Grosvenor Square

Stand still for a moment and listen. The traffic of Mayfair moves around you in a slow loop, taxis and delivery vans circling the square. Inside the railings it is quieter. You hear the soft crunch of gravel paths, pigeons in the plane trees, and maybe the clink of a cup from someone on a bench. This is Grosvenor Square, one of the largest garden squares in London's West End, and it has been a place of power for three centuries.

The square takes its name from the Grosvenor family. They inherited farmland here through a marriage in the seventeenth century, at a time when this area sat at the edge of London. In the early eighteenth century the family began to develop it. They laid out streets in a careful grid and placed this broad square at the centre. The land became the heart of Mayfair, and the family later became the Dukes of Westminster. Their estate still owns much of the surrounding ground today.

The idea was simple and very Georgian. Build tall, elegant townhouses around a shared private garden, and wealthy families will pay well to live there. For generations it worked. Aristocrats, politicians and bankers took houses on these four sides. The garden in the middle was for residents only, closed behind locked gates. Today the railings remain, but the gates are open to everyone, and you can walk straight in.

Here is a detail most visitors miss. In the eighteenth century, a gilded equestrian statue of King George the First stood at the centre of the garden. It celebrated the new royal house from Hanover, in Germany. Over time the statue decayed and it was eventually removed. Nothing marks the spot now. So as you cross the middle of the lawn, you are walking where a golden king on horseback once looked down on the houses.

Now turn your thoughts across the Atlantic. The American connection to this square began very early. In 1785, John Adams arrived in London as the first ambassador of the newly independent United States. He lived in a house on the north-east corner, where Brook Street meets the square. Adams later became the second American president. A plaque records his time here. Imagine how strange it was: a representative of a former colony, settling among the families of the old empire.

That connection grew much deeper in the twentieth century. During the Second World War, General Dwight Eisenhower set up a headquarters on the square. American officers, clerks and soldiers filled the buildings around you. So many Americans worked here that Londoners gave the area a nickname — Eisenhowerplatz, a joking German-style name, as if the square had become a small piece of American territory. Look for the statue of Eisenhower near the western side. He stands in his wartime uniform.

After the war, Britain wanted to say thank you. The result stands near the north side of the garden: a bronze statue of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He wears a long cloak and leans on a cane. Members of the British public paid for it through small donations, and the money came in very quickly. Eleanor Roosevelt, his widow, came to London to unveil it in 1948. It remains one of the few public statues in the city of an American president.

Now look to the west side of the square. That long, modern building with the gilded eagle on the roof was the American Embassy for almost six decades. It was designed by the Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen and completed around 1960. Its stone grid and repeating windows look very different from the brick houses around it. Many Londoners disliked it at first. Over time it became a landmark, and it is now a protected listed building.

That eagle deserves a second look. It is a huge bird made of gilded aluminium, with its wings spread wide. When the embassy moved south of the river to Nine Elms in 2018, the old building was sold to new owners for conversion into a hotel. But the eagle stayed. Because the building is protected, the bird remains part of its official character. So this American symbol still crowns a building that no longer belongs to America.

The square has not always been calm. In March 1968, thousands of people marched here to protest against the Vietnam War. They came to the embassy, and the protest turned into a violent clash with mounted police. Many people were injured and many were arrested. For years afterwards, the square was a natural place for demonstrations about American foreign policy. Today the security barriers have gone, and the space feels quiet again.

On a gentler note, walk to the eastern part of the garden. There you will find the September 11 Memorial Garden. It remembers the victims of the attacks in New York and Washington in 2001, including many British citizens. A small pavilion stands among plants and paths, and the mood here is still and reflective. Nearby is a memorial to the Eagle Squadrons. These were American pilots who volunteered to fly with Britain's Royal Air Force before the United States entered the war.

Other countries have left their mark here too. For many years, Canada had its High Commission in a large building on the square, before it moved to Trafalgar Square. Later a statue of President Ronald Reagan joined Eisenhower near the old embassy. So this one patch of grass holds a long conversation between Britain and North America. It runs from Adams, through two world leaders of wartime, to the Cold War and beyond.

Look around at the buildings that frame the garden. Very few original Georgian houses survive. Most were rebuilt in the twentieth century as larger blocks in a neo-Georgian style — red brick, white stone trim and neat rows of windows that copy the older look. Hotels, offices and apartments now fill them. The square has changed from private homes to embassies to luxury buildings, yet its basic shape is the same one the Grosvenors drew three hundred years ago.

Before you leave, find a bench and sit for a minute. Watch the light come through the plane trees and fall on the gravel. Notice the office workers eating lunch, the dog walkers, the tourists reading the plaques. As you walk out through the railings, glance back once at the gilded eagle on the roofline. Then step into the streets of Mayfair, and listen for the quiet of the square fading behind you.