History

A brief history of Mount Street

In the 1720s, Mount Street was the longest single road owned by the Grosvenor Estate. It's name derived from an area called Mount Field, said to be a remnant of Civil War fortifications erected to protect London from the advances of the Royalist army.

At that time, Mayfair wasn’t the affluent area it is today, in fact Mount Street was best known for being the main thoroughfare from Central London to Tyburn, to watch the public hangings!

150 years later, when the original leases of the Mount Street properties expired, the Grosvenor Estate decided to completely rebuild the area. In 1885 James Trant Smith was chosen as architect, and a U-shaped mews of shops, houses and chambers was built in 1887.

The shop opens Edgar Green took the corner shop at number 117, and soon after - on the personal intervention of the Grosvenor Estate - he won a famously fierce fight, allowing him to display his game outside the shop. Although he died a few years later, carcases have been hung at 117 Mount Street ever since, and the traditional butcher’s shop displays provide one of the familiar sights of this part of Mayfair.

On Edgar Green’s death, Robert Allen took over the shop, having previously run a shop just around the corner on South Audley Street, which had been opened by his father in 1830.

Incredibly, the site on Mount Street remained a butchers shop for a staggering 120 years.

In more recent times, Richard Garrett inherited the business in the 1960s and owned it until his death in 2005.

Allens today

David House and Justin Preston, two butchers based in South East London, bought the shop in 2006.

For the next nine years David and Justin systematically brought the business back to life, turning it back into the instantly recognisable butcher’s institution it once was.

During this time the shop was open to customers once again and shoppers and tourists alike visited to buy quality meat and to admire the stunning Victorian features listed in many of London’s guidebooks.