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Marylebone: a revolution in ‘urban living’
The High Street is looking good – but there’s more to do say developers Howard de Walden
TEN years ago, Marylebone High Street was awash with scruffy charity shops, empty buildings and down-at-heel chain stores.
Now the keystone of “Marylebone Village”, the bustling parade could be another country – a rural idyll in the heart of London.
While the area’s transformation from ghost-town to the upper echelons of London post-codes has been well documented – trumpeted as a paragon of urban living by so-called “lifestyle” pundits – the force behind its change in fortune is more nebulous.
And that’s because The Howard de Walden Estate, which owns 92 acres of central Marylebone, has been carrying out the revolution quietly.
Simon Baynham, managing director of de Walden, said it was the result of a long-term vision for the area.
“It was in the early 1990s when we had a change of management and a mini property crash that things started to change,” he said.
“We looked at the High Street and quite frankly for London W1 it just wasn’t good enough.
“Our strategy was always for the area as a whole, but we focused on retail first to drag the area up.
“I think the two biggest tipping points were persuading Waitrose and Conran to move in.
“After that we didn’t need to chase retailers. The right ones started coming to us.”
The estate dates back to the 16th century, when the title Barony of Howard de Walden was granted to Admiral Lord Thomas Howard for his heroics in the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
The title continued in his male-line descendants until the ninth baron, John Scott-Ellis, died in 1999. The estate is now in the hands of his eldest daughter, Mary Hazel Caridwen Czernin.
Getting rid of the overseas absentee landlords who “just take the money and put nothing back”, and applying a more hands-on approach with retailers and leaseholders was part of the shake-up.
But as house prices rose, there was a real danger the street would become a victim of its own success – something the estate has been very conscious of, both on and off the High Street.
Mr Baynham added: “If we just bowed to market forces the street would be full of mobile phone shops. The idea was to be ‘Waitrose and above’ but not quite Bond Street.
“It was the same [approach] with Harley Street. In fact, 10 years ago Harley Street was full of plastic surgeons, but now we have managed to weed them out.
“It is to do with responsibility and basically amounts to good estate management. In that sense we are more than landlords because we invest money in the area.
“We are not democratically elected and we do wield quite a lot of power.”
After wrestling with a number of obvious scruples, primarily “not wanting to sound like an estate agent” de Walden started to use the term “village” as part of its marketing strategy.
It also got more involved with community events, starting an annual summer fair and Christmas lights party.
But unlike the bulk of hollow place marketing, the tag has stuck.
“Urban village is a horrible term that can be squirmy,” said Mr Baynham. “There was a lot of debate over using it but the fact is Marylebone is a village. It has village-style shops, a lot of schools which it didn’t have before, gyms, parks and the farmers market.
“That’s why I think it works.”
Although the vision is entering its final stages, there is still work to be done. According to Mr Baynham, there is room for a “decent” stationery shop, a men’s clothes shop and another nursery school.
He said: “We’re getting there and we will keep doing what we’re doing in a quiet kind of way. You could say we were the backbone of the area. There are no major plans, but we will just keep tidying things up.”
Lights up! Marylebone High Street's Christmas lights switch-on |
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