The Grosvenor family inherited 400 acres of land between Buckingham Palace and Sloane Street, from the Thames as far north as Knightsbridge. This ultimately became Belgravia and Pimlico. In medieval times the Belgravia area was known as the Five Fields. In the 18th century it was just a wasteland used for grazing sheep. It was a dangerous place for respectable people to go. One of the bridges over the West Bourne river was called Bloody Bridge because of the number of violent robberies there. It was an area for highwaymen and footpads. It appealed to the aristocracy only as a popular area for duels, sufficiently far from civilization.
The catalyst for turning this area from a wasteland into a thriving residential district was the decision by George IV to build a new palace on the site of Buckingham House in 1819 and to move the court there.
In the 1820s Lord Grosvenor decided to develop the area as an estate to rival his existing estate in Mayfair. He came to an agreement with Thomas Cubitt. Over the next 30 years Belgravia was constructed and was immediately fashionable. Cubitt provided the estate with good quality services such as sewers and gas lighting, and well-constructed streets and pavements. Originally the area had gates and bars across the entrance of the estate to keep out undesirables and heavy traffic.
The estate was named Belgravia after Belgrave, a village on the Grosvenors’ family estate in Leicestershire.