Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
known. Byron and Scott patronised Long's dining room and Steven's attracted aristocratic
army officers. They were so exclusive that if a stranger wished to dine at Steven's the staff
would inform him that there were no tables, whether there were or not.
In the evening, bands of Savoyard Pandeans with their panpipes would gather in the
porches and entertain the gentlemen inside and the less exalted crowd outside.
A band of Pandean minstrels showing the panpipes that gave them
their name. This troupe is performing at Vauxhall pleasure gardens in
1806.
Turn right, and almost immediately opposite is The Fine Arts Society. Lord Camelford,
a noted eccentric, lived over a grocer's shop on this site, and provoked a riot when London
was illuminated to celebrate the short-lived peace in 1801. He refused to allow his landlord
to light up the windows as the mob demanded and the house was stormed. His lordship
threw one man down the stairs before emerging with a cudgel to fend off the attackers.
In 1797 Lord Nelson lived next door on the site of No. 147. He was very ill at the time,
following the loss of his right arm at the second battle of Cape St Vincent, and received
devoted nursing from Lady Nelson.
The shop front of No. 143 is the original belonging to the chemists Savory and Moore,
founded in 1794. Thomas Field Savory was a talented chemist with friends in high places.
Wellington and Lady Hamilton were customers and the Duke of Sussex, brother of George
IV, often dined here as his guest. In 1815 Savory acquired the patent for the internationally
popular laxative Seidlitz powders, which made his fortune.
Turn to walk down to the corner of New Bond Street and Grafton Street. This was the
location of Grafton House, home of high-class drapers Wilding and Kent. On 17 April 1811
Jane and Manon, Eliza Austen's maidservant, '… took our walk to Grafton House, & I have
a good deal to say on that subject. I am sorry to tell you that I am getting very extravagant
& spending all my Money; & what is worse for
you
, I have been spending yours too …',
she told Cassandra.
