// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did Shepherd Market say to its friend? "Flock to me.
  Shepherd Market (City of Westminster) (local authority since 1965) | |
| Type | Garden square |
|---|---|
| Length | 110 ft (34 m) larger, eastern square, which flanks a café/restaurant/hairdresser/boutique/small business lined, non-parking cul-de-sac/deliveries road. |
| Width | 445 feet (136 m) |
| Area | Mayfair |
| Location | London |
Postal code | W1 |
Nearest metro station | Green Park tube station |
| Construction | |
Construction start | 1735 |
| Completion | 1736 |
| Other | |
| Status | west end of the north side: large building: Grade I listed |
Shepherd Market is a small precinct in Mayfair, in the West End of London. Its two business-lined squares are between Piccadilly and Curzon Street; it has a village-like atmosphere.[1] It was built up between 1735 and 1746 by Edward Shepherd on the open ground then used for the annual fair from which Mayfair derives its name. In the 1920s, it hosted leading writers and artists such as Anthony Powell, Michael Arlen and Sophie Fedorovitch. It was associated with upmarket prostitutes until at least the 1980s.[2] Jeffrey Archer met Monica Coghlan[a] there in the 1980s.[1]
History
[edit]The square was fully built up between 1735 and 1746 by Edward Shepherd from an open area called Brook Field, through which flowed the Tyburn, and where a May fair was held, from which the surrounding area of Mayfair derives its name.[3] A local architect, he was commissioned to develop the site and work was completed in the mid-18th century. It contained paved alleys, a duck pond, and a two-storey market topped by a theatre.[3]
During the 1920s this was a rundown area, popular with writers and artists such as Michael Arlen and Sophie Fedorovitch.[4] Arlen rented rooms opposite The Grapes public house and used the public place as the setting for his best-selling 1924 novel The Green Hat, which prompted Anthony Powell to move into the area in 1926.[5]
It has been associated with upmarket prostitutes from its building up until at least the 1980s.[2] When Olivia Manning and her husband Reggie Smith lived at 50a, she found the prostitutes "fascinating".[6] In the 1980s, the then deputy Conservative Party chairman and author Jeffrey Archer allegedly met the prostitute Monica Coghlan in Shepherd Market.[1]
In October 2025 it was announced that a walkway to Mayfair's Shepherd Market opened for first time in 300 years.[7]
Geography
[edit]Shepherd Market is between Piccadilly and Curzon Street in Mayfair. As a street it is 400 feet (120 m) long. The Curzon Mayfair Cinema stands at its eastern end, and the transition to residential street: Market Mews, where at right-angles crosses Hertford Street.
Notes and references
[edit]- Footnotes
- ↑ whilst she was working as a prostitute
- Citations
- 1 2 3 Rough Guides (2003). The Rough Guide to London. Rough Guides. p. 103. ISBN 9781843530930.
- 1 2 Catharine Arnold (5 August 2010). City of Sin: London and its Vices. Simon and Schuster. p. 240. ISBN 9780857200259.
- 1 2 Geraldine Edith Mitton (1903). Mayfair, Belgravia, and Bayswater. Library of Alexandria. p. 36. ISBN 9781465532039.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) - ↑ Jane Stevenson (2008). Edward Burra: Twentieth-Century Eye. Penguin Random House. p. 76. ISBN 9780099501664.
- ↑ Nicholas Birns (2004). Understanding Anthony Powell. Univ of South Carolina Press. p. 283.
- ↑ Deirdre David (10 January 2013). Olivia Manning: A Woman at War. Oxford University Press. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-19-165505-0.
- ↑ Likhtman, Asya (24 October 2025). "Historic walkway to Mayfair's hidden Shepherd Market opened for first time in 300 years". The Standard. Retrieved 24 October 2025.