Bowles and Carver

The Royal Palace of St. James's next the Park

16 x 10 inches

A copper plate engraving with vibrant, original watercolour; published by Bowles and Carver in London circa 1800.

This evocative view of St. James's Palace and Park depicts the tree lined avenue that ran parallel to Pall Mall and was known as The Mall, today a very familiar ceremonial thoroughfare that links Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace.

The Mall was originally created in the 1660s as part of the post-Restoration improvements to the park. It soon became a very fashionable promenade and when Baron von Pollnitz visited London in 1733 he was already struck by its cosmopolitan atmosphere, "The grand walk they call The Mall is full of people every hour of the day, especially in the morning and evening and their Majesties often walk in it...and permit all persons without distinction of rank or character to walk there at the same time with them".

By the 1820s the Mall had fallen out of fashion whilst other, adjacent parts of London were being developed but this print depicts the area at the peak of its popularity, thronged with the bon ton on a beautiful summer's day.