† London

‡ City of Westminster

These volumes cover the part of the parish of St James which lies south of Piccadilly, between Haymarket and Green Park. St James's was post-Restoration London's Court suburb, laid out during the reign of Charles II. The story of its development is fully explored, with accounts of Wren's parish church, the aristocratic houses in St James’s Square, the theatres on the west side of Haymarket, the gentlemen’s clubs of Pall Mall, and some of the West End’s most prestigious private palaces, including Spencer House and Bridgwater House.

† London

‡ Middlesex ‡ City of Westminster

These volumes complete the Survey's study of St James, describing the northern part of the parish, between Piccadilly and Oxford Street. This is a varied area, lying astride Regent Street, embracing tightly-packed streets in Soho and more orderly developments in the Savile Row area. The principal monument here is Burlington House, which is dealt with in some detail; there are also accounts of the streets of Lord Burlington's adjacent estate. East of Regent Street, the coverage includes Golden Square, the later history of the Piccadilly Circus area, and the formation of Shaftesbury Avenue. The history of James Wyatt's Pantheon, of 1772, is also given. (Note: Regent Street itself is not included, though there is a short account of the rebuilding of the Regent Street Quadrant in 1905-28.)

† London

‡ Middlesex ‡ City of Westminster

These volumes describe Soho, the most famous of London's cosmopolitan quarters. The area covered is defined largely by Wardour Street, Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road, and includes Soho Square, Leicester Square, and part of Cambridge Circus. Many of the streets here were first built up in the late 17th century under the building speculators Dr Nicholas Barbon and Richard Frith. Some fine Georgian houses are described and illustrated, for example No. 1 Greek Street and 76 Dean Street. Many well-known West End theatres are also found here.

† London

‡ Middlesex ‡ City of Westminster

The Grosvenor family's large estate in northern Mayfair, for two centuries a by-word for wealth and fashion, is described in two volumes of the Survey. This first volume, a general history, traces the administrative and architectural history of the estate from its acquisition by the family in 1677 and its development and redevelopment from the 1720s onwards around the centrepiece of Grosvenor Square, and analyses the reasons for its pre-eminence among London’s great private estates. Detailed accounts of the buildings are provided in the companion volume 40.

† London

‡ Middlesex ‡ City of Westminster

This volume completes the Survey's study of the Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair by looking in detail at its rich and varied architectural and building heritage. From the fine eighteenth-century houses of Brook Street and Grosvenor Street to the smart inter-war flats of Park Lane, the Grosvenor Estate offers a compendium of some of the best English urban architecture, often by leading practitioners, from Colin Campbell (who lived here in a house of his own design) and Robert Taylor in the eighteenth century, to Lutyens and Detmar Blow in the twentieth. Among the larger buildings described, both standing and demolished, is Grosvenor House, the Grosvenor family’s own London mansion, the internationally renowned Claridge's Hotel and the American Embassy's controversial post-war building on the west side of Grosvenor Square.

† London

‡ Middlesex

Covent Garden has a special significance as the birth-place of modern town planning in London. Inigo Jones’s Italianate Piazza, designed in the 1630s for the 4th Earl of Bedford, was unlike anything the capital had seen before, and provided the prototype for the laying-out of London’s suburban estates for centuries to come. Based on a detailed study of the surviving fabric and the Bedford Estate’s archives, this volume recounts the story of the Piazza’s evolution (and eventual redevelopment), including the building of St Paul’s Church, the area’s principal monument. In addition to the Piazza and surrounding streets, the volume also describes the buildings of the Covent Garden Market, at the time the nation’s principal market for horticultural produce, since removed to Nine Elms, Battersea.