Maude Parker's first home in Marylebone

Not being a resident of London, I had to be taught how to pronounce Marylebone. One apparently has to say "Marly-bin", or something to that effect. Anyway, for those interested in where names come from, this part of London takes its name from the 900-year-old parish that was originally called St Mary the Virgin, or St Mary of the Born.

Maude's first home was in Huntsworth Mews, which is described on Wikipedia as a "through road with a cul-de-sac section, approached through an entrance under a building on Gloucester Place in Westminster, leading onto Taunton Mews". Note that I have to rely on other people's word pictures because I can't read maps or view photographs myself. Apparently both Huntsworth Mews and Taunton Mews are within the Westminster City Council’s Dorset Square Conservation Area, meaning that the large red brick and terracotta buildings still retain their original late Victorian style. The mews is said to have been named after Huntsworth in Somerset because the estate that originally owned the land, the Portman Estate, also owned land there.

Back in 1881 when Maude was an infant, Huntsworth Mews provided stable/ coach house accommodation to the main houses on Gloucester Place. As such, it represented the "back quarters" to the fancy houses near Regent's Park. In fact, when Charles Booth drew up his famous Poverty Maps for the city of Westminster in 1898, less than two decades later, the inhabitants of the mews were classified as very poor. But by that time, the Parkers had moved out, as we shall see later.

Nowadays, of course, Huntsworth Mews is situated in one of the most fashionable parts of London. Property websites emphasise that it is located a 3-minute walk from Marylebone Tube Station on one side and a 3-minute walk from Baker Street Tube Station on the other. The prestigious Landmark London Hotel, originally the Great Central Hotel, is just four minutes away, while Madame Tussaud's and St Marylebone's Church can be reached in just six minutes. If you are looking to buy a one-bedroom terrace house measuring 75 square metres, you are looking at 1.1 million pounds.

The thought of being able to visit the place where my great-grandmother lived in the centre of London is rather thrilling. Many other old buildings have been demolished to make way for new properties in the scramble for urban office space. I did read that Huntsworth Mews was damaged by a high-explosive bomb during World War II but the buildings were thankfully repaired. At least for the time being, our family can visit the site of Maude's early childhood and get a sense of how close she lived to many of the most famous Victorian landmarks.

Illustration from "Metropolitan Improvements ... From original drawings by T. H. Shepherd, etc" Author: ELMES, James. Contributor: SHEPHERD, Thomas Hosmer. Shelfmark: "British Library HMNTS 010349.s.3."