Rock and Roll, Suicide
5 years of walking in London, on an ever more distant spiral. It's time to reacquaint myself with the City.
I know just the resource to use.
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.
Mayfair is one of London’s most affluent and fashionable districts, occupying roughly the area between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane. Developed largely from the late 17th century onwards by the Grosvenor family, it became associated with aristocratic townhouses, exclusive clubs, embassies and grand squares such as Grosvenor Square and Berkeley Square. Today, its elegant Georgian streets sit alongside luxury shops on Bond Street, art galleries, expensive restaurants and some of London’s most famous hotels, while a handful of old pubs and historic buildings provide reminders of its less polished past. Despite its reputation for wealth and exclusivity, Mayfair has a surprisingly colourful history of aristocrats, artists, writers, politicians, gamblers and notorious characters.
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| Mayfair |
I'll pick out the bits from the book that are of most interest to me, otherwise I will have the world's longest blog. The streets of London are paved with stories and Hidden London likes to tell them.
I emerged from the tube at Piccadilly - finding my bearings at Eros.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Annabel's is now at 46 |
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| 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 Court, 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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