Architect John Nash of Regent Street faced a major obstacle for circumnavigation between Piccadilly and Oxford Street: “… it will be necessary to form a small square, in order to avoid Golden Square, the area of which small square will afford a site for a theatre, or any other public building, to which its central situation will be particularly applicable; this break in the straight line will make the remaining street less oblique, and avoid the necessity of purchasing any of the houses which form Golden Square.”

Only the grandest streets on the west, one of which includes Conduit Street, would open into the new street. The rest would be served by the rear end of Swallow Street, while the east Brewer Street, Silver Street, Marlborough Street and Argyll Street would connect with it. “… The whole communication from Charring Cross to Oxford Street will be a boundary and complete separation between the streets and squares occupied by the nobility and gentry, and the narrower streets and meaner houses occupied by mechanics and the trading part of the community,” said Nash.

This was an earlier and more extended idea of Nash’s well-known nautical phase about “hugging all the avenues which went to good streets.”

Normal commercial life was disrupted, particularly around Piccadilly. St. James’s Parish north of Piccadilly and to the western side of the new street, commissioners demolished nearly 250 houses. Trade was disrupted. Shops were closed, customers displaced, access became difficult and uninviting, and no street cleaning or maintenance was carried out. The commissioners did their best to minimize the inconvenience. They paid a small rate to compensate the parish for empty houses. Existing tenants were given the first change to purchase a new lease. Purchased houses were left occupied as long as possible.

Such a large redevelopment evidently took time, and completion was segmented on Regent Street itself, where the word “bankrupt” appeared occasionally. Even when rates were paid, bankruptcy was even filed by builders themselves.

The first residents on the west side of the street, near Conduit Street, moved in in 1823. The street filled up rapidly in the next few years, with occasional houses remaining empty.

By the reign of Edward VII, Regent Street, and other streets adjoining it such as Conduit Street, had enjoyed years of trading as the “centre of fashion,” a street so dependent on society. But by 1907, however, the shopping district was up for another challenge. One of the major problems was a change in the nature of customers on Regent Street, partly due to a shift in the relative wealth of the aristocracy and middle classes. This trend had been encouraged by heavier taxation and was reflected to American buyers, and even the dismantling of country houses for the same purpose.

These trends meant that the Regent Street shopping area had to cater for a different customer: “… from the suburbs and country visitors. A most valuable class of customer, as I said, but in the main they are ladies who want things in quite the most up-to-date style at a very moderate outlay,” the Daily Telegraph commented.

Presently, the character of Regent Street has changed since the beginning of the century. There are now as many shops concerned with masculine fashion as with feminine. The changing patterns of retailing are reflected too in the number of fashion specialists; both in men’s and women’s clothing, and many shoe retailers, in particular, finds a shop in Regent Street a necessity.

In 1954, Captain Stewart Liberty, President of the Regent Street Association wrote in response to criticism to the Daily Telegraph: “The national income is spread more equally over the population than in the eighteenth century. Regent Street, among other shopping centres, now has to cater to a very large population, whereas in the days of Nash, it catered for a relatively small, wealthy and cultured section of society.”

He continued, “The small specialised shops of the past with their personal service, are unhappily disappearing. But a new sort of shop keeping is emerging, calling for new techniques … the science of shop keeping is now studied with more seriousness and vigor than ever.” This explains the unique and prestigious style of Conduit Street.