1936 On the Continent

possible to obtain bed and breakfast at a boarding-house for as little as 25s. per week. Prices for board residence range, roughly, from two and a half to five guineas per week, although a person of modest requirements may obtain a room and full board at 35s. or £2. At the family hotels prices are somewhat higher. Nearly everywhere there are extras for heating, and sometimes even for lighting, as the rooms are mostly heated and lighted by gas or electricity from a penny or a shilling slot meter. Many of the smaller boarding-houses are entirely lighted from meters.
Other Typical Districts
    During our search for accommodation we have visited several typical London districts, and it will be interesting to visit a few more though these may be of less importance to the foreign visitor from the utilitarian viewpoint.
    As we have said, Mayfair, in spite of all the changes it has undergone, still leads in point of distinction. To be living in Mayfair is such a recommendation that in recent years even the stables of the former aristocratic houses have been converted into flats. The mews, as these stable streets are called, are rather narrow and airless, but the flats are generally furnished in a most luxurious manner. Ownership of a mews flat in Mayfair lends distinction to the owner.
Changes in Mayfair—Belgravia
    Many Mayfair streets are gradually losing their residential character and are changing into shopping and office streets, a fact which would formerly have been regarded as impossible. It should be remembered that it was only eighteen years ago that the first shop was opened in Curzon Street, and this intrusion of commerce almost caused a revolution among the exclusive denizens of Mayfair. To-day there are already countless fashion, antique and other shops in and around Berkeley Square and Grosvenor Square, though it must be admitted that as regards exclusiveness and price-levels these shops worthily uphold the reputation of Mayfair.
    Mayfair now also has colossal blocks of luxury flats, where tenants may pay anything up to two thousand a year, or more, for a flat. Even private houses belonging to members of the Royal Family have been acquired by builders of luxury flats. Brook House, Park Lane and Lansdowne House in Berkeley Square, are typical of these luxury flat buildings.
    Similar to Mayfair in exclusiveness is Belgravia, a district situated, roughly, between Hyde Park Corner and Victoria Station. Belgravia consists of only a few streets and squares. It provides typical examples of the private square, a miniature park set between rows of houses, which is only accessible to the inhabitants of these houses. Bloomsbury also possesses several such squares.
    The distinction Belgravia enjoys is all the more interesting because the district is little more than a hundred years old. All its houses were built in the first decade of the nineteenth century on a reclaimed swamp. The majestic residences of Belgravia are characterised by a peculiar uniformity that is almost tedious, and its atmosphere of dignified reserve is not relieved by a single shop. Nearly all the embassies and legations are in Belgravia, and the Duke of Kent also resides here. There are neither hotels nor boarding-houses in this district.
Regent’s Park
    Other exclusive residential districts are the centrally situated Portman Square, and the Regent’s Park district. The latter was designed by Nash for the aristocracy, but was in spite of its incomparable situation ratherneglected for a long time. To-day the district is experiencing a great revival and is one of the best and most expensive residential districts.
    Kensington and Bayswater, as well as Hampstead, which is far more distant from the centre of the city, are the residential districts of the well-to-do middle class. It should be noted here that London’s residential districts are but rarely so uniform in character as Mayfair or Belgravia. In Kensington, Bayswater and Hampstead there are working-class streets that are no better than slums side by side with the best residential streets.
Chelsea
    London’s Montmartre, Chelsea (though in its almost provincial quietness and remoteness it bears little similarity to the bustle and animation of the artistic quarter of Paris), is experiencing a new revival. Chelsea, which adjoins Belgravia, and is bounded on one side by the Thames, was in the nineteenth century a favourite artistic quarter, and is now becoming so once more. Its enchanting little