Piccadilly Hall, London

Piccadilly and Oxford Street are the two oldest roads leading westwards out of London. The story goes that a tailor named Robert Baker made a fortune out of "picadils", a stiff collar then in vogue at Court. He invested his wealth in land in this area and in about 1612 built himself a country house which the populace promptly nicknamed Piccadilly Hall in allusion to the source of his wealth. And fairly soon the name Piccadilly was used for the whole street, with widespread building beginning after the Restoration in 1660. Piccadilly Circus was not formed until 1819 by the intersection of Piccadilly with John Nash's new Regent Street. Regrettably its original elegance has now descended into what the London Encyclopaedia describes as "an ill-shaped vortex of converging streets redeemed only by the statue of Eros." But, the tourists love it!