Fortnum and Mason began, improbably, with used candle wax.

In 1707, William Fortnum, a footman in Queen Anne's household, pocketed the palace's half-burned candles each evening, melted them down and sold them at a profit. He persuaded his landlord, Hugh Mason, to go into the grocery business together on Piccadilly, and three centuries later the shop hasn't moved.

The store claims to have invented the Scotch egg in 1738, introduced baked beans to Britain when Henry J. Heinz walked in with five sample cases in 1886, and today keeps beehives on its roof producing Piccadilly London Honey so exclusive there's a waiting list. Every hour, the four-ton facade clock, whose bells were cast by the same foundry as Big Ben's, sends mechanical figures of Mr Fortnum and Mr Mason out to bow to each other.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace Fortnum's story through St James's, connecting its candle-wax origins to the Royal Warrants, Mason's Yard and the wider history of Piccadilly's aristocratic trade.