landlord of the Leicester Square Gardens, Wyld’s scheme was hastily put into action and opened in time for the Exhibition in May
1851.
Once completed, the globe was the largest that had ever been constructed, measuring 40ft wide and 60ft high. Its interior walls featured a plaster-of-Paris scale relief of the world, with each
inch representing ten miles. It was lit by gas and could be viewed from any of four stages, while ‘the walls of the circular passages were hung with the finest maps, and atlases, globes and
geographical works’. It wasall housed in a grand, domed building in the centre of the gardens, which were once described by Charles Dickens as a ‘howling wasteland
... with broken railings, a receptacle for dead cats and every kind of abomination’. The attraction was an immediate success, with some 1.2 million people estimated to have visited in 1851
alone, including Prince Albert, the Duke of Wellington and the King of Belgium.
However, the closure of the Great Exhibition marked a sharp decline in both interest and visitor numbers. It further lost out to competing educational shows in Leicester Square, such as the
Panopticon of Science and Arts and Burford’s Panorama. By the late 1850s, Wyld himself was giving lectures inside the globe in a bid to keep it viable, but when his lease expired and he was
threatened with legal action, the globe was speedily demolished and sold for scrap. Wyld reneged on his promise to return the gardens to a decent state and it was several more years before
Leicester Square would lose its insalubrious reputation.
Gunter’s Tea Shop
Mayfair
O PENED IN 1757 AS THE P OT AND P INE A PPLE by an Italian
pastry chef, Domenico Negri, at 7–8 Berkeley Square, this shop specialized in ‘making and selling all sorts of English, French and Italian wet and dry sweetmeats’.
Expanding to serve ice creams and sorbets too (said to be made from a secret recipe), it became a Mayfair institution and a favourite haunt of the
fashionable. It was taken over by Robert Gunter in 1799, who renamed it accordingly, and won a reputation as one of a few locations where a lady could meet a gentleman without a chaperone. In those
socially delicate times, coaches would park beneath the trees of Berkeley Square, the ladies sitting inside while their attentive gentlemen stood on the pavement. Waiters would take their orders
and bring the famed ices out to them, dodging the traffic as they did so.
Jane Carlyle, a Victorian lady of letters and wife of historian Thomas, was recommended to visit by Charles Darwin in August 1843. She reported that he told her that she ‘looked as if I
needed to go to Gunter’s and have an ice’, an experience that she confirmed left her ‘considerably revived’. The other house speciality was elaborately decorated,
multi-tiered wedding cakes, an essential for every society wedding.
Gunter founded a catering and sweet-selling empire that stayed in his family for many generations and funded the construction of a large family home in Earl’s Court, affectionately known
as ‘Currant Jelly Hall’. Redevelopment of Berkeley Square in 1936–7 saw the teashop move to Curzon Street, where it remained until 1956, the catering side of the business
eventually folding twenty years later.
Hanover Square Rooms
O PENED IN 1774 AT THE CORNER OF H ANOVER Square and Hanover Street, for a century this was one of
London’s premier venues for musical concerts.
Run on a subscription basis, the 800-seat concert hall was decorated with the works of Thomas Gainsborough, Benjamin West and Giovanni Battista Cipriani.
Johann Christian Bach and Karl Frederick Abel both held wildly successful seasons here and among the venue’s biggest fans was George III, who had a special room laid out (the Queen’s
Tea Room). He even donated a large mirror to the establishment. From 1785 until 1848, The Messiah was performed here annually, and between 1791 and 1795 Haydn conducted
1851.
Once completed, the globe was the largest that had ever been constructed, measuring 40ft wide and 60ft high. Its interior walls featured a plaster-of-Paris scale relief of the world, with each
inch representing ten miles. It was lit by gas and could be viewed from any of four stages, while ‘the walls of the circular passages were hung with the finest maps, and atlases, globes and
geographical works’. It wasall housed in a grand, domed building in the centre of the gardens, which were once described by Charles Dickens as a ‘howling wasteland
... with broken railings, a receptacle for dead cats and every kind of abomination’. The attraction was an immediate success, with some 1.2 million people estimated to have visited in 1851
alone, including Prince Albert, the Duke of Wellington and the King of Belgium.
However, the closure of the Great Exhibition marked a sharp decline in both interest and visitor numbers. It further lost out to competing educational shows in Leicester Square, such as the
Panopticon of Science and Arts and Burford’s Panorama. By the late 1850s, Wyld himself was giving lectures inside the globe in a bid to keep it viable, but when his lease expired and he was
threatened with legal action, the globe was speedily demolished and sold for scrap. Wyld reneged on his promise to return the gardens to a decent state and it was several more years before
Leicester Square would lose its insalubrious reputation.
Gunter’s Tea Shop
Mayfair
O PENED IN 1757 AS THE P OT AND P INE A PPLE by an Italian
pastry chef, Domenico Negri, at 7–8 Berkeley Square, this shop specialized in ‘making and selling all sorts of English, French and Italian wet and dry sweetmeats’.
Expanding to serve ice creams and sorbets too (said to be made from a secret recipe), it became a Mayfair institution and a favourite haunt of the
fashionable. It was taken over by Robert Gunter in 1799, who renamed it accordingly, and won a reputation as one of a few locations where a lady could meet a gentleman without a chaperone. In those
socially delicate times, coaches would park beneath the trees of Berkeley Square, the ladies sitting inside while their attentive gentlemen stood on the pavement. Waiters would take their orders
and bring the famed ices out to them, dodging the traffic as they did so.
Jane Carlyle, a Victorian lady of letters and wife of historian Thomas, was recommended to visit by Charles Darwin in August 1843. She reported that he told her that she ‘looked as if I
needed to go to Gunter’s and have an ice’, an experience that she confirmed left her ‘considerably revived’. The other house speciality was elaborately decorated,
multi-tiered wedding cakes, an essential for every society wedding.
Gunter founded a catering and sweet-selling empire that stayed in his family for many generations and funded the construction of a large family home in Earl’s Court, affectionately known
as ‘Currant Jelly Hall’. Redevelopment of Berkeley Square in 1936–7 saw the teashop move to Curzon Street, where it remained until 1956, the catering side of the business
eventually folding twenty years later.
Hanover Square Rooms
O PENED IN 1774 AT THE CORNER OF H ANOVER Square and Hanover Street, for a century this was one of
London’s premier venues for musical concerts.
Run on a subscription basis, the 800-seat concert hall was decorated with the works of Thomas Gainsborough, Benjamin West and Giovanni Battista Cipriani.
Johann Christian Bach and Karl Frederick Abel both held wildly successful seasons here and among the venue’s biggest fans was George III, who had a special room laid out (the Queen’s
Tea Room). He even donated a large mirror to the establishment. From 1785 until 1848, The Messiah was performed here annually, and between 1791 and 1795 Haydn conducted
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