Brown Hart Gardens, located off Duke Street

Duke Street, Marylebone

Duke Street is a street crossing the western half of Oxford Street, London and connecting Wigmore Street and Grosvenor Square. It is best known as the setting for the TV series The Duchess of Duke Street and as the headquarters of the Artists' Rifles.It is often confused with the relatively...

, Mayfair

Mayfair

Mayfair is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster.-History:Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today...

, is a 10000 square feet (929 m²) public garden on top of an electricity substation.

History

The gardens began life as the Duke Street Gardens where a communal garden was laid for what were then working class dwellings in Brown Street and Hart Street.

In 1902 the building of the Duke Street Electricity Substation led to the removal of the street level gardens. The substation was completed in 1905 to the design of C. Stanley Peach in a Baroque style from Portland stone featuring a pavilion and steps at either end, a balustrade and Diocletian windows along the sides to light the galleries of the engine rooms, and deep basements.

In order to compensate local residents for the loss of the old communal garden, the Duke of Westminster insisted that a paved Italian garden featuring trees in tubs be placed on top of the substation. The deck of the property was open to the public as an ornamental garden until the 1980s when it was closed by the then lessees, the London Electricity Board.

In 2007 plans were announced to revamp the site, and the site was reopened to the public after 20 years of closure in October 2007.