*the history of “Brown Hart Gardens”-Mayfair W1

This week my London Shoes ventured off ‘up west’ to the posher end of London’s–Oxford Street – for the purpose of tracking down an unusual street area, that has an interesting history behind it.

The subject matter of this blog feature is “Brown Hart Gardens”

“Brown Hart Gardens” is a street area of Mayfair that can be found down at the Oxford Street end of Duke Street in London’s west-end district- just a stone’s throw from the iconic Selfridges store.

The main focal point of Brown Hart Gardens is a large raised public garden that sits on top of an electricity sub-station.

Construction of the Duke Street electricity substation started way back in 1902 and was completed in 1905.

It was built from Portland Stone in a Baroque style, with steps leading up to a large garden area with 2 domed pavilions at either end.

An urban myth was soon created about the new construction, saying that the reason for its large green door and the large domes was because it was built so that Queen Victoria could house her ‘pet elephant’ there!!!

There is a slight grain of truth in that story, because Queen Victoria did actually have a pet elephant – it was given to her in 1884 as a prezzie from the King of Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia) but her elephant was mainly kept at what would later become London Zoo.

Before the sub-station was built, the site used to be a street level public garden – but was quite a notorious site, described at the time of being constantly frequented by ’disorderly boys’, ‘verminous women’ and ‘tramps’!!!

To keep the locals happy – the Westminster Electrical Company built a roof over the sub-station, and then raised it and paved it like an Italian garden with trees and flower tubs etc – all elevated above street level – and probably the most ‘beautiful’ electrical sub-station in Britain (if there can ever be such a thing).

The entire area surrounding this glamorous sub-station is owned and managed the Grosvenor Estate – who owns a lot of Mayfair – and although it’s classed as a very wealthy area today – it certainly wasn’t back in the 19^th Century.

From the late 1860s, Richard Grosvenor had a plan to build an estate of good quality homes for the working classes. He hired the ‘Improved Industrial Dwellings Company’ who set to work on designing and building a series of mansion blocks.

The intention was to move people out of their current poor housing and then gradually integrate them into new mansion styled housing blocks – all on the same rents and rates of their current small, run-down homes.

This worked to a point, but it got to the stage where the ‘displaced’ were paying much lower rent than the current rate – and new people moving into the mansions from elsewhere, were paying above the market rate for their rents – causing a big disparity.

In the initial wave of ‘repatriation’ – 332 families were moved across into the new development.

The Brown Hart Gardens ‘estate’ still stands today and is visually out of character to most of the other buildings in Mayfair – but it’s a testimony to the Grosvenor’s and the architect that these magnificent mansions from the mid 1800’s are still standing and still being used for housing.

As far back as 1987 the electrical sub-station was granted Grade II Listed protection status – which means that it should still be around and untouched for a few more years yet.

If you stick a camera right up against the metal grills situated along the perimeter walls of the sub-station – you can actually get sight of all the machinery and equipment inside.

Interestingly – amongst the backdrop scenery of Brown Hart Gardens is a lovely old church that stands in Duke Street directly opposite the sub-station.

Built in 1891 – this church has been the home of the “Ukraine-Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Family” since the late 1960’s.

Anyway – after tracking down the quite unusual and interesting ‘Brown Hart Gardens’ site – it was time for Shoes to have a quick liquid refreshment before heading off back home via the newly opened Bond Street station section of the amazing Elizabeth Line – which now takes me right back home to Romford, without having to change trains…..how good is that !!!

So – Shoes’ wandered the few yards from Brown Hart Gardens to Oxford Street – and noticed a tiny little alley called ‘St. Christopher’s Place’ – just a few yards down from Selfridges.

What a lovely little place it was too as this alley is a bit like Narnia, as it leads to a bigger, but still secluded, are a with loads of independent shops and restaurants etc.

Having had a little mooch around this particular part of Oxford Street, that I wasn’t aware of – I stumbled upon the “Lamb & Flag” pub (one of 3 so named in the ‘smoke’).

The ‘Lamb & Flag’ is a Grade II Listed Georgian building that still has some of its original fixtures and fittings from its historic heritage – like its wood panelled walls lining the interior, that date back to 1813.

I noticed that it also dishes up good old traditional British pub grub classics, like fish and chips – pie & mash – burgers – but I just went for a bag of park scratchings, that I washed down with a couple of ‘cheeky’ beers.

A very nice pub indeed and well worth a visit if you’re ever up Oxford Street.

So –that all about the ‘Brown Hart Gardens’ for you – another little snippet of lesser-known London history – hope you enjoy the accompanying photos.

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See below the complete gallery of photos take to support the ‘Brown Hart Gardens’ blog