Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
MONOPOLY
Although
Monopoly
was patented during the Depression by an American, Charles Darrow, it
was the British who really took to the game, and the UK version was the one used in the rest of
the world outside of the US. In 1935, to choose appropriate streets and stations for the game,
the company director of Waddington's in Leeds sent his son, Norman Watson, and his secretary,
Marjorie Phillips, on a day-trip to London. They came up with an odd assortment, ranging from
the bottom-ranking Old Kent Road (still as tatty as ever) to an obscure dead-end street in the
West End (Vine Street), and chose only northern train stations. All the properties have gone up
in value since the board's inception (six zeros need to be added to most), but Mayfair and Park
Lane (its western border), the most expensive properties, are still aspirational addresses.
Piccadilly
Piccadilly
apparently got its name from a local resident who manufactured the ruffs or
“pickadills” worn by the dandies of the late seventeenth century. Despite its fashionable
pedigree, it's no place for promenading in its current state, with tra
c careering down
it nose to tail most of the day and night. Infinitely more pleasant places to window-
shop are the
nineteenth-century arcades
, built to protect shoppers from the mud and
horse dung on the streets, but now equally useful for escaping exhaust fumes.
3
Waterstones and Hatchard's
One of the most striking shops on Piccadilly, at nos. 203-206, is the sleek modernist
1930s facade of Simpsons department store, now the multistorey flagship bookstore of
Waterstones
. While Piccadilly may not be the shopping heaven it once was, it still
harbours several old firms that proudly display their royal warrants. London's oldest
bookshop,
Hatchard's
, at no. 187, was founded in 1797, as a cross between a gentlemen's
club and a library, with benches outside for servants and daily papers inside for the
gentlemen to peruse. Today, it's a sister branch of Waterstones, elegant still, but with its old
traditions marked most overtly by an unrivalled section on international royalty.
St James's Church
197 Piccadilly •
T
020 7734 4511,
W
sjp.org.uk •
!
Piccadilly Circus
Halfway along the south side of Piccadilly stands
St James's Church
, Wren's favourite
parish church (he built it himself ). he church has rich furnishings, with the limewood
reredos, organ-casing and marble font all by the master sculptor
Grinling Gibbons
.
St James's is a radical campaigning church, which runs a daily craft market (Tues-Sat)
and a café at the west end of the church; it also puts on top-class, free lunchtime
concerts and regularly displays contemporary outdoor sculptures in the churchyard.
Fortnum & Mason
181 Piccadilly • Mon-Sat 10am-8pm, Sun noon-6pm •
T
020 7734 8040,
W
fortnumandmason.com •
!
Green Park or Piccadilly Circus
One of Piccadilly's oldest institutions is
Fortnum & Mason
, the food emporium
established in 1707 by Hugh Mason (who used to run a stall at St James's market) and
William Fortnum (one of Queen Anne's footmen). Over the main entrance, the figures
of its founders bow to each other on the hour as the clock clanks out the Eton school
anthem - a kitsch addition from 1964. The store is most famous for its opulent food
hall and its picnic hampers, first introduced as “concentrated lunches” for hunting and
shooting parties, and now
de rigueur
for Ascot, Glyndebourne, Henley and other
society events. Fortnum's is credited with the invention of the Scotch egg in 1851, and
was also the first store in the world to sell Heinz baked beans in 1886.
Albany
One palatial Piccadilly residence that has avoided redevelopment is
Albany
, a plain,
H-shaped Georgian mansion, designed by William Chambers, neatly recessed behind
