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Brook Street, London

{{short description|Street in Mayfair, London, England}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2015}}

{{Use British English|date=June 2015}}

{{for-multi|the hamlet in Essex|Brook Street, Essex|the recruitment agency|Brook Street Bureau plc}}

File:Brook Street (W).jpg

Brook Street is an axial street in the exclusive central London district of Mayfair. Most of it is leasehold, paying ground rent to and seeking lease renewals from the reversioner, that since before 1800, has been the Grosvenor Estate. Named after the Tyburn that it crossed,Survey of London, Volume 40: The Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair, Part 2 (The Buildings), 1980, ed. F. H. W. Sheppard, p. 210-221 it was developed in the first half of the 18th century and runs from Hanover Square to Grosvenor Square. The western continuation (to Park Lane) is called Upper Brook Street; its west end faces Brook Street Gate of Hyde Park. Both sections consisted of neo-classical terraced houses, mostly built to individual designs. Some of them were very ornate, finely stuccoed and tall-ceilinged, designed by well known architects for wealthy tenants, especially near Grosvenor Square, others exposed good quality brickwork or bore fewer expensive window openings and embellishments. Some of both types survive. Others have been replaced by buildings from later periods.

Opulent hotel Claridge's co-fronts two other streets{{efn|Thus is addressed Claridges, Brook Street, London, W1K 4HR}} and takes the majority of a block. The Embassy of Argentina is at No. 65. The Handel & Hendrix in London occupies Nos. 23–25, once homes of famous musicians Jimi Hendrix and Handel. The baroque chamber music ensemble The Brook Street Band takes its name from No. 25 where Handel lived from 1723 to 1759.

The French restaurant Le Gavroche was housed on the primary floors of No.43 Upper Brook Street, before its closure in January 2024.

Former residents

=Sursock family=

The Sursock family opened their first office in Europe, at No. 31, in 1858, from which they directed commercial networks, exposing land-holdings across the eastern Mediterranean to development capital of European markets (of joint-stock equity and of credit).{{cite journal |last=Alff |first=Kristen |date=January 2018 |title=Levantine Joint-Stock Companies, Trans-Mediterranean Partnerships, and Nineteenth-Century Capitalist Development |journal=Comparative Studies in Society and History |volume=60 |pages=150–177 |doi=10.1017/S0010417517000445 |doi-access=free }}

=Others=

File:Hendrix and Handel houses, Brook Street.jpg (No. 23, left) and George Frideric Handel (No. 25), both marked with English Heritage blue plaques]]

;Brook Street

  • 20: Gerard Vandergucht, engraver and art dealer. His son, Benjamin Vandergucht, was born here in 1753.
  • 23: Jimi Hendrix, guitarist
  • 25: George Frideric Handel, composer
  • 39: Sir Jeffry Wyatville, architect
  • 39: Sibyl, Lady Colefax and John Fowler, interior decorator and interior designer
  • 54: Valentine Ackland, poet, was born here.Brown, Susan, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, eds. Valentine Ackland entry: Life screen within Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Online, 2006. http://orlando.cambridge.org/. 27 November 2018.
  • 67: Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb, musicians, better known as the Bee Gees
  • 72: Sir Henry Holland, physician and travel writer, lived and died here.{{Cite book |last1=Wheatley |first1=Henry Benjamin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yaRZ1cAMd2UC&dq=%2522Brook+Street%2522&pg=PA283 |title=London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions |last2=Cunningham |first2=Peter |date=2011-02-24 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-02806-6 |page=283 |language=en}}
  • 74: Sir William Gull, Royal physician
  • 74: Robert Bentley Todd, physician
  • 76: Colen Campbell, architect
  • 78: Ronald Firbank, novelist{{efn|The highest number is 80}}

;Upper Brook Street

Notes and references

;Footnotes

{{notelist}}

;Citations

{{reflist}}

External links

  • [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=42099 Brook Street] – detailed architectural history of Brook Street from the Survey of London
  • [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=42139 Upper Brook Street] – detailed architectural history of Upper Brook Street from the Survey of London

{{coord|51.5129|-0.1471|type:landmark_region:GB-WSM|display=title}}

Category:Mayfair

Category:Streets in the City of Westminster