Oxford Street, (the home of famous department store Selfridges), and stretches southward along Regent Street and the Quadrant to Piccadilly Circus and then turns right (west) along Piccadilly; northward branches extend along Sackville Street and Savile Row, where eminent tailors make some of the world's finest men's clothing. Just alongside Burlington House is one of London's most luxurious shopping areas, the Burlington Arcade, which has housed shops under its glass-roofed promenade since 1819. Parallel and a little farther west, Bond Street, with its long-established art auctioneers and exclusive boutiques and designer flagship stores, is a magnet for lavish spenders from around the world. Archaeological excavations at Mayfair have shown that the area was a junction of Roman roads, which has led some researchers to postulate that Romans settled the area before establishing Londinium (now London).
Outstanding among Mayfair's museums and galleries are the Museum of Mankind, which is administratively part of the British Museum, and the 18th- and 19th-century Burlington House, which is the home of the Royal Academy of Arts (1768), the Royal Astronomical Society (1820), the British Astronomical Association (1890), the Society of Antiquaries of London (1707), the Linnean Society of London (1788), the Geological Society (1807), and other learned societies.