Articles

I am tempted to start with “It’s that place where they did Brideshead Revisited, isn’t it?” But to limit its appeal to that tag is a mite disrespectful, even though both the 1981 TV series based on Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 novel, and the later 2008 film, were made at Castle Howard in North Yorkshire, and the stories of the filming of each are told in a special exhibition in the house.

From the evidence of his writings, Charles Dickens did not like Mayfair. More precisely, he did not like what, socially, it represented. Given that Dickens was prone to write more about what he disapproved of in life, than about what he approved of (no doubt that approach made business sense) it is no shock that Mayfair, when picked on, got the great man’s treatment.