About

Originally, in Great Britain, landowners would build stables and carriage houses with living quarters above them, surrounding a court. These were built behind large city houses before motor vehicles replaced horses in the early twentieth century. In time, the stables were converted to a business and additional living quarters. 

While a “mew” was originally a building with an individual stable and dwelling, the term “mews” eventually came to refer to a row, street, or courtyard of houses or apartments that have been converted from stables or built to resemble former stables, often with an alley. The eighteenth-century style seems to be a popular architectural style for this type of building. 

The Mews house with red doors (pictured here) is the third of three identical buildings, at Bruton Place (formerly North Bruton Mews) off Berkeley Square, Mayfair, London W1. As this building actually had a stable, there is a winch for horse feed just above the attic door. 

The common use of the word “mews” originates from the Royal Mews, royal stables built approximately 500 years ago on the north side of Charing Cross. It is now commonly used in English-speaking countries for city housing of a similar design. 

(See “mews” in Oxford Learners Dictionary and “mews” in Wikipedia)