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Marylebone
Marylebone
Background
The area south of Regent's Park, incorporating the medieval village of Marylebone, has London's highest concentration of quality Georgian houses. It was developed by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, as London shifted west in the 18th century. Terraces by John Nash adorn the southern edge of Regents Park, the busiest of the royal parks, while its northwest lies St John's Wood, a smart inner suburb.
In the early 18th Century, the village of Marylebone consisted of just a few houses roughly situated around the line of the present day Marylebone High Street. It was at this time that the landowners started to develop the area. Beginning with Cavendish Square, it was the first part of London to be laid out as an architectural whole - much of which remains today, looked after by the Howard Walden Estate. Many of the streets and squares take their names from the landowners' families, title and possessions, such as Harley, Portland and Wimpole.
Twenty first century Marylebone is a sprawling place, but remains relatively unknown and underrated, even though it encompasses a number of well-known landmarks and institutions. The famous London Business School with its multi-million pound extension is situated at he north end opposite Regent's Park, which forms a natural northern boundary and just a few minutes' walk away is another respected institution, the Royal Academy of Music.
Local History
Marylebone is both a village and a city. It did not become part of London until well on in the 18th Century. For hundreds of years it held a modest place in the minds of Londoners as a pretty village lying amid fields on the way to Primrose Hill. A village with a parish church, and a manor which had been in earlier times a royal palace with a hunting lodge, and a park which became a pleasure garden - Marylebone Gardens - by early 18th Century. Its transformation came in the late Georgian and Regency years and a new image was born.
For men and woman of the late 18th Century it won a reputation as London's newest and most fashionable center of aristocratic wealth, opulent residential development and artistic activity; a reputation heightened in the 19th century by the creation of Regent's Park, with its palatial villas and terrace houses. It became the chosen resort of courtiers, notability and diplomats.
The streets and squares, the essential atmosphere of Marylebone in its booming Regency and Victorian days figure frequently in the works of the great 19th Century writers. These were the settings for many of the events described in the novels of Dickens and Trollope - themselves residents for many years, as well as those of Thackeray and Disraeli. Emperor Napoleon III lived in exile here. He exerted his influence and recreated Paris with porticos, carved fronts and crescents lining very wide streets. Today it encompasses the Georgian urbanity of Harley Street, the Baker Street of Sherlock Holmes, the BBC radio station at Portland Place, Lord's Cricket ground, Madame Tussaud's. It eludes any social label.
Step from Oxford Street onto Wigmore Street and you are at once aware of a change of atmosphere - an Edwardian residential air. The Rolls-Royces and Bentleys glide unctuously along. The dignified personal of the place is still unmistakable. It is heartland area as opposed to its extremities remains true to its Georgian origins.
Architecture
In the early 18th Century, the village of Marylebone consisted of just a few houses roughly situated around the line of the present day Marylebone High Street. It was at this time that the landowners started to develop the area. Beginning with Cavendish Square, it was the first part of London to be laid out as an architectural whole - much of which remains today, looked after by the Howard de Walden Estate. Many of the streets and squares take their names from the landowners' families, titles and possessions, such as Harley, Portland and Wimpole.
Notable buildings include Hertford House (1776-88) in Manchester Square, home for more than a century to the renowned Wallace Collection. Marylebone is the setting for the Sherlock Holmes Museum on Baker Street, Madame Tussaud's wax museum along with the London Planetarium. Other notable buildings include the Royal Academy of Music. All Souls Church, the historic women's school of Queen's College (1848), and Wigmore Hall (1901; renovated 1993), the site of chamber music concerts.
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