I’ve been mad about London’s Regent Street since I was a young girl. Before I was even in double digits, I vividly remember outings to Hamleys Toy Store with my two sisters. As my grandmother loved to say: “Your father and I tried our hardest, but we always ended up chasing three little girls up and down five floors the entire time.” Outside, the beautiful white facades made my eyes grow wide and at Christmas Time, when the festive lights were turned on, the street became particularly magical.
As a teenager, when friends were dreaming of clothes shopping on Oxford Street, I cared more for wandering its ‘sister’...beginning at Portland Place, strolling along, beguiled by its grand, sweeping curve, waiting - with baited breath - for the moment that Piccadilly Circus came into view.
I loved the colours, the crowds, the vitality. Walking down Regent Street, looking at those twinkling lights filled me with joy.
But now, under lockdown, the street has taken on even more of a charm. Devoid of the crush of shoppers, who - in ‘normal’ times flock to Mulberry, the flagship Apple Store and Cafe Royal, the white neo-classical buildings seem even more beautiful than ever.
Regent Street is more empty than I could have ever imagined. There are more cyclists than cars out there, precious few red double deckers (transporting key workers to and from work) and the odd motorcyclist. After all, most Londoners and tourists come here to shop (and eat) but now that the retail sector and hospitality sector have come to a grinding halt, they must see little point in venturing into the West End.
The silence, which actually I do not find eerie,is merely comforting.
I notice domes, cupolas and weathervanes.
Salviati mosaics outside what is now the Apple Store.
The carvings, the pilasters, the balustrades.
And that superb curve, which really begins where Regent Street crosses with Glasshouse (on the east) and Vigo (on the West).
Grandeur on a huge scale.
But for me, wandering Regent Street (and its tiny, beautiful sidestreets) is glorious.
I am stopping to notice things I never did before - ornate facades, beautiful stonework, the glamour of the street and - as I’ve said before - its magnificent, sweeping curve, of which I could never tire.
There are few others here and they, like me, are amazed.
Some are walking in the very centre of the street (normally, this would be akin to taking your life in your hands), in search of unusual photographic opportunities.
I have brought a camera (since I am of the view that lockdown has to be photographed for posterity) but, in the main, I drink in the atmosphere.
I shut my eyes and imagine the Prince Regent (son of Mad King George) commanding the architect John Nash to build this thoroughfare, to link his two palaces, and I envisage Mr Nash, that night, in the quiet of his study, sketching drawings. Little of his plan remains now - most of Regent Street was redeveloped at the beginning of the twentieth century.
I am no architect, but it is clear to me that this is something quite magnificent, made even more beautiful by the silence of lockdown.
As the 19th century saying goes: “Regent Street - where time is always well spent.”