Randy Mink, Managing Editor of Leisure
Group Travel Magazine, reviews our Mayfair Walk. The tour guide was The Daily
Constitutional's Associate Editor Richard III…
LondonWalks’ two-hour tour of the elite
Mayfair district spotlights the British capital’s most exclusive neighborhood.
One of my favorite things to do in London
is explore individual neighborhoods. In a city that can be so overwhelming, it
helps me narrow my focus and appreciate little slivers of urban life.
On my most recent trip to London I wanted
to get a feel for how the other half lives, so I opted for a walking tour of
posh Mayfair. This West End neighborhood, bounded by Hyde Park, Oxford Street,
Regent Street and Piccadilly, is home to 5,200 residents, 3,800 five-star hotel
rooms and 26 Michelin-star restaurants—at least that’s what is proclaimed in
the window of Wetherell Estate Agents, a real estate office where we made a
brief stop on our two-hour tour.
Pausing to read the listings for Mayfair
properties, we were aghast at the prices. Some penthouses go for more than $50
million. The weekly rent for one unit: a mind-boggling $12,000. So, who can
afford these places? Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs and oil-rich Middle
Easterners, that’s who, according to Richard, our guide.
Our group of 15 met Richard outside the
Green Park Tube station, across from The Ritz. We had chosen the “Old Mayfair”
tour, offered every Thursday by London Walks, a company that runs more than 100
themed tours a week. Besides neighborhood tours, there are walks centered
around famous people, from the Beatles to Charles Dickens. Movie fans might
choose “Harry Potter Film Locations,” while those looking for a nighttime prowl
can do “Jack the Ripper Haunts.” Private group tours can be arranged (email london@walks.com or visit www.walks.com).
In Mayfair, Richard showed us historic
sites, shops, parks, churches, restaurants and nightspots, weaving in celebrity
gossip along the way. Since Mayfair is largely residential, the streets are
quieter than others in central London, and there are few high-profile sights
that draw hordes of tourists. It’s a good place for strolling and taking in the
privileged atmosphere.
One of my favorite spots on the tour was
Shepherd Market, a village-like hodgepodge of shops, restaurants and
atmospheric Victorian pubs (like Ye Grapes, circa 1882). Centered around a
small square fed by little alleyways, it’s a tucked-away gem (named for Edward
Shepherd, not because sheep once roamed there).
On Mount Street, Richard pointed out
Scott’s, the restaurant where, in a well-publicized incident in 2013, TV chef
Nigela Lawson was almost strangled by her husband at a sidewalk table. Richard
also took us by Annabel’s, a night club on Berkeley Square where Princess Diana
and Sarah Ferguson, posing as police officers, crashed Prince Andrew’s stag
party in 1986 (and got in trouble with the real police). We walked through
leafy Berkeley Square, which is actually rectangular, and admired the park’s
Dale Chihuly sculpture and majestic plane trees, the oldest and largest in
London, dating from the 1780s.
Across from the park, we passed chic shops
like Oscar de la Renta before making a stop in front of London’s oldest butcher
shop, Allens of Mayfair, to ogle the cuts of Australian wagyu beef (almost $200
a kilo) and grouse ($25/kilo), along with other game like pheasant and
partridge. Then we walked through another green space, the gardens outside the
1840s-era Farm Street Church, a Jesuit Catholic parish where we went into the
sanctuary (our only inside stop on the tour) and spent 10 minutes admiring the
stained glass and other treasures.
London’s most expensive district got its
name, Richard told us, from the annual fair in May that drew rowdy crowds as
far back as the 1600s. They would come to to see jugglers, fire-eaters and
sword swallowers. In the 18th and 19th centuries the landed gentry maintained
elegant rowhouses in Mayfair, and much of the land was owned by the Grosvenor
family, early property developers who became the richest urban landlords in
England.
The family’s London home for over 100 years
was called Grosvenor House, which now lends its name to London’s largest
five-star hotel, the 494-room Grosvenor House, a JW Marriott Hotel. Known as
the “Grande Dame of Park Lane,” the hotel opened in 1929 and became a JW
Marriott property in 2008. I was lucky enough to stay at this quintessentially
British hotel, one of several five-star properties in Mayfair. It has a long
tradition of hosting high society events. Guests have included film stars,
diplomats, politicians and business tycoons. Princess Elizabeth, the future
Queen Elizabeth II, learned to skate, at the age of seven, on the hotel’s ice
rink, which later was converted into the Great Room, the largest hotel
banqueting space in Europe. (The hotel’s flower-accented lobby is the lead
photo at the beginning of this report.)
In London I like reading the blue-and-white
plaques affixed to the buildings where famous people lived, and Mayfair has had
more than its share of notables. The home at 22 Charles Street, for example,
was once occupied by the Duke of Clarendon, later to become King William IV
(1830-37). Across the street was one of 17 homes owned by the current Sultan of
Brunei. A block away, on Chesterfield Street, our group stopped at a rowhouse
inhabited by Beau Brummel, an arbiter of gentlemen’s fashion in the early
1800s, and later by Anthony Eden, a prime minister of Great Britain. Next door
a plaque marks the residence of novelist William Somerset Maugham. Composer
George Frederic Handel also lived in Mayfair and his home is now a museum.
Besides attached houses, the area also
still has some stand-alone mansions from the 1700s and 1800s. One is the
well-guarded Saudi ambassador’s residence, where our group was getting a brief
look through the gates until Richard hurried us along, saying, “They’re very
heavy on security so we’re going to have to move on before we get shot.”
The last stop on our tour was Grosvenor
Square, a green expanse bounded on one end by the American Embassy. Outside the
embassy are statues of Presidents Dwight Eisenhower (in military dress) and
Ronald Reagan. (Eisenhower’s wartime headquarters were at No. 20 Grosvenor
Square.). A statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt stands in the middle of the square,
and the 9/11 Memorial Garden honors British victims of the U.S. terrorist
attacks of September 11, 2001.
Visit the magazine's website here: leisuregrouptravel.com
A London Walk costs £10 – £8 concession. To join a London Walk, simply meet your guide at the designated tube station at the appointed time. Details of all London Walks can be found at www.walks.com.










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