London’s Alleys: Conway Mews, W1

It is an outwardly normal mews in the Fitzrovia part of London with an old pub at the front, but something unexpected lurks behind.

Like so many in this part of London, the mews came when the fields were developed into housing for the expanding city and provided stabling for the grander houses that surrounded it.

The road it is next to was originally called Conway, but by the 1850s, it was named Hampstead Street, and by the 1910s, it had been renamed Southampton Street. It seems that the street was renamed back to Conway Street sometime in the early 1930s. This is a rather complicated timeline, and fortunately, Conway Mews remained untouched throughout this.

Conway Mews and Conway Street are both named after Isabella FitzRoy, Duchess of Grafton, Baroness Conway, part of the local landowning Fitzroy family, who gave their name to this part of London – Fitzrovia.

The entrance to the mews is dominated by the Lord of the Land, a pub that has been on this site under many other names since the area was first developed.

Probably originally known as the Adams Arms, and had an uneventful life until 1983 when Alan McGee founded a music fanzine and rented the room above the pub for music gigs, which were often part of McGee’s own music label.

You can just about see the pub in this photo, and if you’re wondering about the pub sign, it appears to be the coat of arms of the Scottish Blair-Adam family. The pub spent a short period of time as an O’Neils before becoming The Lukin, but closed in 2018, only to reopen as the Lore of the Land, after film director, Guy Ritchie bought it.

What makes the alley particuarly interesting is what’s down past the pub’s arched entrance.

The mews had been cleared a bit during the post-war rebuilding of some of the damaged houses, and in the 1960s, a modern office block was squashed into the space.

The building, County House, was originally an office but is today a mix of residential flats on the lower floors and a small school on the upper floors.

It’s also a totally unexpected thing to see down the back of some 18th-century mews.