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MAYFAIR
TODAY
It is a fashionable district that includes the most
important retail shopping activity in the United Kingdom.
From Oxford Street, the home of famous department store
Selfridges and teenage shopping heaven TopShop, its
main shopping concentration stretches southward along
Regent Street and the Quadrant to Piccadilly Circus
and then turns right (west) along Piccadilly; northward
branches extend along Sackville Street and Savile Row,
where eminent tailors make some of the world's finest
men's clothing. Just alongside Burlington House is one
of London's most luxurious shopping areas, the Burlington
Arcade, which has housed shops under its glass-roofed
promenade since 1819.
Parallel and a little farther west, Bond Street, with
its long-established art auctioneers and exclusive boutiques
and designer flagship stores, is a magnet for lavish
spenders from around the world. Archaeological excavations
at Mayfair have shown that the area was a junction of
Roman roads, which has led some researchers to postulate
that Romans settled the area before establishing Londinium
(now London). Mayfair was developed from the mid-17th
century and its proximity to St. James's Palace made
it a fashionable neighbourhood.
Outstanding among Mayfair's museums and galleries are
the Museum of Mankind, which is administratively part
of the British Museum, and the 18th- and 19th-century
Burlington House, which is the home of the Royal Academy
of Arts (1768), the Royal Astronomical Society (1820),
the British Astronomical Association (1890), the Society
of Antiquaries of London (1707), the Linnean Society
of London (1788), the Geological Society (1807), and
other learned societies.
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