Bond Street
The street was built on fields surrounding Clarendon House on Piccadilly, which were developed by Sir Thomas Bond.
Prestigious or expensive shops were established along the street, but it declined as a centre of social activity in the 19th century, although it held its reputation as a fashionable place for retail, and is home to the auction houses Sotheby's and Bonhams (formerly Phillips) and the department store Fenwick and jeweller Tiffany's.
[8] At that time, the house backed onto open fields, known as Albemarle Ground, and the development of estates in Mayfair had just begun.
Shop owners let out their upper storeys for residential purposes, attracting lodgers such as Jonathan Swift, George Selwyn, William Pitt the Elder and Laurence Sterne.
[1] In 1784, Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, an active socialite, demanded that people boycott Covent Garden as its residents had voted against Whig member of parliament Charles James Fox.
[8] Already notorious for a violent and abusive temper, on 7 October 1801 he refused invitations to join in celebrations of peace between Britain and France (which led to the Treaty of Amiens), resulting in an altercation with several Loungers at his doorstep.
[16] The Jewish practice of Kabbalah has been associated with the street after former East End trader Sarah Levenson opened a shop on No.
[22] The street has maintained its reputation for luxury shopping into the 21st century, and has on occasion been regarded as the best retail location in Europe.
[25][26][27] According to Westminster City Council, Bond Street has the highest density of haute couture stores anywhere in the world, attracting "the rich, the famous, and the simply curious".
[28] The entire length of Bond Street has been part of the Mayfair Conservation Area controlled by Westminster City Council since 1969.
[29] At one time, Bond Street was best known for top-end art dealers and antique shops that were clustered around the London office of Sotheby's auction house, which has been at Nos.
The street still has a reputation as a fashionable place for shopping, including the flagship stores of Ralph Lauren and Cartier.
[32] The street features Allies, a statue of Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who are portrayed sitting in conversation on a park bench, sculpted by Lawrence Holofcener.
The statue, popular with tourists, was erected by the Bond Street Association to commemorate 50 years since the end of World War II,[33] and was unveiled in May 1995 by Princess Margaret.
In 2013, maquettes of the sculpture (which are replicas, as Holofcener did not make any as part of the original artwork or design) were sold at Bonhams.
[34] Henry Moore has four sculptures engraved into the building work of no.153 (a Loro Piana branch),[35] which he subsequently attempted to buy back when he felt no one noticed them.
[38] Bond Street has been mentioned in several works of literature, including Jane Austen's novel Sense and Sensibility[39] and Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel Mrs Dalloway.
