Pall Mall, London

Pall Mall [pæl mæl] is a street in the City of Westminster in London. It runs parallel to The Mall from St James's Street via Waterloo Place to Haymarket; Pall Mall East continues to Trafalgar Square. Pall Mall is a major thoroughfare in the St James's area of London. The nearest London Underground stations are Charing Cross and Green Park.

The street name derives from the croquet-like ­game of Paille-Maille, which was practiced there in the 17th century.

Pall Mall is known as the home of numerous gentlemen's clubs built there in the 19th and early 20th centuries; these include the Athenaeum Club, the Travellers Club, the Army and Navy Club, the Reform Club, the United Services Club (now home to a managers' association), the Oxford and Cambridge Club and the Royal Automobile Club.

Pall Mall was also at times the centre of London's art scene; in 1814 it was home to the Royal Academy, the National Gallery (London) and Christie's auction house, but none of these institutions remained there for long.

Almost all the properties on the south side of Pall Mall have belonged to the Crown for centuries. St James's Palace is on the south side of the street at its western end. Marlborough House, once a royal residence, adjoins the Palace to the east. The Prince Regent's Carlton House once stood at the eastern end of the street. Pall Mall was also once the site of the War Office, for which Pall Mall was synonymous (just as Whitehall is representative of the administrative centre of the British government). The War Office was located in a complex of buildings at Cumberland House designed by Matthew Brettingham and Robert Adam.

There were at least two other architecturally significant ducal residences on this road, Schomberg House and Buckingham House, the London residence of the Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos, designed for them by Sir John Soane (not to be confused with that Buckingham House which became Buckingham Palace).

The former Midland Bank branch on Pall Mall was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

This street is also the namesake of the Pall Mall cigarette brand.

In February 1944, parts of the road were badly hit by a German air raid as part of Unternehmen Steinbock.