Editing Knightsbridge (section)

== Economy ==
Knightsbridge is home to many expensive shops, including the [[department store]]s [[Harrods]] and [[Harvey Nichols]], and flagship stores of many British and international fashion houses, including those of London-based shoe designers [[Jimmy Choo]] and [[Manolo Blahnik]], and two [[Prada]] stores. The district also has banks that cater to wealthy individuals. Some of London's most renowned restaurants are here, as well as many exclusive hair and beauty salons, antiques and antiquities dealers, and chic bars and clubs. One of [[Bonhams]] auction houses is located in Knightsbridge.<ref name="Bonhams Lot 116">{{cite web|title=Lot 116 - Bruno Zach 'The Riding Crop' an Impressive Green and Gilt Patinated Bronze|url=https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20122/lot/116/|website=Bonhams.com|access-date=28 June 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150630213824/https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20122/lot/116/|archive-date=30 June 2015}}</ref>

=== Property ===
The district and the road itself, which is the only definitive place within it, is small, which assists its cachet: more than half of the zone closest to its tube station (and nearer to no others) is [[Knightsbridge tube station|Knightsbridge Underground station]]. Knightsbridge had in its park side, east and west gold-coloured blocks of exceptional wealth in [[philanthropist]] [[Charles Booth (philanthropist)|Charles Booth]]'s late Victorian [[Life and Labour of the People in London|Poverty Map]], formerly excluding Brompton Road to the west but extending well into Piccadilly, [[St James's]] to the east.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://booth.lse.ac.uk/cgi-bin/do.pl?sub=view_booth_and_barth&m.l=1&m.d.l=4&m.p.x=6117&m.p.y=7368&m.p.w=500&m.p.h=309&m.p.l=4&m.t.w=128&m.t.h=80&b.v.x=239&b.v.y=175&b.p.x=9875&b.p.y=9808&b.p.w=500&b.p.h=309&b.p.l=5&b.p.p.l=5|title=Map – Charles Booth's London|website=booth.lse.ac.uk|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117084201/http://booth.lse.ac.uk/cgi-bin/do.pl?sub=view_booth_and_barth&m.l=1&m.d.l=4&m.p.x=6117&m.p.y=7368&m.p.w=500&m.p.h=309&m.p.l=4&m.t.w=128&m.t.h=80&b.v.x=239&b.v.y=175&b.p.x=9875&b.p.y=9808&b.p.w=500&b.p.h=309&b.p.l=5&b.p.p.l=5|archive-date=17 November 2015}}</ref> Knightsbridge is home to many of the world's richest people and has some of the highest property prices in the world. In 2014 a terrace of 427m<sup>2</sup> sold for [[pound sterling|£]]15,950,000, a home in [[Montpelier Square]].<ref>[http://www.mouseprice.com/property-information/ref-20649074 Sold prices in SW7. 3 Montpelier Square] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141214141147/http://www.mouseprice.com/property-information/ref-20649074 |date=14 December 2014 }} Mouseprice.com Retrieved 26 November 2014</ref> The average asking price for all the properties in slightly wider [[SW postcode area|SW7]] was £4,348,911 (as at Autumn 2014). On-street parking spaces have sold for as much as £300,000 for a 94-year lease.{{Citation needed|date=April 2007}} Fourteen of Britain's two hundred most expensive streets are in the neighbourhood, as defined by ''The Times''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thetimes.com/|title=The Times & The Sunday Times|website=[[The Times]]}}</ref>

====One Hyde Park====
In February 2007, the world's most expensive apartment at [[One Hyde Park]], sold off plan for £100 million, bought by a [[Qatar]]i prince, and another apartment at the same place in February 2009, at almost the same price, was bought by a Qatari prince.<ref>[http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/article1577451.ece "Sheikh shells out £100m for London's most expensive flat"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070403180246/http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/article1577451.ece |date=3 April 2007 }} ''[[The Times]]'' 28 March 2007. Retrieved 11 June 2007</ref> Apartments of this secure, optimum specification, address equate to in excess of £4,000 per square foot (£43,000 per square metre).

In 2014, a 16,000&nbsp;ft<sup>2</sup> two-storey penthouse in One Hyde Park sold for £140 million.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/738d09b6-d1d3-11e3-8ff4-00144feabdc0.html#axzz33lqbxaK1 |title=London penthouse sells for £140m |newspaper=Financial Times |date=2 May 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140604200926/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/738d09b6-d1d3-11e3-8ff4-00144feabdc0.html#axzz33lqbxaK1 |archive-date=4 June 2014}}</ref>

====History of property construction====
Land in Knightsbridge is for the most part identified by City of Westminster (and by the [[Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea|RBKC]], where former [[Brompton, London|Brompton]] parts are included) as strengthened [[planning restrictions|planning law]]-governed [[Conservation Areas]]: 'Albert Gate', 'Belgravia', 'Knightsbridge' and 'Knightsbridge Green'.<ref>[http://transact.westminster.gov.uk/docstores/publications_store/Conservation%20Areas%20Jan%202013.pdf Conservation Areas Map. Numbers 22, 23, 36 and 37] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141206001728/http://transact.westminster.gov.uk/docstores/publications_store/Conservation%20Areas%20Jan%202013.pdf |date=6 December 2014 }} City of Westminster.  Retrieved 26 November 2014</ref> Properties must be offered here by developers as refurbished flats or houses meeting the enhanced architectural demands in the local Conservation Areas policy of the Local Plan. Within each many buildings are covered by the similar but separate requirements of being [[listed building|listed]]. Growing demand has since 2000 persuaded the authority to revise its planning policies to permit roof terraces and basement extensions, for residential facilities from leisure suites to private nightclubs, a degree of [[liberal economy|economic liberalisation]] documented by a non-tabloid paper in 2008.<ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/3361725/Property-with-swimming-pools-The-deep-end.html Property with Swimming Pools: The Deep End] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141205055425/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/3361725/Property-with-swimming-pools-The-deep-end.html |date=5 December 2014 }} Sonia Purnell, ''[[The Sunday Telegraph]]'', 29 June 2008.</ref>

The [[reversion (law)|underlying landowners]] of the few streets making up, without any dispute, Knightsbridge are the [[Duke of Westminster]], [[Earl Cadogan|Lord Cadogan]] and the [[Wellcome Trust]] with a minority of the [[freehold (law)|freehold]]s to houses in each street [[leasehold enfranchisement|sold to others]]. Red-brick [[Queen Anne style architecture|Queen Anne revival]] buildings form most of the [[Cadogan Estates]], whereas white stucco-fronted houses are mostly found on the [[Grosvenor Estate]], designed by architect [[Thomas Cubitt]].<ref>[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=28695#s8  "Settlement and building: From 1865 to 1900", ''A History of the County of Middlesex'': Volume 12: Chelsea (2004), pp. 66–78] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060305092848/http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=28695 |date=5 March 2006 }}. Retrieved 11 June 2007</ref>

The [[Brompton Oratory]], a place of [[Catholic]] worship, marks one of the transitions into [[Kensington, London|Kensington]], but [[Belgravia]] and [[Brompton, London|Brompton]] have competing mapped neighbourhood status in the east and south of the neighbourhood, and as they have no eponymously named tube stations or historic parish boundaries, their limits are arbitrary and the triangular salient of Brompton, administratively in Kensington, as part of [[South Kensington]], once coloured mid-wealth by Charles Booth, is now blurred with 'Knightsbridge', into which it long projected.{{citation needed|date=November 2014}}

Brompton is only used when the postcode and/or Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is being emphasised, rather than the modern [[Central London]] 'district' definitions, which suggest Knightsbridge or South Kensington, either [[Knightsbridge tube station|tube station]], being at most 350 m away and thus can be easily found on all maps.