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20 March 1819
- Burlington Arcade opened on 20 March 1819. From the outset, it positioned itself as an elegant and exclusive upmarket shopping venue, with shops offering luxury goods. It was one of London's earliest covered shopping arcades and one of several such arcades constructed in Western Europe in the early 19th century.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlington_Arcade
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Burlington House is a building on Piccadilly in Mayfair, London. It was originally a private English Baroque and then Neo-Palladian mansion owned by the Earls of Burlington . It was significantly expanded in the mid-19th century after being purchased by the British government.
Burlington House was built in 1664 as a private mansion for Sir John Denham, a wealthy lawyer, poet and architect, who held the office of Surveyor General to the Crown.
What follows is the history of how Burlington House came in to being; it begins in the days before the Great Fire of London, when Charles II had just become King of England and memories of the Civil War were still vivid.
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The original Burlington House was built on the present site of the Royal Academy c.1670 by Sir John Denham for Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Burlington, 2nd Earl of Cork and Baron Clifford of Londesborough in Yorkshire.
- Tobacco
- Homosexuality
- Prostitution
- Rules
- Beadles
- George Eliot
There used to be a shop here called Sullivan Powell that used to do handmade cigarettes. You could have them wrapped in any colour you wanted. So, if you wanted pink papers, you could have that. That was before World War II and it moved to number 60-61 and closed in the early 1990s.
In those days, homosexuality was illegal. So the police would very often turn a blind eye if one of the two individuals involved dressed as the opposite gender when they entered the Arcade.
The way it would work is the ‘visitor’ would buy an item from the shop below, go upstairs, spend some wonderful time and then give them the present. They would then sell the present back to the shop and that’s how they got their money. The most famous of all our establishments was numbers 27, 28, 29 – a millinery run by Madam Parsons. She died here...
We didn’t allow ladies in without a chaperone because they were deemed to be not the right kind of women we wanted in the Arcade. Also groups of small children weren’t allowed. That's because, after the Napoleonic Wars, lots formed groups and did tend to be pickpockets. You weren’t allowed to carry large purchases because it would be deemed unladyl...
We believe beadles originally sat inside the columns, saying who could or couldn’t come in. It was undoubtedly for when they got tired. I reckon that stopped when the columns went (at the top end after the World War II bombing and the Piccadilly end in about 1910).
Number 15 used to be a bookshop where George Eliot, who wrote under a male pseudonym, used to put notes inside books to her lover. That’s how they allegedly planned their elopement together.
Burlington Arcade opened on 20 March 1819. From the outset, it positioned itself as an elegant and exclusive upmarket shopping venue, with shops offering luxury goods. It was one of London's earliest covered shopping arcades and one of several such arcades constructed in Western Europe in the early 19th century.
Burlington Arcade opened in 1819 ‘for the sale of jewellery and fancy articles of fashionable demand, for the gratification of the public.’ It had 51 independent boutiques across 72 units, selling luxuries like hats, gloves and jewellery – it was notably the place to go for a bonnet.
