A Look At Sloane Square, London

Описание: Sloane Square is a small hard-landscaped square on the boundaries of the central London districts of Belgravia and Chelsea, located 1.8 miles southwest of Charing Cross, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The area forms a boundary between the two largest aristocratic estates in London, the Grosvenor Estate and the Cadogan. The square was formerly known as 'Hans Town', laid out in 1771 to a plan of by Henry Holland Snr. and Henry Holland Jnr. Both the square and Hans Town were named after Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753), an Anglo-Irish doctor who, jointly with his appointed trustees, owned the land at the time.

Estates on all sides are made up of ornate, luxuriously furnished private apartments set behind railings — a minority of these remain combined to form large townhouses, primarily in amongst those of rows of not more than four storeys. Gothic, classical and Edwardian architecture mix; the area has grown piecemeal, including in infill, under strict character and aesthetic demands of local urban planning. Elements of almost every street were reinstated, in similar style, after the London Blitz.

In sociology a small social class of London has since the 1980s been cast and to some extent outcast as Sloane Rangers or Sloanies, relatively young, underemployed and ostentatiously well-off members of the upper classes who linguistically have their own evolving lexicon, sloane speak, spoken in received pronunciation. Some are heavily engaged investors in charities, new businesses and the arts, particularly with the influx of and integration with young, wealthy, foreign-born Chelsea residents. The endurance of this class is reflected in an occasional dramatic work or fly on the wall documentary such as Made in Chelsea.