Elvaston Mews runs from north to south across Elvaston Place and east from Queen’s Gate Gardens. The first thing you notice about Elvaston Mews is an entrance arch at the north end which Napoleon would not have been ashamed to march his armies through. It has an elaborate curved and carved top supported by two ornate columns, spaced to allow a carriage to drive through the middle and the servants to squeeze past on the wall sides.

Inside it is nicely cobbled street, with room enough for cars to park outside houses. The mews is mainly residential. Almost uniquely, it still retains working stables – a last remaining example of the original purpose of mews which was to provide stabling for the grander houses in the main streets in Victorian times.

The houses come in a variety of styles. The typical mews house is on two floors with three windows on the first floor above a window, a garage door and a main door on the ground floor. Some of the houses in Elvaston Mews follow the standard pattern. But there are others with 3 storeys below the roof. Some houses have pitched roofs which contain an additional attic floor. None of the houses have basements.

The impression is of a street which was built in stages and to different designs. Some of the houses are covered with creeper which gives an attractive and unusual appearance to the mews. Most of the houses have painted facades in cream or more adventurous colours. Some retain the bare brickwork at first floor level and are painted at ground floor level.

The houses are overlooked at the back by the large buildings on Queen’s Gate.

Elvaston Place was built on land belonging to the Earl of Harrington but his boundary stopped short of Queen’s Gate at Gore Street. The rest of the land between Gore Street and Queen’s Gate (including the land where Elvaston Mews now stands) was owned by the 1851 Commissioners. They agreed to the extension of Elvaston Place over their land to join with Queen’s Gate.

Charles Aldin had built the rest of the houses in Elvaston Place under an agreement with the 5th Earl of Harrington and the 1851 Commissioners also entered into agreements with him to construct the remaining houses in Elvaston Place on the east side of Queen’s Gate Place.

He built Elvaston Mews in about 1866 to 1868 while he was building these Elvaston Place houses.