Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
HIDDEN GEMS: SHOPS AND SIGNAGE
As you stroll along St James's and Jermyn streets keep an eye out for some of the unique
shops and signs - antiquated epithets are part of Jermyn Street's quaint appeal - including:
Berry Brothers
3 St James's St. The oldest
wine merchants in the world, with acres of
cellars, and a sloping wooden floor of great
antiquity.
James Lock & Co
6 St James's St. The first
hatters to sell a bowler hat, they have the
Duke of Wellington's hat on display,
alongside a replica of the cocked hat they
made for Nelson.
Fox of St James
19 St James's St.
Fox
supplied Winston Churchill with his cigars
and Oscar Wilde with Sobranie cigarettes -
there's a small museum inside and a
smoking room for sampling the wares.
Turnbull & Asser
71-72 Jermyn St.
Describe themselves as “Hosiers & Glovers”.
Bates
the hatters, housed within the
shirtmakers
Hadditch & Key
, 73 Jermyn St.
Bates still displays Binks, the stray cat which
entered the shop in 1921 and never left,
having been stuffed, sporting a cigar and top
hat, and in a glass cabinet.
Taylor
74 Jermyn St. These barber's are
dubbed “Gentlemen's Court Hairdresser”.
Foster & So
85 Jermyn St. A shoe shop that
styles themselves as “Bootmakers
since 1840”.
Floris
89 Jermyn St. Renowned for covering
up the Royal Family's body odour with its
ever-so-English fragrances.
Paxton & Whitfield
93 Jermyn St. Boasts an
unrivalled selection of cheeses.
2
advent of the clubs (see box, p.73). The window displays and wooden-panelled
interiors (see box above) still evoke an age when mass consumerism was unthinkable,
and when it was considered that gentlemen “should either be a work of art or wear a
work of art”, as Oscar Wilde put it.
Green Park
Green Park
was established by Henry VIII on the burial ground of the old lepers'
hospital that became St James's Palace. It was left more or less flowerless - hence its
name (o
cially “The Green Park”) - and, apart from the springtime swathes of
daffodils and crocuses, it remains mostly meadow, shaded by graceful London plane
trees. In its time, however, it was a popular place for duels (banned from neighbouring
St James's Park), ballooning and fireworks displays. One such display was immortalized
by Handel's
Music for the Royal Fireworks
, performed here on April 27, 1749, to
celebrate the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which ended the War of the Austrian Succession
- over ten thousand fireworks were let off, setting fire to the custom-built Temple of
Peace and causing three fatalities. The music was a great success, however.
Along the east side of the park runs the wide, pedestrian-only
Queen's Walk
, laid out
for Queen Caroline, wife of George II, who had a little pavilion built nearby. At its
southern end, there's a good view of
Lancaster House
(closed to the public), a grand
Neoclassical palace built in rich Bath stone in the 1820s by Benjamin Wyatt, and used
for government receptions and conferences since 1913.
Spencer House
St James's Place • Feb-July & Sept-Dec Sun 10.30am-5.45pm • £12, no under-10s •
T
020 7499 8620,
W
spencerhouse.co.uk •
!
Green Park
A sign in the garden backing onto Queen's Walk announces Princess Diana's ancestral
home,
Spencer House
, one of London's finest Palladian mansions. Erected in the 1750s,
its best-looking facade looks out over Queen's Walk to Green Park, though access is
from St James's Place. Inside, tour guides take you through nine of the state rooms,
returned to something like their original condition by current owners, the Rothschilds.
The Great Room features a stunning coved and coffered ceiling in green, white and
gold, while the adjacent Painted Room is a feast of Neoclassicism, decorated with
murals in the “Pompeian manner”. The most outrageous decor, though, is in Lord
Spencer's Room, with its astonishing gilded palm-tree columns.
