York Street
York Street runs west from Baker Street in a straight line before curving gently into Harcourt Street as it approaches Old Marylebone Road. It crosses Gloucester Place, Upper Montagu Street, and Seymour Place, placing it firmly within the W1H postal district and the western portion of Marylebone developed by the Portman Estate.
The street was laid out in the late eighteenth century as part of the grid-pattern residential expansion that defines this quarter of Marylebone. It takes its name from Frederick, Duke of York, son of George III and brother to both George IV and William IV, a common honorific in the street names of this era. Terraced town houses were built along the street in the 1810s and 1820s, and several survive with their original Georgian proportions. Nos. 24 to 28 are Grade II listed, representative of the restrained brick terraces associated with the Portman Estate's development of the Baker Street and Gloucester Place blocks.
The street also retains a small row of bow-fronted shops, a Georgian-era retail form that was once widespread in London but is now rare in Central London. These curved shopfronts remain in active commercial use. A further point of interest is the rear elevation of St Mary's Church, a neoclassical design by Robert Smirke built between 1823 and 1824, which faces the northern side of the street. Notable past residents include the novelist Anthony Trollope, who lived here in the nineteenth century alongside his mother Frances and brother Thomas Adolphus.
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