Royal Liaison · London, Greater London
Banqueting House, Whitehall (Charles II's court)
The last standing fragment of Whitehall Palace, the sprawling warren where the Merry Monarch kept his court and his mistresses — Barbara Villiers chief among them — sometimes within corridors of the Queen's own apartments. The palace burned in 1698; the gossip proved more durable.
More stories at this spot
- Barbara Villiers's apartments and her five acknowledged royal children
Sources
Nearby on the map
The house Charles II gave his best-loved mistress — the orange-seller turned actress Nell Gwyn — and the only freehold on the south side of Pall Mall not owned by the Crown, because Nell reputedly refused to live in a house she did not own. John Evelyn's diary records the King chatting to 'Mrs Nelly' over her garden wall in 1671.
Documented historyNotable LandmarksShaftesbury Memorial Fountain ('Eros')London, Greater London · EnglandLondon's classic lovers' meeting point — 'meet me under Eros' — though the statue is actually Anteros, the god of mature, requited love, chosen to commemorate the philanthropist Lord Shaftesbury (Gilbert called Eros/Cupid 'the frivolous tyrant').
Documented historyHot spotQueer HeritageThe Caravan Club, 81 Endell StreetLondon, Greater London · England'London's greatest bohemian rendezvous' said the flyers; 'a sink of iniquity' said the prosecution. The basement queer club survived six weeks of 1934 before the raid — but the police files preserved its dancing, its slang and its defiant joy in extraordinary detail, and in 2017 the National Trust reopened the basement as a memorial to it.
Documented historySpotted an error, or hold a better source? Write to marquis@marquisdemayfair.com — corrections are made, never defended. Our methodology.