On match days at Lord’s the Jubilee line stop is awash with blazer and tie-wearing MCC members hauling cool bags to the ground.
While on other days you can catch gaggles of teens trying to work out how to get to Abbey Road using Google maps.
Their tendency to stop traffic while they take selfies on the famous zebra crossing – or scrawl the names of favourite bands on the whitewashed wall of the recording studios – sets locals’ teeth on edge.
Because outside of these two groups, this upmarket enclave mostly gets on with being quietly, elegantly posh.
That is except for Halloween. The presence of The American School has made St John’s Wood a mini 51st state.
On October 31, crowds descend on the neighbourhood where the porticos of the white stucco villas are heaving with elaborately gory sets with buckets of candy handed out by the live in staff.
The name springs from a wooded area of the Great Forest of Middlesex which was owned in medieval times by the Knights of the Order of St John of Jerusalem.
The forest was used as a Royal hunting ground and a supply of timber and the area later passed from Royal to aristocratic hands in 1675 when Charles II gifted it to Charles Henry Wooton.
City merchant Henry Samuel Eyre bought 500 acres in 1732 and by the end of the century his heirs had drawn up a masterplan to sell off chunks for development.
The new suburb close to Westminster and Regent’s Park boasted large villas and wide avenues.
The disused graveyard St John’s Wood Church Grounds is a nature reserve, while the Roman Catholic Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth is a charity including a hospice and a stunning chapel that was moved brick-by-brick from the original site in Great Ormond Street.
The Victorian St John’s Wood Art School in Elm Tree Road brought a host of painters and sculptors to the area including Lucien Freud, Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, Barbara Hepworth, Oscar Kokoshka, and Dame Laura Knight.
While other notable past residents include conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, waxworks impresario Madame Tussaud, Second World War hero Guy Gibson, psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, and the architect of London’s sewers Sir Joseph Bazalgette.
In 1965 at the height of Beatlemania Sir Paul McCartney bought and renovated a £40,000 villa which remains his London base. It was conveniently close to the recording studios where the fab four worked on their albums including Abbey Road.
Actor Damian Lewis grew up there, Kate Moss had her Banksy stolen while living there, Ewan McGregor made it his base and Keith Richards wrote I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction) while living in Carlton Hill – even Rihanna rented a large mansion during a UK stay.
Most recently Star Wars creator George Lucas reportedly snapped up a £40 million house in the area where the average house price tops £1.5 million.
If you are not in the market for the £46,000 per year fees at The American School, the local state school is Harris Academy formerly Quintin Kynaston School alma mater of Suggs from Madness and an inspiration for the band’s hit Baggy Trousers.
St John’s Wood High Street is full of high end boutiques, cafes, restaurants and beauty stores with the Duke of York a classic pub and nearby ornate Crockers Folly now a Lebanese restaurant.
Despite the demise of deli Harry Morgans – now Italian restaurant Babbo – one St John’s Wood icon remains.
Panzer’s Deli in Circus Road was founded 1944 by an Austrian and a Czech refugee to serve the local Jewish community and to this day sells bagels, smoked salmon and cream cheese among many other groceries.
