История улицы Палл-Малл в Лондоне

Street in Central London
the London street

Pall Mall was constructed in 1661, replacing an earlier highway slightly to the south that ran from the Haymarket (approximately where Warwick House Street is now) to the royal residence, St James's Palace. Historical research suggests a road had been in this location since Saxon times, although the earliest documentary references are from the 12th century in connection with a leper colony at St James's Hospital. When St. James's Park was laid out by order of Henry VIII in the 16th century, the park's boundary wall was built along the south side of the road. In 1620, the Privy Council ordered the High Sheriff of Middlesex to clear a number of temporary buildings next to the wall that were of poor quality. Pall mall, a ball game similar to croquet, was introduced to England in the early 17th century by James I. The game, already popular in France and Scotland, was enjoyed by James' sons Henry and Charles. In 1630, St James's Field, London's first pall mall court, was laid out to the north of the Haymarket – St James road. After the Restoration and King Charles II's return to London on 29 May 1660, another pall mall court was constructed in St James's Park just south of the wall, on the site of The Mall. This new court suffered from dust blown over the wall from coaches travelling along the highway. In July 1661 posts and rails were erected, stopping up the old road. The pall mall field was a popular place for recreation, and Pepys records several other visits. By July 1665 Pepys used "Pell Mell" to refer to the street as well as the game. efn|On 4 July 1665, Pepys wrote: "I observed a house shut up this day in the Pell Mell, where heretofore in Cromwell's time we young men used to keep our weekly clubs." The paving commissioners appointed to oversee the work included the Earl of St Albans. The terms of the act allowed commissioners to remove any building encroaching on the highway, with compensation for those at least 30 years old. The commissioners determined that the real tennis court and adjoining house at the northeast corner of Pall Mall and St James's Street should be demolished, and in 1664 notified Martha Barker, the owner of the Crown lease, to do so. Although Barker initially rejected £230 compensation, the court was demolished by 1679.

By the 18th century, Pall Mall was well known for its shops as well as its grand houses. The shops included that of the Vulliamy family who made clocks at No. 68 between 1765 and 1854. Robert Dodsley ran a bookshop at No. 52, where he suggested the idea of a dictionary to Samuel Johnson. Writers and artists began to move to Pall Mall during this century; both Richard Cosway and Thomas Gainsborough lived at Schomberg House at Nos. 80–82. The street was one of the first in London to be lit by gas after Frederick Albert Winsor set up experimental lighting on 4 June 1807 to celebrate King George III's birthday. Permanent lighting was installed in 1820. The eastern end of Pall Mall was widened between 1814 and 1818; a row of houses on its north side was demolished to make way for the Royal Opera Arcade. The freehold of much of the southern side of the Pall Mall is owned by the Crown Estate. In addition to St James's Palace, Marlborough House, which was once a royal residence, is its neighbour to the east, opening off a courtyard just to the south of the street. It was built for Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough who laid the foundation stone in 1709, with building complete by 1711. The house reverted to Crown ownership in 1817; the future King George V was born here in 1865 and briefly lived in the house as Prince of Wales during the reign of his father, Edward VII. It became government owned in 1959 and houses now the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth Foundation. The Prince Regent's Carlton House was built at the eastern end of Pall Mall in 1732 for Frederick, Prince of Wales and later inhabited by his widow, Princess Augusta. A ball was held at the house on 19 June 1811 to celebrate the start of the Prince's regency, but ultimately he did not decide to stay in the house upon ascending the throne, and it was demolished. John Nash built Carlton House Terrace on its site between 1827 and 1832. Pall Mall was the location of the War Office from 1855 to 1906, with which it became synonymous (just as Whitehall refers to the administrative centre of the UK government). The War Office was accommodated in a complex of buildings based on the ducal mansion, Cumberland House. The office subsequently moved to Whitehall. The street contained two other architecturally important residences. Schomberg House, at Nos. 80–82 Pall Mall was built in 1698 for Meinhardt Schomberg, 3rd Duke of Schomberg and divided into three parts in 1769. The eastern section of the house was demolished in 1850, but reconstructed in the mid 1950s for office use. Buckingham House was the London residence of the Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos. It was rebuilt in the 1790s by Sir John Soane and sold by the Buckingham estate in 1847. The house was demolished in 1908 to make way for the Royal Automobile Club. No 77 78 Pall Mall was the home of the Marquess of Ailesbury from 1840. In 1892, it was inherited by the Marchioness' nephew, Viscount de Vesci who leased the building to the Office of Works. In 1902, it was granted to Queen Victoria's daughter, Princess Helena and her husband Prince Christian as a grace and favour residence and retained as a home by their daughters, Princess Helena Victoria and Princess Marie Louise until 1947. In 1951, the property was divided: No.77 was occupied by the Oxford and Cambridge University Club, and no.78 by the Eagle Star Insurance Company. The Institute of Directors was founded in 1903 and received a royal charter in 1906. The former branch of the Midland Bank at Nos. 69–70 Pall Mall was designed by Edwin Lutyens and constructed between 1922 and 1927. The original plan to redevelop No. 70 proved impractical so the two premises were demolished to provide a site for the current premises. The cigarette manufacturer Rothmans has its head office at No. 65 Pall Mall, in a building designed by Norman Shaw, while P&O Ferries' main administrative office is at No. 79.

Giacomo Casanova lived in Pall Mall during 1761 as "Chevalier de Seingalt" and documented the stay in his memoirs. When the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray visited Dublin in 1845, he compared Pall Mall to O'Connell Street (then known as Upper Sackville Street). In 1870, Henry Benjamin Wheatley wrote "Round about Piccadilly and Pall Mall", documenting changes in and around the street over the century. A compilation of Oscar Wilde's works, A Critic in Pall Mall : Being Extracts From Reviews And Miscellanies, was published in 1919, comprising essays he wrote for newspapers and journals from the 1870s to the 1890s. Pall Mall is the location of the fictional Diogenes Club in the Sherlock Holmes stories, written by Arthur Conan Doyle. Princess Elizabeth mentioned Pall Mall in her diary on celebrations on VE day: "Out in crowd again," she wrote, "Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly, Pall Mall, walked simply miles. Saw parents on balcony at 12.30 am – ate, partied, bed 3am!" Pall Mall is part of a group of three squares on the British Monopoly board game, alongside Whitehall and Northumberland Avenue. All three streets converge at Trafalgar Square. Rising house prices across London mean a small flat on Pall Mall, which is in the lowest priced third of properties on the board, now sells for over £1 million.