12/04/26 - London's Hidden Walks - Mayfair

Rock and Roll, Suicide

There are four volumes of London's Hidden Walks. I start posh. Book 1, Walk 1 is Mayfair. The guide is superb - packed with information, with pages of data on a relatively short tour of the capital's most opulent area. 

I'll pick out the bits that are of most interest to me, otherwise I will have the world's longest blog. The streets of London are paved with stories.

I emerged from the tube at Piccadilly - finding my bearings at Eros.

Eros - was meant to be Anteros, the Greek God of unrequited love

At the edge of Park Lane, I hunted for the flat at Number 9 Curzon Place. In 1974, Mama Cass died in a flat there, to be followed four years later - but incredibly in the same bed - by Keith Moon.

Behind the window at the top right hand corner

A little further on at Audley Square - an innocent enough looking lamp post was a dead drop location for Soviet spies in the 1950s. Letters stored behind a little opening at the rear, with chalk marks on the pavement indicating that there was a hidden message. WhatsApp is more efficient, but not as quaint.

Spy lore - now home of not one, but two Geocaches

Around Berkeley Square to find the nightclub that provides the redtop with so much ammunition. Annabel's used to be in the basement of 44, with the Claremont Club (Lord Lucan's gambling den) above. Number 50 is rumoured to be London's most haunted house - with tales of suicides, madness and toffs with shotguns.

Annabel's is now at 46

And this is as close as I will get to a Private Club

For reasons that may make it into a future blog, I am having an Evelyn Waugh cultural moment. In preparation for a visit to Madresfield House, I am working my way through Brideshead Revisited. Smack bang in the middle of Mayfair is the Church of the Immaculate Conception. Mr Waugh converted to Catholicism there in 1939. Much like Rex in Brideshead. 

As pretty as a picture

To give you an idea as to how much material route planners have to work with in the Smoke, two adjacent houses in Brook Street both have blue plaques. The first, the home of Handel and next door, a couple of centuries later, Jimi Hendrix.

Jimi - Left; Handel - Right

And finally, Heddon Street - a little alley off Regents Street - was the location for the cover shot of Bowie's Ziggy Stardust. A little imagination is required to make the connection.

Ye, Who was K West? 

A Sunday morning too early for pubs, but there were some beauties along the route. Ye Grapes in Shepherd's Market needs a revisit.

Every pub's a beauty in London

Walk Details

Distance - 4.5 Miles

Geocaches - c30

Walk Inspiration - London's Hidden Walks - Book 1 - Walk 1