Today's tale of London trivia tells how the exclusive
shopping venue, the Burlington Arcade, Piccadilly came into being.
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| The original triple arch entrance to the Burlington Arcade. |
For those unfamiliar with London,
the Burlington Arcade is a parade of high-end shops housed in Georgian
splendour, beside the current home of the Royal Academy,
Burlington House. However, did you know that in 1819 these Georgian shops came
into existence to stop dead cats falling on Lord Cavendish when he sat in his
garden?
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| Interior of the Burlington Arcade today. |
In the early 19th century Lord George
Cavendish was the owner of Burlington House. But no matter how splendid his
residence, Lord Cavendish derived little pleasure from sitting outside because
of a constant rain of oyster shells, apple cores, bottles and even the odd dead
animal. This was because an alleyway ran alongside his property and the
passers-by liked to lob their rubbish over his garden wall.
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| The Burlington Arcade - interior. |
Cavendish's solution was to commission Samuel
Ware to design a arcade of small shops in the alleyway, and do away with the
nuisance of the uncouth public dumping their rubbish over his wall. The result
was the Burlington Arcade, which still exists as a retail mall to this day. Opened
on 20th March, 1819, the mall reputedly cost 49,000 pounds to build, rent for a
single unit was a little over 12 pounds a year. One of the first lease holders
was patronised by the Prince Regent to supply gold lace for his uniforms.
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| The Burlington Arcade to the left and the edge of the Royal Academy to the right. |
Originally a single storey building, an
upper level was added in 1906 with apartments to let (as one wit put it,
"To a better sort of courtesan".) The original triple arch entrance
was removed in 1931 and a new design added, which was much disliked at the
time. The shops are small but famous for selling
expensive, luxury goods - hence quality over quantity.
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| Lord George Augustus Cavendish. |
A beadle (the Georgian equivalent of a
security man) patrolled the mall in order to stop the 'wrong sort' entering.
The first beadles were recruited from the Cavendish family regiment of the 10th
Hussars to enforce a strict code of conduct within the arcade which included:
no running, whistling or playing musical instruments, no carrying large parcels
and no babies' prams. In the 19th century the beadle had a leather armchair at
the entrance on which to sit whilst keeping an eye on visitors. It was also the
beadle's job to ring a hand-bell to tell the shops to close. To this day there
is still a team of four beadles(but no chair) and they have the authority to
eject you from the arcade if behaving inappropriately.
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| Widget- because she's cute...and I wouldnt want her falling on my head! |
So finally, if you visit the longest
covered street in Britain, spare a thought for the Burlington Arcade's original reason for
being - to stop dead cats falling on Lord Cavendish's head!
