Specialists in Marylebone
Duke Street
Duke Street sits within the W1U postal district and forms part of the Portman Estate, the 110-acre landholding that defines western Marylebone from Oxford Street in the south to Marylebone Road in the north. The street runs along the southern boundary of Manchester Square, one of the finest Georgian set pieces in the neighbourhood, and feeds into the square's perimeter alongside Hinde Street, Fitzhardinge Street, and Manchester Street.
Manchester Square was developed from around 1776, on a lease granted to George Montagu, 4th Duke of Manchester, after whom the square takes its name. The surrounding terraces, built between roughly 1776 and 1788, display the wrought-iron balconies and restrained brick elevations characteristic of late Georgian urban planning in this part of London. Duke Street's position on the square's southern edge places it within that coherent architectural frame, with buildings that retain their period proportions.
The dominant feature of the Manchester Square enclosure is Hertford House, on the square's northern side, which has been home to the Wallace Collection since 1897. That museum's presence, along with the private garden at the square's centre, gives the immediate area a particular quality: residential in scale, Georgian in character, and largely unaltered in its essential layout since the late eighteenth century. The Portman Estate continues to manage the majority of this district.
The Marylebone Gazette
Delivered weekly to your inbox
Join 12,000+ Marylebone insiders
