“The champagne and caviar of London Walks.” The best address in London and a bon vivant of a guide. A patrician promenade through the parallelogram of purses. Pip pipping where Old Masters and old money, Rollers and Rolexes are par for the course. A boulevardier and a bailiwick of butlers, titles and glamour. Hob-nobbing with knobs on it – because Mayfair’s been home to Clive of India, Disraeli, Handel, Florence Nightingale, Jimi Hendrix, Dodi Fayed and the Earl Mountbatten, to name but a few. And that’s before we move in the big artillery – the cartwheeling knickerless American actress and the $10,000,000 casket, for example. Last but certainly not least, Mayfair boasts London’s best village within a village – Shepherd Market, a charming little nest of lanes and alleyways that hasn’t lost a jot of its 18th-century scale and village atmosphere, let alone its raffishness. Guided by Peter or Richard III.
OLD MAYFAIR – THE PRACTICALS
Old Mayfair takes place every* Thursday at 10.45 am. Year round.
*Except Dec. 26
In the Summer London Walks programme – which kicks in on May 1 and runs through October 31 – Old Mayfair also takes place every Monday at 10.45 am.
The starting point for the Mayfair walk is Green ParkTube. Meet Peter or Richard III on the corner outside the north exit of Green Park Tube.
N.B. the Mayfair walk ends in New Bond Street, near Bond StreetTube and Oxford CircusTube.