Bond Street
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Bond Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London. It is one of the principal streets in the West End shopping district and is more upmarket than nearby Regent Street or Oxford Street. It is in the Mayfair district of London, and has been a fashionable shopping street since the 18th century. The southern section is known as Old Bond Street, and the northern section, which is rather more than half the total length, as New Bond Street, but this distinction is not generally made in everyday usage.
At one time Bond Street was best known for top end art dealers and antique shops, clustered around the London office of Sotheby's auction house, which has been in Bond Street for over a hundred years. A few of these remain, but most of the shops are now occupied by fashion boutiques, including branches of most of the leading premium priced designer brands in the world. There are also a few miscellaneous upmarket shops such as jewellers. The street features an ususual statue of Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who are portrayed sitting on a park bench and talking to each other.
In recent years Sloane Street, which is a mile or so away in Knightsbridge, the other main shopping district in central London, has become a rival to Bond Street, with duplicate branches of many of the top boutiques.
Bond Street is also a square on the British Monopoly board, the same colour as Regent and Oxford Street.