Founded at 42 Berkeley Square in 1978. Royal Warrant granted 1985. The same address, the same standard, the same purpose.
In the spring of 1978, Sir Geoffrey Ashworth — a senior partner at one of the City's most distinguished commercial law firms — retired from active practice and turned his attention to a persistent observation: that London had no private chauffeur service that met the standard its finest clients deserved. The existing options were either too grand in their pretension and poor in their execution, or too commercial in their character to provide the discretion that the profession and the aristocracy required.
Sir Geoffrey leased two vehicles — a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow and a Bentley T-Series — engaged three chauffeurs from the motor trade and the household service of noble families, and opened for business from offices at 42 Berkeley Square in the spring of 1978. The founding principle was stated simply in his private papers: "The client should think of nothing but their destination. Everything else is our concern."
By the end of the first year, the company had twelve regular private clients — drawn from Sir Geoffrey's extensive professional and social circle — and a reputation for an absolute discretion that was, in those years, genuinely difficult to find. The second year brought the first Season engagements: Wimbledon in 1979, Royal Ascot in 1980.
The company is founded at 42 Berkeley Square by Sir Geoffrey Ashworth. Two vehicles, three chauffeurs, twelve founding clients.
The first Wimbledon Season engagement — the beginning of a tradition that continues to the present day.
The first Royal Ascot Week engagement. The five-day full-week package is introduced in 1982.
Henley Royal Regatta transfers commence. The Season portfolio is now complete.
Chelsea Flower Show — the nearest Season event to our Berkeley Square address.
Glyndebourne Festival Opera — the most civilised way to spend a summer's evening in England.
Her Majesty The Queen grants a Royal Warrant to Mayfair & City Carriages. The honour reflects forty-seven years of unbroken standard.
The corporate account programme is established. The City's principal financial institutions join the client register.
The fleet reaches twenty vehicles. The heritage collection is formally established and maintained as a separate fleet.
Victoria Ashworth, Sir Geoffrey's granddaughter, joins the board. The fleet reaches thirty-five vehicles.
Victoria Ashworth-Chen joins as Director of Operations following a decade at Goldman Sachs. Digital infrastructure modernised; the character of the service preserved.
Forty-seven years. Forty vehicles. Two hundred private members. One standard: absolute.
A Royal Warrant of Appointment is granted by a member of the Royal Family to a company that has supplied goods or services to the Royal Household for at least five years. It is not an endorsement — it is a recognition of sustained standard. The Warrant requires renewal; it is not permanent.
Mayfair & City Carriages was granted its Royal Warrant in 1985, having supplied private chauffeur services to the Royal Household since 1980. The Warrant has been renewed continuously since that date — a distinction of which Sir Geoffrey was, in his characteristically understated way, quietly proud.
"The Warrant does not change what we do. It confirms what we have always done."
— Sir Geoffrey Ashworth, 1985
Our address has not changed in forty-seven years. 42 Berkeley Square — one of Mayfair's most distinguished addresses, a short walk from the Ritz, equidistant from Knightsbridge, Belgravia, and the City — was chosen by Sir Geoffrey not merely for its convenience but for what it represented: the centre of a London that valued discretion, permanence, and quality above the fashions of the moment.
Berkeley Square has been the address of artists, aristocrats, and institutions since the seventeenth century. The garden — London's finest private square garden — is visible from our first-floor offices. In summer, the planes trees cast their shade over one of the few remaining corners of London that looks substantially as it did a century ago.
We have no plans to move. The address is not merely convenient — it is part of what we are.
The same address. The same standard. Available now.