London’s Alleys: Piccadilly Place, W1

This is a narrow gap off busy Piccadilly that leads to a service road at the rear and seems to serve little purpose other than to separate two large buildings.Once empty fields, this part of London developed rapidly to largely built up in just a few decades in the 1660s-80 as London expanded westwards from Whitehall and St James.
Initially, the alley seems to have been called Maggots Yard, which is not an indicator of its function, but was named after the Meggott family which had a lease from th