Place Name
More than two decades had passed since the notoriously rowdy 15-day May Fair had been closed down and landowner Sir Nathaniel Curzon was having trouble thinking of what to do with the waste ground it had once occupied (and indeed still occasionally sprung up in defiance of the authorities). So when, in 1735, a local architect called Edward Shepherd (died 1747) said he wanted to found a market “for the buying and selling of flesh, fish, fowl, roots, herbs, and other provisions for human food” it seemed the perfect solution, ending the annual festivities once and for all. By 1746 a small square, piazza, paved alleys, a duck pond, a theatre and a market over two-storeys had been developed. For his part the landowner offered him a 999 year lease at a very low rent. This it turned out to be a fantastic deal for as Gillian Bebbington in London Street Names dryly notes: “This was a bargain for Shepherd’s heirs which Curzon’s descendants were to regret as land values later soared in Mayfair.” The reality is however that Shepherd’s development probably led the gentrification of the locality. His services as an architect were in high demand among Georgian society’s elite, and he was commissioned by among others by James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos, and developed houses in Cavendish Square, Brook Street, and South Audley Street.
