Grosvenor Square in London
Grosvenor Square, part of the Grosvenor estate (the family later becoming Dukes of Westminster). Sir Thomas Grosvenor, Bart, by his marriage to a London heiress, Mary Davies, in 1677, obtained large estates, one in Mayfair (which was developed in the 18th century) and one to the South (which was developed as ‘Belgravia’ in the 1820s, from Belgrave in Leicestershire where the Grosvenors had an estate). Their son Sir Richard Grosvenor, a Whig MP for Cheshire, obtained an act to grant leases in 1710, and the accession of the Hanover dynasty in 1714 offered him a group of now powerful Whig associates. In addition to Grosvenor Square, he designed surrounding streets, Davies St and Audley St having names derived from his mother’s family. There were some attempts at architectural unity. n°9 and n°38 survive.
It is mentioned in Fielding’s Tom Jones as a place that the castaway hero cannot afford to haunt when he arrives in London.
