Today, Boodle maintains an unwavering bond with its number one client. Partner John Boodle took up his post as first clerk for the Grosvenor Place trustees: together they rolled out a grand construction programme across Pimlico and Belgravia, which gave these areas their iconic white stucco terraces. Basking in its success and keen to grow, the firm gained the first part of its moniker when it employed 15-year-old clerk Edward Boodle in 1767.īy 1820, the firm was helping the Grosvenor family implement some of its most ambitious projects. His reputation quickly spread, attracting the capital's most blue-blooded and well-landed families. After becoming a fully fledged solicitor in 1730, Andrews set up shop in London. Nifty.īoodle Hatfield's affiliation with the Grosvenor family stretches all the way back to 1722, when the firm's founder – a fresh-faced 18-year-old called Robert Andrews – began working as a legal clerk and estate manager for Grosvenors. The land is held in trust by a distinct legal entity, the Grosvenor Estate, meaning the duke does not control day-to-day operations and also handily avoided what could otherwise have been a multibillion-pound tax bill when he inherited the estate from his father. Hugh's inheritance consists of pretty much all of Mayfair and Belgravia in London plus estates in Oxfordshire and Cheshire.

Gerald too had inherited the dukedom at a young age in 1979, and was a successful (if reluctant) big property owner. Hugh is just 25 and inherited the dukedom, landownings and mega wealth from his father Gerald Grosvenor, the sixth duke, when the latter unexpectedly passed away in August 2016.

With over 300 acres of Mayfair and Belgravia to his name, Hugh Grosvenor – aka the seventh Duke of Westminster – is one of the country's richest landowners, with an estimated worth around the not-too-shabby £8 billion mark. Meet the Grosvenors: one of Britain's oldest and wealthiest families.