{"id":17099,"date":"2016-05-24T11:30:39","date_gmt":"2016-05-24T10:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=17099"},"modified":"2016-05-23T23:33:39","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T22:33:39","slug":"londons-hidden-gem-mount-street-gardens-and-a-wonderful-church-in-mayfair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/londons-hidden-gem-mount-street-gardens-and-a-wonderful-church-in-mayfair\/","title":{"rendered":"London’s hidden gems: Mount Street Gardens and a wonderful church in Mayfair"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hidden behind houses and large mansion blocks in Mayfair is this lovely little park which also contains a doorway to the striking 1849 Church of the Immaculate Conception – a real Victorian Gothic extravaganza.<\/p>\n

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Mount Street Gardens can be found\u00a0off Mount Street in the west of the Mayfair area of London.<\/p>\n

Created in 1889 on the former burial ground of St George’s, Hanover Square, the park is named after Mount Field, an area including a fortification dating from the English Civil War named Oliver’s Mount.<\/p>\n

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The gardens have a somewhat complicated past – as documented in this article<\/a>\u00a0–\u00a0but now serve as a public park, open to all.<\/p>\n

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The park was quiet when I visited on a Saturday afternoon. \u00a0In the distance can be seen the entrance to the\u00a0Church of the Immaculate Conception.<\/p>\n

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North-eastern\u00a0entrance to the park.<\/p>\n

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Relaxing with a pooch.<\/p>\n

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The park is quite narrow.<\/p>\n

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Stone bench.<\/p>\n

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This striking 8 foot bronze sculpture of a horse’s head by\u00a0Nic Fiddian-Green dominates the park along with this huge palm tree (below):<\/p>\n

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There’s some lovely architecture backing on to the park.<\/p>\n

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Entering the\u00a0Church of the Immaculate Conception from the park.<\/p>\n

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The highly decorated Gothic church\u00a0was\u00a0inspired by Beauvais Cathedral and has a high altar designed by Gothic Revival pioneer, Augustus Pugin<\/a><\/p>\n

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There are stunning views to be seen inside the church.<\/p>\n

In Sir Simon Jenkins<\/a>‘s\u00a01999 book England’s Thousand Best Churches<\/i>, the author comments:<\/p>\n

Not an inch of wall surface is without decoration – and this in the austere 1840s, not the colourful late-Victorian era. the right aisle carries large panels portraying the Stations of the Cross, the left aisle has side chapels and confessionals, ingeniously carved within the piers. In the west window above the gallery is excellent modern glass by Evie Hone<\/a> of 1953, with the richness of colour of a Burne-Jones<\/a>\u00a0[—<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Here’s some more views of the interior:<\/p>\n

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At the opposite end of the park on\u00a0South Audley Street can be found the\u00a0Grosvenor Chapel<\/a>. Built in the 1730s, it inspired many churches in New England. Fact!\u00a0The wedding at the start of the Richard Curtis film “Love Actually” takes place in the Grosvenor Chapel.<\/p>\n

See the park on Google Maps<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hidden behind houses and large mansion blocks in Mayfair is this lovely little park which also contains a doorway to the striking 1849 Church of the Immaculate Conception – a … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[194,17,193],"tags":[1433,1435,10,1095,1434,1432,428,22],"class_list":["post-17099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-london-features","category-photos","category-places","tag-church-of-the-immaculate-conception","tag-grosvenor-chapel","tag-london","tag-mayfair","tag-mount-street","tag-mount-street-gardens","tag-park","tag-parks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/mount-street-gardens-01-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-4rN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17099"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17107,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17099\/revisions\/17107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}