Green Street - Mayfair

Compared to the consumer driven brashness and frenetic hustle and bustle of nearby Oxford Street, Green Street is an oasis of calm, elegance and understated style.

Sometimes during my visits over the last three years, it has been so quiet that I have felt like I had accidentally walked on to a film set. As I walk along the street I wait for “Action! Cut cut cut. For chrissake get those bloody walkers off the set!” So far, it has not happened.

The entire street comprises of elegant town houses of three or four stories. They date back to the late Victorian era and the street is named after John Green in 1737. He was a local builder in the early eighteenth century who met his demise in a well in nearby Upper Grosvenor Street. Bearing in mind the reason for visiting this street I do wonder if John Green was the victim of a genuine accident or a tragic event that was made to look like an accident?

Ian Fleming was born at 27 on the 28th May 1908 into the merchant banking family of Flemings. To say he had a pretty good start in life would be an understatement. He was packed off to prep school and then when he was old enough to Eton College. From Eton he went to Sandhurst to train as an army officer. Instead of pursuing that career he had an academic period working at Munich and Geneva universities. Reading about his early days one cannot but help believing that there was some sense of predestiny in what appears to be a rather haphazard career record.

In July 1939 Fleming joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, as an officer of course. World War II started 1st September that year and he joined the Royal Navy Intelligence branch where, after being promoted to Lieutenant Commander, he served for the entire war. His most famous involvement in clandestine work was being part of the team that organised and executed “Operation Mincemeat” which misled the Germans as to where the Allied invasion was going to take place in 1944.

Is it not surprising then that having accumulated all that rich experience before and during the war that he should then become the mastermind of one of the most iconic and financially successful film franchises ever, bearing the name “James Bond”?

There is no blue plaque outside 27 to recognise its connection with Ian Fleming. The committee responsible for organising these matters may well have asked the owners of the property if they could put one up but were refused permission.

Other famous people connected with Green Street is the author and poet William Blake (1757-1827) whose work shaped the Romantic movement. Another famous resident was Thomas Sopwith who was an early pioneer of aviation and went on to found the Sopwith Aviation Company at Brooklands which manufactured the famous Sopwith Camel. The Beatles had a brief residency in the street in the early 1960’s.

Onwards to 22 Ebury Street but not without a small diversion off of Park Lane into an area with a very dubious past.