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Ashland Place
Ashland Place is a short passage in the W1U district of Marylebone, running alongside Paddington Street Gardens, the historic burial ground that adjoins its western side. The street's original name was Burying Ground Passage, a functional description that reflected its proximity to the parish cemetery. When the burial ground was opened to the public as a park in 1886, the passage was renamed Ashland Place, distancing it from its more morbid associations.
The land itself has a longer history. It was donated in 1730 by Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, as additional burial ground for St Marylebone Parish Church. This was the same Harley family whose development of the surrounding district in the early eighteenth century gave the area many of its enduring street names and who eventually passed their estate to the family now known as the Howard de Walden Estate.
Ashland Place was considered a poor street even by the standards of its surroundings. The first commercial trades did not arrive until the 1880s, and right through to the mid-twentieth century the street housed workshops occupied by cabinetmakers, upholsterers, and light engineering firms. It now sits alongside Marylebone High Street and shares in the quiet residential and retail character that has settled over this part of Marylebone since the late twentieth century.
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