I have been sent a fascinating set of maps connected to the future of the Grosvenor Estate. One shows the full extent of the estate – not just the whole of north Mayfair, but also most of Belgravia which was acquired and developed as a result of the marriage by Thomas Grosvenor, a Cheshire baronet, to Mary Davies, the daughter of a city scrivener, in 1677. The best description of the estate is by Defoe in Applebee’s Weekly Journal in 1725: ‘I passed an amazing Scene of new Foundations, not of Houses only, but as I might say of new Cities, New Towns, new Squares, and fine Buildings, the like of which no City, no Town, nay, no Place in the World can shew; nor is it possible to judge where or when, they will make an end or stop of Building’:-
Fascinating. And remarkable that they have held on to virtually the whole of that ever since!