London Calling.
London Walks connecting.
This is London. This is London Walks. Streets Ahead. Story time.
History time.
Last time we left Burlington Arcade we were talking money.
Serious money.
The sort of money that makes even seasoned London property people stop in their tracks.
In 2018 the Arcade changed hands for about £300 million.
Now here’s the delicious bit.
Burlington Arcade is only about 196 yards long.
Do the arithmetic and every yard is worth getting on for £1½ million.
Think of it another way.
As you stroll from Piccadilly towards Burlington Gardens, every ordinary pace is carrying you across real estate worth the thick end of a million pounds.
Financially speaking, this may well be the most valuable stroll you’ll ever take.
And that’s before you’ve looked in a single shop window.
There are only forty shops in the whole Arcade.
Forty.
Not four hundred.
Forty.
Yet together they occupy some of the most coveted retail space in Britain.
More than four million people pass through Burlington Arcade every year.
Four million.
That’s roughly the population of Croatia.
Or New Zealand.
Yet here’s the extraordinary thing.
It never feels crowded.
It never feels frantic.
It never feels as though it’s trying to prise your wallet from your pocket.
Quite the reverse.
It feels calm.
Civilised.
Almost intimate.
Which rather raises the question.
How?
How does a place sitting on property worth £300 million manage to feel so utterly uncommercial?
I think the answer lies in a single word.
Stewardship.
There’s another chapter in Burlington Arcade’s story that I find quietly heartening.
It concerns the men who own it today.
Or perhaps “own” is the wrong word.
Custodians is better.
David and Simon Reuben bought Burlington Arcade in 2018.
That sounds like a straightforward property deal.
It wasn’t.
Places like Burlington Arcade aren’t simply bought and sold.
They’re inherited.
Yes, there are leases.
Yes, there are rents.
Yes, there are balance sheets and accountants and solicitors and surveyors.
But there’s something else as well.
A responsibility.
Because Burlington Arcade isn’t just another commercial address.
It’s one of London’s little masterpieces.
The Reuben brothers could have bought almost any trophy property in the capital.
Instead they chose this graceful Regency arcade that has been delighting Londoners since 1819.
I like that.
Their own story is wonderfully London.
Their family’s roots lie in the ancient Jewish communities of Iraq. The brothers were born in Bombay before eventually making Britain their home. They arrived with very little, built a business in metals, moved into property and, through remarkable judgement, hard work and persistence, created one of Britain’s great private fortunes.
There’s something rather fitting about two immigrant brothers becoming the custodians of one of London’s most quintessentially English places.
It feels entirely appropriate.
Because London has always been built by people who came from somewhere else.
The Romans.
The Huguenots.
The Italians.
The Jews.
The Irish.
The South Asians.
The West Indians.
Generation after generation they’ve arrived, rolled up their sleeves and left London richer than they found it.
The Reuben brothers are part of that story.
And now Burlington Arcade is part of theirs.
But they didn’t inherit a blank canvas.
Far from it.
The previous owners had spent years, and many millions of pounds, restoring the Arcade with extraordinary care.
They stripped away decades of unsympathetic alterations.
They reinstated the elegant Regency proportions.
They reopened the beautiful arches above the shopfronts.
They laid magnificent new flooring using stone quarried here in Britain.
It was restoration in the truest sense of the word.
Not changing.
Not reinventing.
Not “improving.”
Simply allowing Burlington Arcade to become itself again.
The Reuben brothers inherited the result.
The easy thing would have been to squeeze every last penny out of it.
Pack in more shops.
Replace the specialists with bigger brands.
Turn it into another luxury mall.
They didn’t.
And that, to my mind, is enormously to their credit.
Because stewardship isn’t about changing something to suit your own tastes.
It’s about understanding what you’ve been entrusted with.
And then handing it on in even better condition than you found it.
That strikes me as one of the noblest ideas in city life.
We’re all temporary custodians.
Whether it’s a house.
A garden.
A park.
A library.
Or a shopping arcade.
None of us owns these places forever.
We simply look after them for a while.
Then it’s somebody else’s turn.
That’s why Burlington Arcade still feels authentic.
Nobody has tried to reinvent it.
Nobody has tried to make it fashionable.
Fashion is fleeting.
Character endures.
The Beadles still patrol beneath the glazed roof in their frock coats and top hats.
Not because somebody in a marketing department thought it would make a good photograph.
Because that’s what Beadles have done here for more than two centuries.
The specialist shops are still run by people who know astonishing amounts about shoes, watches, jewellery, umbrellas, silver and fountain pens.
Walk into one of those shops and you’re not simply buying something.
You’re entering a conversation.
You’re talking to people who have devoted years, sometimes decades, to mastering their craft.
That’s becoming a rare pleasure.
In a world where expertise is too often replaced by algorithms and scripted customer service, Burlington Arcade still believes in human knowledge.
Real knowledge.
The sort that can’t be downloaded.
The sort that takes a lifetime to acquire.
And that, if you ask me, is every bit as luxurious as the objects in the display cases.
That’s why I never think of Burlington Arcade as merely a place to shop.
Shopping happens here, certainly.
Very expensive shopping, if you’re so inclined.
But that somehow misses the point.
The real luxury isn’t the watches.
Or the jewellery.
Or the cashmere.
It’s the atmosphere.
It’s walking into a place where nobody seems in a hurry.
Where elegance is taken for granted.
Where good manners haven’t gone out of fashion.
Where craftsmanship still matters.
Those are rarer commodities than diamonds.
Take the windows.
They’re not simply displays.
They’re little theatrical productions.
Every object has been placed with care.
Every shaft of light has been thought about.
Nothing shouts.
Nothing clamours for attention.
The Arcade has never needed to raise its voice.
Confidence seldom does.
And then there are the Beadles.
I’ve become rather fond of them.
How could you not be?
Those splendid frock coats.
The top hats.
The measured stride.
The quiet authority.
Visitors sometimes assume they’re ceremonial figures.
They’re not.
They’re professionals.
They’re doing exactly the job their predecessors have done since 1819.
Keeping a discreet eye on proceedings.
Helping visitors.
Protecting the shopkeepers.
Preserving standards.
There’s a lovely word again.
Standards.
Burlington Arcade has standards.
It expects visitors to behave.
It expects shopkeepers to uphold the traditions of their trades.
It expects itself to remain worthy of its history.
That’s one reason it has survived while so many supposedly fashionable places have disappeared.
It has never chased fashion.
It has quietly outlived it.
Perhaps that’s the greatest lesson Burlington Arcade has to teach.
The newest thing in town rarely stays the newest thing for very long.
Quality has a much longer shelf life.
I sometimes think that’s one of London’s great strengths.
This city is remarkably good at allowing different centuries to occupy the same space.
A customer taps a credit card against a payment terminal.
A Beadle in a frock coat glides past.
A courier carrying the latest smartphone walks beneath a Regency roof.
Nobody finds the combination remotely odd.
It’s simply London being London.
The old and the new shaking hands.
That’s one reason London Walks loves bringing people here.
Anybody can wander through Burlington Arcade.
Thousands do every day.
But stories change places.
Once you know why Lord George Cavendish built it.
Once you know why Samuel Ware designed it the way he did.
Once you know why there are Beadles.
Once you know why gentlemen were once forbidden to whistle.
Once you understand the extraordinary concentration of skill gathered beneath this one elegant roof.
You never quite see it in the same way again.
That’s the London Walks difference.
You don’t truly see until you understand.
And perhaps that’s why I keep returning.
Not because I’m in the market for a Swiss watch.
Or a diamond necklace.
Or a hand-crafted umbrella.
I return because Burlington Arcade reminds me of the sort of city London still is.
A city that understands beauty has value.
A city that believes courtesy is good business.
A city where commerce and culture aren’t enemies.
A city where the balance sheet matters.
But isn’t the only thing that matters.
Which brings us back to the title.
Commitment.
It turns out there are several commitments on display here.
Lord George Cavendish’s commitment to creating something exceptional.
Samuel Ware’s commitment to elegant design.
The Beadles’ commitment to duty.
The shopkeepers’ commitment to mastery.
The Reuben brothers’ commitment to stewardship.
And, if I’m honest, my own commitment to Burlington Arcade.
Because every Londoner has a handful of places that reassure them the city hasn’t lost its soul.
Burlington Arcade is one of mine.
It has survived world wars.
Economic crashes.
Changing fashions.
Changing governments.
Changing tastes.
For more than two centuries it has quietly gone about the business of being itself.
Never shouting.
Never showing off.
Simply maintaining standards.
I find that immensely reassuring.
Perhaps cities need places like Burlington Arcade.
Places that refuse to hurry.
Places that value beauty.
Places where experience counts for something.
Places where expertise is cherished.
Places that remind us that civilisation is built not merely on wealth but on judgement.
On restraint.
On good taste.
On the quiet determination to do things properly.
We often hear people say, “They don’t make them like that any more.”
Well…
Sometimes they do.
Sometimes they simply have the good sense to look after what was made extraordinarily well in the first place.
That, in the end, is Burlington Arcade’s real achievement.
Not that it has survived.
But that it has survived without surrendering the qualities that made it worth preserving.
And that’s why, every time I step through those entrances from Piccadilly or Burlington Gardens, I find myself slowing down.
Not out of habit.
Out of respect.
Some streets are useful.
Some streets are famous.
Some streets are beautiful.
Burlington Arcade is all three.
It’s also something rarer.
It’s civilised.
Long may it remain so.