Albemarle Street

Albemarle Street is a street in Mayfair in central London, off Piccadilly. It has historic associations with Lord Byron, whose publisher John Murray was based here, and Oscar Wilde, a member of the Albemarle Club, where an insult he received led to his suing for libel and to his eventual imprisonment. It is also known for its art galleries and the Brown's Hotel is located at 33 Albemarle Street.

Albemarle Street was built by a syndicate of developers headed by Sir Thomas Bond. The syndicate purchased a Piccadilly mansion called Clarendon House from Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle in 1684, which had fallen into ruin due to neglect caused by the dissolute duke's spendthrift ways. It was sold for £20,000, a fifth less than the duke had paid for it only nine years previously despite the land values in the area increasing in the intervening period. The house was demolished and the syndicate proceeded develop the area. At that time the house backed onto open fields and the development of the various estates in Mayfair was just getting underway. The syndicate also built Old Bond Street, Dover Street and Stafford Street.

Albemarle Street was the first one-way street created for the purpose of better traffic flow in London. The decision was taken after a series of lectures by Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution caused long traffic jams in the capital because of the horrendous queues formed by horsedrawn carriages bringing in the eager audience. Albemarle Street was made a one-way street to avoid further incidents of such congestion.

Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer (1661–1724), a leading minister of Queen Anne, had a house in Albemarle Street where he died in 1724.

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