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Within Greater London there are two cities, the City of London and the City of Westminster.

The City of Westminster is a central borough in London, England, on the north bank of the River Thames adjacent to the City of London, and is one of the 33 local government districts that make up Greater London.

It has been a city since 1540 and within its boundaries are Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, 10 Downing Street, and Westminster Abbey.

To people not familiar with London it may seem strange that there are cities within the London that stretches thirty six miles from east to west that is officially known as Greater London.

And the best way to explain how it came about is the often used description that London is a collection of villages – or small cities in the case of the City of Westminster and the City of London.

Both the City of Westminster and the city of London are subject to UK parliamentary legislation and national governance. So it is not like they are a law unto themselves at the national level.

And the City of Westminster is governed by Westminster City Council, which is a local authority responsible for providing services and making decisions within its jurisdiction. So Westminster is a typical modern area.

The City of London is very different.

The City of London Corporation governs the City of London. The Corporation was established in medieval times, but there is no record of a charter that incorporated it. Instead, the corporation is considered incorporated by prescription, meaning that the law assumes it was incorporated because it has been considered as such for so long. It is a neat solution.

The leader is the Lord Mayor of London, which is a distinct and separate office from the Mayor of London who is the leader of the Greater London Authority.

The police authority is the City of London Police, founded in 1839, one of the oldest police forces in the UK. It is separate from the Metropolitan Police Service and has jurisdiction in the Square Mile as the historic financial district of London is known.

Beyond its general role as a police force, it focuses on fraud, cybercrime, and money laundering, and is headquartered in Guildhall Yard East located within the City of London.

Kenwood House is on Hampstead Heath in London, at the northern end. The King’s printer, John Bill had had a modest red brick house built in 1616. In 1754, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, bought it and brought in the architect Robert Adam to remodel it as a neoclassical villa.

Murray became Lord Chief Justice but before that appointment he was a barrister and conscious of his Scottish accent. He hired Alexander Pope to teach him to speak in received English. Pope succeeded and sent Murray a present of a bust of Homer to signify his success in mastering English suitable to be heard in court. Pleased with and proud of the gift, Murray had his portrait painted with the bust of Homer in the frame.

The Twentieth Century

Murray’s descendant, Lord Mansfield was running out of money and sold off the contents before selling the house to Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh, in 1925. The Earl never lived in the house, but filled it with works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Gainsborough, and Turner. Two years later he died having donated the house and its grounds to the nation.

Edward Cecil Guinness was an Irish businessman, philanthropist, and prominent member of the famous Guinness brewing family, and known for his contributions to philanthropy, art, and the preservation of historic properties.

Today, Kenwood House is managed by English Heritage. Little by little they bought back the contents that Lord Mansfield had sold off, including a similar bust of Homer to the one that Murray had in his portrait.

All properties managed by English Heritage are owned by the nation and held by the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission, also known as Historic England, which is a non-departmental public body funded by the government. 

English Heritage was originally part of the UK government’s Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England. Then in 2015 it became a charity operating under a license agreement with the UK government, which gave it freedom to fundraise and freedom from the vagaries of Government budget constraints.

The name Kenwood is thought to derive from the fact that it stands on the northern edge of Hampstead Heath in London, in a part that was historically known as Caen Wood.

As a side note, Kenwood housewares, known for kitchen appliances like mixers and blenders, was founded in 1947 in the United Kingdom by Kenneth Wood. The brand’s name comes from the founder’s surname and is unrelated to Kenwood House.

St John’s Wood is named after the Knights of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. In about 1070, merchants from Amalfi set up a hospital in Jerusalem to care for pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land, and the Order grew out of that and was established around 1099 after the First Crusade when the hospital was dedicated to St. John the Baptist as the spiritual patron and namesake of the Order.

It is not known when the Order became owners of St John’s Wood. What is known is that the Order owned it until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in the 16th century when its properties, including St John’s Wood, were confiscated and became Crown land.

Because of its role overseeing the hospital in Jerusalem, the Order was commonly known as Knights Hospitaller. That role changed in the early 12th century, under the leadership of Blessed Gerard and later Raymond du Puy, when it evolved into a military-religious order, alongside the Knights Templar.

Circus Road

Circus Road in St John’s Wood runs at right angles to the High Street and the name is a nod to a proposed layout similar to the Royal Crescent in Bath. The idea was that The British Circus as it was named, would attract wealthy intelligentsia and artists. Architect John Shaw drew up plans in 1803 and work began in 1809 with the construction of Circus Road. And then the Napoleonic Wars came along and put paid to the scheme and today Circus Road itself is all there is of the plan.