Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
power of the city's middle classes brought the tone of the street “down”, and heavyweight
stores catering for the masses now predominate.
REGENT STREET ARCADES
PICCADILLY
Piccadilly Circus or Green Park.
MAP
Piccadilly apparently got its name from the ruffs or “pickadills” worn by the dandies who
promenaded along this wide boulevard in the late seventeenth century. Despite its fashion-
able pedigree, and the presence of
The Ritz
halfway along, it's no place for promenading in
its current state, with traffic careering down it nose to tail day and night. Infinitely more
pleasant places to window-shop are the various
nineteenth-century arcades
leading off the
street, originally built to protect shoppers from the mud and horse-dung on the streets, but
now equally useful for escaping exhaust fumes.
BURLINGTON ARCADE
Piccadilly Green Park.Mon-Sat 9am-8pm, Sun 11am-6pm.Free.
MAP
Awash with mahogany-fronted jewellers and gentlemen's outfitters, the Burlington Arcade
is Piccadilly's longest and most expensive nineteenth-century arcade. It was built in 1819
