Where did the name Audley Street come from?

Born in the 1570s, Hugh Audley was a moneylender, lawyer and philosopher, famed for amassing great wealth through his canny business investments. About a century later in 1677, Sir Thomas Grosvenor – a member of the famed landowning family – married Audley’s great-granddaughter Mary Davies. Davies was heiress to the manor of Ebury which included the meadow, marsh, and pasture lands to the west of the City of London. This marriage brought the land, today encompassing North and South Audley Street, into the Grosvernor families’ ownership. Thus, the name Audley Street was chosen to honour the original landowner.

A brief history of North and South Audley Street

Originally built as housing in the 1720s, North Audley Street in Mayfair became a favourite location for tradesmen and shopkeepers by the 1790s. The street was home to greengrocers, butchers, bakers, saddlers, carpenters, and coal dealers. Visitors should keep an eye out for the roundels embedded in the pavement, installed by the Grosvenor Estate in 2011-12, which indicate the locations of previous tradesmen’s workshops.

Notable residents

Though historically home to tradesmen, both North and South Audley Street have seen their fair share of famous residents. Ivor Churchill, son of the 9th Duke of Marlborough, lived at 12

North Audley Street in 1921. According to E. Beresford Chancellor, North Audley Street was home to “at various times, quite a bevy of notable ladies.” She goes on to list novelist Maria Edgeworth as well as the Berry sisters, famed Regency-era socialites, as past residents.

Past inhabitants of South Audley Street include Lord John Russell, prime minister and reformer, and Louis XVIII, the last Bourbon king of France, who lived there in exile during Napoleon’s reign.

Grand buildings

Chesterfield House, Bute House, and Alington House are just some of the historic grand buildings that can be found on North and South Audley Street. The University Women’s Club, located at  2 Audley Street, was founded in 1883 and is one of the oldest non-male clubs in the UK. The Nehru Centre, located at 8 South Audley Street, serves as the cultural wing of The High Commission of India in the UK. The building was once home to Adolphus Frederick, H.R.H. The Duke of Cambridge. The Grosvenor Chapel – the only remaining original property on the north part of the street – is a Grade II-listed chapel.

Audley Street in popular culture

Mayfair’s North and South Audley Street have also made a mark in popular culture. The exterior of 78 South Audley Street was used as Charlotte Inwood’s house in Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright. The wedding scene between Juliet (Kiera Knightley) and Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in Love Actually was filmed at the Grosvenor Chapel.

EON Productions, the company behind the James Bond films, had its first address at 2 South Audley Street. It’s where the author of the original books Ian Fleming would have discussed the very first Bond film, Dr. No, in 1962. The corner of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street appears in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and South Audley Street is mentioned in Robert Galbraith’s The Ink Black Heart.