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David Doré Registered Homeopath 07931 957339
Harley Street
At the beginning of the 18th century
the village of Marylebone consisted of just a smattering of houses, but as
London began to grow during the Georgian period many attractive houses were
developed and by 1792-1799 the whole area from Oxford Street to the New Road
(Marylebone Road) was awash with beautiful, large Georgian styled houses, known
by their rectangular sash windows and parapets which give the appearance of a
flat roof. Cavendish Square, in particular, became a magnet for the fashionable
and wealthy.
Harley Street is owned by the de
Walden family and managed by the Howard de Walden Estate. In 1711 the grid of
streets around Harley Street, known as The Estate, was passed to Henrietta
Cavendish Holles (the Duke of Newcastle's daughter) who married Edward Harley
(the 2nd Earl of Oxford). Between 1715 and 1720, Edward, with the assistance of
architect John Prince, decided to develop the streets around Cavendish Square
for residential purposes naming many of the streets after members of the
family. When Edward died the Estate passed to his daughter, Margaret Cavendish
Harley who married the second Duke of Portland, and the area became known as
The Portland Estate.
The Dukes of Portland had ownership
for five generations until the fifth Duke died without issue in 1879 and the
land passed to Lucy Joan Bentinck, widow of the 6th Baron Howard de Walden and
thus it became the Howard de Walden Estate.
Florence Nightingale was Superintendent of the Establishment for Gentlewomen at No. 1 Harley Street in 1853
By 1860 many doctors had moved into
Harley Street, choosing the area because of the quality housing, the central
location as well as the accessibility to major train stations such as Kings
Cross St Pancras and Marylebone. As more and more doctors moved to the area
they invited colleagues to work with them from their prestigious homes and
Harley Street began to thrive as a medical centre, especially after the Medical
Society of London opened in Chandos Street in 1873 then the Royal Society of
Medicine in Wimpole Street in 1912.
Since the nineteenth century the
number of doctors, hospitals and medical organisations in and around Harley
Street has greatly increased. Records show that there were around 20 doctors in
1860, 80 by 1900 and almost 200 by 1914. When the National Health Service was
established in 1948 there were around 1,500.
Among the many famous and talented
doctors to have practiced in Harley Street over the years was the great British
surgeon and polymath Sir Henry Thompson in the 1870s who specialised in surgery
of the genito-urinary tract and was appointed surgeon-extraordinaire to the
King of Brussels, and Doctor Edward Bach who practiced from Harley Street in
the 1920s as a specialist in vaccines and bacteriology before moving to the
London Homeopathic Hospital then developing the Bach Flower Remedies.
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