The Location & History of Marylebone

Marylebone was formerly (until 1965) part of the metropolitan borough of St. Marylebone. It is located to (what is now) the south and west of Regent's Park, north of Mayfair, west of Fitzrovia and east of Bayswater. The natural boundaries are roughly Edgware Road (west), Oxford Street (south), Great Portland Street (east) and Marylebone Road (north).

Modern Marylebone forms an integral part of London's West End with an invigorating mix of business, residential, educational, cultural and historical interests. As with most large London neighbourhoods, Marylebone boasts many busy and important High Street shopping and entertainment centres. These include Marylebone High Street, now dubbed Marylebone Village, Marylebone Lane, St Christopher’s Place, Oxford Street and Baker Street.

The name Marylebone derives from a medieval church constructed on the banks of the Tyburn and called St. Mary-by-the-Bourne, later Maryburne. The manor house (demolished in 1791) was converted into a hunting lodge by Henry VIII. Marylebone Gardens, adjoining the manor house, was a centre for spectacles, sporting events and concerts from the mid-17th century until 1778.

For eight days a year, the 'Tyburn Fair' was held, where up to 24 victims would meet their gruesome death.

Tyburn, an area we now know as Edgware Road, was the first recorded place of execution in 1156, although the first permanent gallows were not built there until 1571. Up to 60 000 hangings of both men and women took place here, over the course of seven centuries. In 1783, Tyburn's rituals came to an end, as a grim reminder to those who visit the area of Tyburn now; an iron plaque has been set into the pavement 50 yards west of Marble Arch, near Oxford Street.

Private doctors and consultants first began moving into Harley Street and Wimpole Street in the mid 1800's. An elegant stucco building in Chandos Street is probably the oldest medical society in the world. Founded in 1773 by a Quaker physician, Dr John Coakley Lettsom, the Medical Society of London sought to bring together the three warring factions at that time: physicians, surgeons and apothecaries. Originally limited to twenty of each, the society now has about 600 members.

It was in the 1930's that this area became known as 'Pill Island' but only in the 1940's and 1950's did the consulting rooms in family houses give way to establishments with a dozen medical men sharing the same front door. Approximately 1,500 private medical practitioners are active in the area today.

Known as the “Jewel in the crown” Regents Park (including Primrose Hill) covers 197 hectares. Like most of the other Royal Parks, Regents Park formed part of the vast chase appropriated by Henry VIII. Marylebone Park as it was known remained a royal chase until 1646. It was John Nash (architect to the crown and friend of the Prince Regent) who developed Regents Park as we know it today - surrounded by palatial terraces, a lake, a canal, 56 villas were planed however only 8 were built and a second home for the prince – a summer palace was also planned but never built. Regents Park is also home to the world renowned London Zoo.

Other notable buildings include Hertford House (1776-88) in Manchester Square, home for more than a century to the renowned Wallace Collection, All Souls Church, the historic women's school of Queen's College (1848), and Wigmore Hall, the site of chamber music concerts. Marylebone is the setting for the Sherlock Holmes Museum on Baker Street, Madame Tussaud's wax museum and the London Planetarium. Marylebone boast several embassies and high commissions, mostly within the confines of Portland Place. Portland Place also houses the Royal Institute of British Architects in a 1930's building by George Grey Wornum.

Baker Street station was opened by the Metropolitan Railway on 10th January 1863 as one of the original stations on the world’s first underground railway – these platforms are now served by the Circle and Hammersmith and City lines. Over the next 50 years the station was adapted and extended and now with 10 platforms has more than any other underground station.

Talk of Marylebone would hardly be complete without mention of two of London’s biggest landowners: The Portman Estate and The Howard de Walden Estate whom, between them, own most of the land between the Edgware Road in the West through to Portland Place in the East, Marylebone Road in the North and Oxford Street in the south.