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Hill Street is a street in the central Mayfair district of London which runs southwest from Berkeley Square towards Park Lane. It was developed from farmland in the 18th century and was named after a small hill there. It became a fashionable street in the 18th century and was home to a number of lords. The street contains several Grade I and Grade II listed buildings.
Contents
- Map of Hill St Mayfair London W1J UK
- Development and architecture
- Literary associations
- Fashionable street
- References
Map of Hill St, Mayfair, London W1J, UK
Development and architecture
The street was developed in the 1740s by John Berkeley, 5th Baron Berkeley of Stratton. When John Rocque mapped London in 1746, the development was in progress and so the streets on that side of Berkeley Square were shown only in outline. The area had previously been farmland, and Hill Street crosses Farm Street. Hill Street was named after a rise in the ground, with Hay Hill being another street nearby.
Architects included Benjamin Timbrell, who designed numbers 17 and 19, now both Grade I listed buildings, c. 1748, and Oliver Hill, who worked on number 15 in the 1920s. Numbers 1 and 3 form a Grade II listed building; other listed houses in the street include numbers 11, 31 and 36.
Claud Phillimore refurbished number 35 for Lady Astor in the late 1940s. This had six storeys and a basement to provide both a grand and comfortable residence. Lady Astor's personal living room – "the Boudoir" – had walls decorated with blue satin.
Literary associations
Mrs. Montagu hosted a literary salon at her new house in Hill Street. Her circle was known as the Blue Stockings Society and Doctor Johnson called her the "Queen of the Blues". Other luminaries who attended her gatherings included Edmund Burke, David Garrick, Joshua Reynolds and Horace Walpole.
In Jane Austen's novel Mansfield Park, Henry and Mary Crawford's uncle is an admiral living in Hill Street. Sir Walter Scott's novel Waverley was published at the same time. In this, the hero's father is a Whig politician who lives in Hill Street.
Thackeray's Vanity Fair has Great Gaunt Street off Gaunt Square as the home of Lady Gaunt's mother. This fictional street was based upon Hill Street.
Evelyn Waugh satirised Mayfair decadence in his novel Vile Bodies. In this, Hill Street was the location of the fictional Pastmaster House – "the William and Mary mansion of Lord and Lady Metroland with a magnificent ballroom, 'by universal consent the most beautiful building between Bond Street and Park Lane'".
The bright young thing society novelist Nancy Mitford stayed at number 40 in 1955.
Fashionable street
The new housing was fashionable in the 18th and 19th centuries, and notable residents of Hill Street have included: