Mayfair, Belgravia, and Bayswater

by G. E. Mitton

The houses in Chester Square and the neighbourhood are not so pretentious as those in Belgravia, but it is still a fashionable place of residence. In South Eaton Place, near the south end, stood the Star and Garter Tavern, well known about 1760. The end of this street was called Burton Street (1826) until 1877. In Elizabeth Street, first called Eliza Street in 1820, and until 1866 divided into Upper Elizabeth Street, Elizabeth Street, and Elizabeth Street South, stood the Dwarf Tavern, noted about 1760. At the south end, near St. Philip's Parochial Hall and Parsonage, is St. Michael's Mission House, built in 1893. Gerald Road, 1834 until 1885 named Cottage Road, contains the station of the R Division of Police.

Eccleston Street, with which in 1866 was incorporated Eccleston Street South, was so called from Ecclestone in Cheshire, where the Duke of Westminster has property. A house on the west side inhabited by Sir Frances Chantrey was pulled down during the construction of the underground railway. On the same side is the Royal Pimlico Dispensary, established in 1831. Part of the east side has been rebuilt. In Eccleston Place is the station of the Westminster Electric Supply Company, which supplies this district with electric light. In Lower Belgrave Street (1810), the lower end of which was till 1867 named Belgrave Street South, are St. Peter's National Schools, a large red-brick building with a playground, in connection with St. Peter's, Eaton Square.

At the end of Grosvenor Place great improvements were made in 1868 by the building of Grosvenor Gardens, when Grosvenor Street West, and Upper and Lower Eaton Street were swept away.

At No. 27, Upper Eaton Street, lived George Frederick Cooke, 1870; 25, Thomas Campbell, 1803; 19, Lower Eaton Street, Mrs. Abington, actress, 1807, Mr. Pinkerton, 1802. The present houses are very large and handsome.

Inhabitants: No. 1, Spanish Embassy; 46, Lord Herschell.

On the west side, at the corner of Buckingham Palace Road, are Belgrave Mansions, built from designs by Cundy in 1868, a large block in French Renaissance style, with a frontage of nearly 300 feet. The ground-floor is occupied by shops, and above are five floors of flats. The centre of the open space is occupied by two triangular enclosed gardens, and is crossed by Ebury Street, once an open lane leading over the fields to Chelsea. Houses were built on it after 1750, and in 1779 the north-eastern end was named Upper Ranelagh Street and Ranelagh Street. The south-western end was Upper Ebury Street, but the whole was renamed Ebury Street in 1867. It is an uninteresting street of unpretending houses and shops. In Upper Ebury Street lived: Rodwell the composer; William Skelton, engraver, d. 1848; No. 174 is the Boys' School belonging to the parish of St. Barnabas.

At the north-east end of Ebury Street is Victoria Square, a small square of plain houses built about 1837, out of which Albert Street leads to Grosvenor Place. In the square lived, at No. 8, Thomas Campbell, 1841-43; 5, Earl of Mount Edgcumbe.

At the other end, near Ebury Bridge, is Ebury Square, built about 1820 on the site of Ebury Farm. This ancient property, which derives its name from the Saxon ey, water, and burgh, a fortified place, is mentioned in 1307, when permission was granted by Edward I. to John de Benstede to fortify it. In Queen Elizabeth's time it consisted of a farm of 430 acres, let on lease for £21 per annum. In 1676 it came into the possession of the Grosvenor family, and in 1725 embraced a long narrow area, reaching from Buckingham House to the Thames between the Westbourne and the present Westmoreland Street.

The square was partially destroyed in 1868, but the old houses remain on the north-west and south sides. In the centre is a garden, and the ground between it and Buckingham Palace Road is occupied by St. Michael's National Schools, opened in 1870, a spacious building, accommodating about a thousand scholars; there is a large playground. The site had been previously occupied by the Pimlico Literary Institution, built in 1830 from designs by J. P. Deering.

On the remaining side a handsome block of industrial dwellings (Ebury Buildings) was built in 1872, when the old Flask Lane (1785) was swept away. The approaches on the north-west are Semley Place (1785), late Flask Row, and Little Ebury Street (1823). At the end of Avery Farm Row (probably a corruption of Ebury), opposite Ebury Bridge, is a drinking-fountain, erected in memory of the second Marquis of Westminster, d. 1869, by his widow.