Hill Street is a street in Mayfair, London which runs SW then W from Berkeley Square to Deanery Street, a short approach way from Park Lane. It was developed from farmland in the 18th century. One block to the east and south sees a fall of about three metres whereas its eminence rises gradually six main blocks to beyond the north of Marble Arch in the other direction. Its homes gained fashionable status from the outset: grand townhouses seeing use as seasonal lettings and/or longer-term London homes of nobility — then of other wealthy capitalists as much. In heritage and architecture, twenty-two, approximately half of its town houses, are listed. Along its course Audley Square House only departs from townhouse-size frontage. This shares in its predominant form of domestic architecture, Georgian neo-classical. Its public house is the oldest surviving instance within Mayfair.
Development and architecture
The street's development was overseen in the 1740s by local landowner Lord Berkeley, who owned the house, gardens and farm holdings which took up Berkeley Square and beyond. When John Rocque mapped London in 1746, most streets on the west side of this square were shown in outline as building was underway; the street was among the last area of farmland thus crosses "Farm" Street. Hill Street is the same as Mount Street and others to the north to the east end, but here the land falls the same amount but more rapidly to the next block south, scaled by Chesterfield Hill and Hays Mews; similarly to the east where the Tyburn ran. Foremost architects used were Benjamin Timbrell, as to №s17 and 19 1748, and Oliver Hill, as to №15 in the 1920s. Claud Phillimore refurbished №s35 for Lady Astor in the late 1940s giving six storeys and a basement for a grand and comfortable residence. Lady Astor's personal living room – "the Boudoir" – had walls decorated with blue satin. Twenty-two of the town houses are listed buildings: №s1 and 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 20, 22, 25, 26, 29, 31, 33, 35, 36, 38, 40, and 42 and 44 Hill Street are listed Grade II; №19 is Grade II*; then №17 has highest Grade I status.
Literary associations
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. In Thackeray's Vanity Fair, several characters live on Great Gaunt Street or the adjoining Gaunt Square, including Sir Pitt Crawley and Lord and Lady Steyne. This fictional street was based upon Hill Street. In addition, Lady Bareacres lives on the actual Hill Street. Evelyn Waugh satirised Mayfair decadence in his novel Vile Bodies. In this, along Hill Street stood 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 40 in 1955.
Prestige
This was among the prestigious streets of wealthy socialites and politicians of London in the 18th and 19th centuries and notable residents have included:
