London Mayfair Tourist Map

Mayfair is the grid of Georgian streets between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane, laid out in the 18th century for the aristocracy and still the most expensive address on the Monopoly board. Today it means private galleries, tailors, auction houses, embassies and designer shops. It is compact: you can cross it on foot in fifteen minutes.

The main sight is the Royal Academy of Arts in Burlington House on Piccadilly, with its blockbuster exhibitions and the Summer Exhibition each June. Next door, Burlington Arcade, opened in 1819, is still patrolled by uniformed beadles. North of it runs Bond Street, London's luxury shopping street, with Sotheby's auction house and the bronze of Churchill and Roosevelt on a bench. One block east, Savile Row has cut bespoke suits since the 1800s; the Beatles played their 1969 rooftop concert on No. 3.

On Albemarle Street, the Royal Institution keeps Michael Faraday's laboratory in a small free museum, open on weekdays. Between the sights, walk the squares: Berkeley Square has some of London's oldest plane trees, planted in 1789, and Grosvenor Square was home to the US Embassy until 2018. Just outside Mayfair at Hyde Park Corner are Apsley House, the Duke of Wellington's home, and the RAF Bomber Command Memorial.

When to go: weekdays for the Royal Institution, which closes at weekends; book Royal Academy exhibitions ahead for weekends. Bond Street is quietest on weekday mornings. Stations: Green Park, Bond Street, Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus.