At this point we swing left off Piccadilly to an oversized roundabout consisting of the Duke of Wellington Place, which then turns right into Grosvenor Place, which then turns right again into Piccadilly. In the centre is parkland and various monuments and memorials. From the Duke of Wellington Place it's possible to turn left onto Constitution Hill (which despite its name is a road not a hill) which leads down to Buckingham Palace. However that is not a path that we will take today.

The building that you can see between the trees is Apsley House. It was originally built (far less grandly) for Lord Apsley in the 1770s. In 1807 it was purchased by Richard Wellesley. However by 1817 Richard had to sell it to his younger brother, the slightly more famous Sir Arthur Wellesley. If that name is unfamiliar as well, you perhaps know him better as the first Duke of Wellington. Yes, the guy who beat Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815.

We shall speak more of this later.