Beautiful Streets

Streets, squares, mews and lanes. The most charming streetscapes in London. Some well known, some hidden gems.

Queen Anne's Gate

Two closes of 1704, all brick and carved doorcases, with Queen Anne standing where the wall between them was.

Terraces

A terrace of early Georgian houses in dark brown brick with red brick dressings and white-painted bands: tall white sash windows, a carved white stone head as the keystone over each window opening including the blind ones, deep carved door hoods over black front doors, and number 15 with a fanlight, behind black iron railings on a wet pavement.

A white stone statue of Queen Anne in a long embroidered gown and lace collar, standing in a shallow niche in the brick wall on a scrolled pedestal lettered ANNA REGINA, a carved stone head set in the brickwork either side of her, and iron railings across the foot.

William Paterson, a founder of the Bank of England, built two separate closes here in 1704 and 1705 and then moved into No. 19 himself. A wall divided them, with a gateway at either end and a statue of Queen Anne set in the middle - which is where the name comes from, though the wall came down in 1873 and the two halves have been one street ever since.

What survived, on the oldest houses, is the brickwork and the carving: brown brick with red dressings, stone bands running across the fronts, and over each front door a wooden hood on panelled pilasters, foliage worked over every surface of it and a finial hanging beneath. The window arches carry carved heads for keystones, bearded and painted white. Bradley and Pevsner call these houses the best of their kind in London.

The statue still stands on the north flank of No. 15, the corner the wall ran from - a blind end of two blank windows and a half, their arches carrying the same carved heads, so she has one either side of her. Her nose and right arm are Victorian: a generation of local children, convinced the figure was Bloody Mary, threw things at her until the Office of Works had her recarved in 1862 and cut ANNA REGINA into the plinth in the hope they would stop. On 1 August, the anniversary of Anne's death, she is supposed to climb down and walk up and down the street three times.

Lord Palmerston was born at No. 20 and John Stuart Mill lived at No. 40 - Parliament is five minutes away, and the street filled with politicians accordingly.

Where: Queen Anne's Gate, Westminster, SW1H
Nearest station: St. James's Park · 2 min walk

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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.