THE CROWN ESTATE

See Also: DEVELOPMENTS Kensington Palace Gardens; DEVELOPMENTS St James s Square; ECONOMICS Trinity House; ESTATES; A LATERAL RETRIBUTION; THE ROYAL PARKS The Regent's Park, The Crown Estate Paving Commission; ROYALTY

In 1760 King George III handed over the profits of the Crown's estates to Parliament. In return, he received the financial provision of the Civil List. Those properties now form part of the Crown Estate. This entity is neither owned by the government nor is it the private property of the monarch. It includes portions of central London, Windsor Great Park, and numerous commercial and agricultural properties throughout Britain. Any profits that it generates are paid into the Exchequer.

Location: 16 New Burlington Place, W1S 3BJ (red, yellow)

Website: www.thecrownestate.co.uk

No. 79 Pall Mall

The buildings along Pall Mall stand on Crown Estate land with the exception of No. 79. King Charles II was happy to grant a long lease on the property to Nell Gwynne, who was one of his mistresses. However, she stated that she wished to be given the property freehold. He declined to do so. She insisted. Eventually, in 1676, he gave in and granted her what she desired.

Gwynne came from a lower-social strata than the king's other mistresses. He seems to have viewed her with a warmth that he does not seem to have had for his other ones.

Location: 79 Pall Mall, SW1Y 5ES (orange, white)

See Also: POOR NELLY

Regent Street

Prior to the construction of Regent Street, Swallow Street was the principal avenue running north of Piccadilly.

In the late 18^thC the officials of the Crown Estate appreciated that in 1811 the 500-acre Marylebone Park would revert to the Crown. They considered not only developing the park itself but also creating a great avenue through the West End that would act both as an approach to it and as a means of improving the districts through which the road ran. If the areas were improved, then higher rents could be charged.

Initially, the project was led by John Fordyce, the Surveyor-General to the Department of Woods & Forests. Following the official's death, the architect John Nash took charge of the scheme. In view of Regent Street's standing as one of the great examples of 19^thC European town planning, the road s course is somewhat eccentric. Its first section runs north from Pall Mall until it reaches Piccadilly Circus. From there it exits, at almost a right-angle, and proceeds to go into a rightward curve until it straightens out again on a northern path parallel,¹ if further to the west, to that which would have been its course had it continued along its initial projection. The street has this shape because the cost of purchasing the properties to the due north of the lower section of Regent Street would have been too expensive for the overall project to have remained viable.

Regent Street crosses Oxford Street acknowledging its importance with Oxford Circus. As soon as it reaches Langham Place, it jumps to another parallel northward path, again to the west, and changes its name to Portland Place.² In this guise it bifurcates just below the Marylebone Road pulling itself together on the northern side in order to assume the altogether less worldly identity of a park avenue. In this semblance it successfully crosses Regent's Park before giving up the ghost at the foot of Primrose Hill.³

Ultimately, Regent's Park, as Marylebone Park became known, was only moderately developed.

Regent Street encouraged demarcation of the older confusion to its east from the more planned districts of Mayfair and St James's to its west.

The buildings that Nash had erected along Regent Street were demolished during the 1920s.

Location: Regent Street, W1B 5TJ (red, yellow)

See Also: DISTRICT CHANGE Mayfair's Development and Its Effect; THE ROYAL PARKS The Regent's Park; ROYAL RESIDENCES, DISAPPEARED Carlton House; SHOPPING New Bond Street vs. Regent Street; TRAFALGAR SQUARE

¹. The curve is known as The Quadrant, in reference to its having approximately the same shape as a quarter of a circle.

². Portland Place had been created in the late 1770s by the Adams brothers for the 3^rd Duke of Portland.

³. As Mayfair began to prove attractive, and so drew the wealthy to live there, so the landlords to the east of Swallow Street (Regent Street s forerunner) found that the character of their estates had entered a social decline. Golden Square changed from being a district in which aristocrats resided to being one that was middle class in character.

Illuminated Advertisements

Piccadilly Circus (1819) was constructed as part of Nash's creation of Regent Street. The original circular layout of the buildings was destroyed in 1886 by the cutting of Shaftesbury Avenue.

In 1910 the tenants on the north-eastern side of Piccadilly Circus erected advertising billboards on their premises. The practice did not spread further around the Circus to the sections of it of which the Crown Estate was the ground landlord. This was because the Estate's leases had been worded more tightly than those of the freeholder of the properties upon which the advertisements were displayed. This was despite the fact that the Estate's leases had been drafted long before illuminated advertisements had been envisaged.

Location: Piccadilly Circus, W1J 7BX (purple, brown)

See Also: ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION & SUPPLY Former Power Stations, The Post Office, The Oxo Tower; TRAFFIC CONTROL Traffic Islands

Stonehenge

In 1747 John Wood published a book on Stonehenge in which he argued that Stonehenge had an astronomical dimension to it. Contemporaries were unreceptive to this idea. Wood was an architect. He and his son created Georgian Bath. Wood based Bath's Circus on Stonehenge. It was widely copied and was the inspiration for Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus. The traffic island is an adaptation of the idea.

David Backhouse 2024