Free Amazing & Extraordinary Facts: London by Editors of David & Charles

of Blemond, William Blemond having bought it in the 13th century. Street names in Mayfair and Belgravia like Grosvenor Square remind us that in the 1720s the area was developed by Sir Richard Grosvenor. In 1677 his father had wisely married the heiress Mary Davies (hence Davies Street) who had inherited much of what is now Mayfair. In the 19th century Thomas Cubitt drained the swamps south of Hyde Park to create Belgrave Square (named after a Grosvenor family property in Leicestershire), Eaton Square (the family home in Cheshire) and Lupus Street (Lupus Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, 1825-99).
    MAYFAIR
    Mayfair, bounded by Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane, takes its name from the fair which was held annually from 1st to 15th May. In 1686 the fair moved from the Haymarket and continued until it was suppressed for rowdyism in 1764. At its heart was Shepherd Market, named after the architect and builder Edward Shepherd. It housed the famous Tiddy Dol’s restaurant, specialising in English food and named after the gingerbread maker Tiddy Dol who plied his trade at executions at Tyburn. The restaurant closed while the site was redeveloped.

The history behind the geography
Walking through London’s heritage
    O ther street and district names have earlier origins. Aldwych is one of the most ancient names in London. It is an Anglo-Saxon name which means ‘Old settlement’ and reflects the fact that it was a trading post outside the walls of the City itself on the way to the separate community to the west of the City which became known as Westminster. King Alfred granted Aldwych, with its valuable trading post, to the Danes as part of the settlement that ended his wars with them. Many places owe their names to royal connections. The King’s Road in Chelsea was so called because it was originally a private road which Charles II used to drive to Hampton Court and until 1830 it could be used only on production of a copper pass inscribed ‘The King’s Private Road’. Pall Mall was laid out in 1661 so that King Charles II could play a game imported originally from Italy called Pallo a Maglio (Ball to Mallet, rather like croquet), close to St James’s Palace. The road was officially called Catherine Street, after Charles’s Queen Catherine of Braganza but soon took on the name of the game for which it was designed. South of the Strand are a number of streets whose names between them spell out the name of the Stuart courtier and landowner the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, ‘George Villiers of Buckingham’. These are George Court; Villiers Street; Of Alley (since renamed York Place); and Buckingham Street.

    St Jamess Palace
    Soho was from 1536 a royal hunting park for Whitehall Palace, ‘So-ho!’ being a contemporary hunting cry. Smoothfield which lay just outside the City boundary became Smithfield, a place of execution before it became a live cattle market noted for its disorderly character. In 1866 the present meat market was designed by Horace Jones, the architect also of Tower Bridge.
    WHITEHALL PALACE
    This magnificent Tudor palace was created by Henry VIII after he took over the site from Cardinal Wolsey when the latter fell from favour. It may have owed its name to the light stone from which it was built. In 1698 it was burned to the ground, only the Banqueting House surviving. The palace’s name survives in the street in which it was situated and has thereby given its name to the activities of government in general, as in ‘Whitehall has decreed that...’ The authoritarian Henry VIII would surely have approved!
    Hug a Huguenot
    Other names have more obscure origins. Bedlam, a synonym for an asylum, took its name from the Priory of St Mary Bethlehem in Bishopsgate, founded in 1247 and later used for accommodating the mentally ill. In 1815 the hospital was moved to Lambeth where its premises were later occupied by the Imperial War Museum. The nearby Elephant and Castle probably owes its name to the