Once the street was known as Mayfair Row; its present designation being derived from the family name of Lord Howe, the owner of the property. If we except Sunderland House, the Duke of Marlborough’s, (_apropos_ of which the story is told that Queen Victoria once informed the Duke she had never been in Curzon Street, so prescribed are frequently the peregrinations of sovereigns) the chief mansion is Crewe House, the residence of the Earl of Crewe. Until comparatively recently it was known as Wharncliffe House, having been acquired by Mr. J. Stuart Wortley for £12,000, in 1818, and continuing in his family (later ennobled by the Barony of Wharncliffe) till its present owner bought it at a very different figure. Originally, in 1708, Mr. Edward Shepherd, who built Shepherd’s Market opposite, in 1735, lived here; and, in 1750, it was purchased by Lord Carhampton for £500, if one can possibly believe in the adequacy of so small a sum to buy anything in such a neighbourhood! So many illustrious people have lived and died in Curzon Street that pages might easily be filled with their names; but a few must here suffice, and appropriately, as living once at No. 1, since demolished, I find that great actress, Madame Vestris; and at No. 8, the celebrated Miss Berrys, who both died here in 1852, and lie buried in Petersham churchyard. Their house was once taken by Baron Bunsen, who records moving into it in 1841. Sir Henry Holford, the surgeon, who was one of those who gazed on the actual features of Charles I. when that monarch’s coffin was opened, and who left an interesting account of the circumstance, died at a house in Curzon Street, in 1844; and at No. 19, Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, drew his last breath, in 1882. Other residents whose names may be set down were Lord Marchmont, the friend of Pope; Mason, the poet; and Francis Chantry, the sculptor, long before he became famous; Lord Macartney, whose mission to China is to be found recorded in a bulky volume, and who, according to Walpole, occupied here a “charming house--cheap as old clothes,” which once belonged to Lord Carteret. Opposite Crewe House stands Curzon Chapel, or, as it is as often called, Mayfair Chapel. The original structure dated from 1730, but it was subsequently rebuilt, although it is so plain and ugly that it could not possibly have been improved by the process.