The history of the squares of London : topographical & historical

Front matter

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THE HISTORY OF

Preface

MY aim in the writing of this book has been to give the history of the various Squares dealt with in as concise a form as possible, together with, in some cases, short accounts of past interesting inhabitants and anecdotes bearing on them or the localities in which they lived.

It has been obviously impossible to be exhaustive in the treatment of the different Squares, I mean, to trace the history of each house and its successive owners from the earliest days of their dual history, for had I attempted any such feat, my work would have been well-nigh endless, and I fear the volumes, like the valley of bones, would have been very many and very dry. I have, however, consulted many Rate Books to confirm a date, or with the hope of discovering fresh names of interest, and my search has, I am glad to think, not always been unprofitable.

If I attempted to tender my individual thanks to every one who has given me help, during the writing of this book, my task would be a pleasant, but it would also be a lengthy, one. Not only have very many of the present residents in the various Squares of London afforded me every assistance in their power, but the Rectors and Vicars of churches which in many instances stand in the precincts of the Squares, have also given me help on matters in which their knowledge is extensive and peculiar.

There are, however, some to whom my indebtedness cannot be discharged by a mere general line of thanks, and their names should rightly be found here, even if their claims on my gratitude are not specifically stated ; but under the general heading of direct information, loans of books, &c., and researches on behalf of this work, the following, among many others who have shown interest in its progress, it gives me pleasure to particularly thank : —

Mrs. Richmond Ritchie ; Lady Burne-Jones ; Mrs. J. R. Green ; Mrs. Godfrey Clark ; the Marquis of Lansdowne ; the Earl of Kerry ; Lord Carew ; the Archdeacon of Westminster ; C. B. B. McLaren, Esq., K.C., M.P. ; G. Harland Peck, Esq. ; the Hon. Percy Wyndham ; Godfrey Hamilton, Esq. ; W. T. Boodle, Esq. ; H. J. Fielding, Esq. ;

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Sir Howard Vincent ; John B. Chubb, Esq., F.R.I.B.A. ; Weedon Grossmith, Esq. ; Walter P. Daniell, Esq. ; Lord Haversham ; Graham Vivian, Esq. ; the Earl of Powis ; A. Rhuvon Guest, Esq. ; A. S. Sadler, Esq. ; H. E. Hamilton-King, Esq. ; Robert Birkbeck, Esq. ; J. H. Yoxall, Esq., M.P. ; G. P. Willoughby, Esq. ; Francis Ricardo, Esq. ; Halsey Ricardo, Esq. ; Herbert C. Gibbs, Esq. ; W. Harris, Esq. ; L. L. Berman, Esq. ; T. F. Blackwell, Esq. ; A. R. O. Stutfield, Esq. ; F. W. Hunt, Esq. ; J. Mackintosh, Esq. ; besides many others who have taken an interest in the work during its progress, and have helped with advice and encouragement.

To these sources of information must be added both that of the offices of the various ground-landlords, as well as the Rate Books. From the heads of the former and the custodians of the latter I have received every courtesy, which I here most gratefully acknowledge.

To speak in any detail of the books I have consulted — historical, biographical, and topographical — is unnecessary ; but had I not had the splendid piece of work which Mr. Arthur Dasent has done in his History of St. James s Square , or the excellent account of Leicester Square by Tom Taylor (the only two books, so far as I know, dealing specifically with Squares), my chapters on those two places would have been far less adequate, than, thanks to them, I hope I have made them.

Of a more embracing nature, I need hardly say how much I owe to Mr. H. B. Wheatley’s great amplification of Cunningham’s Handbook of London , under the title of London Past and Present , a monumental work which combines the various labours of those who have more amply dealt with particular districts, whose individual works have also laid me under deep obligations ; to which Mr. Harrison’s Memorable London Houses and Mr. Flutton’s Literary Landmarks must be added, as affording those short cuts to information which might otherwise have been easily overlooked.

To all these, and to how many others, I can but say, in Hamlet’s words —

“Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks ; but 1 thank you.”

E. B. C.

29 Elm Park Gardens, S.W.

Introduction

“ London ! thou comprehensive word,

What joys thy streets and squares afford.”

Luttrell, Advice lo Julia.

THE “Square” as we know it, that is, as a residential quarter, is essentially an English institution. It is neither exactly analogous to the French Place, the Italian Piazza, or the German Platz ; nor do we find on the Continent, to take but this quarter of the globe, any collocation of private houses, the inhabitants of which have a sort of prescriptive right over the ground on which their residences abut, as have those in the residential Squares of London; for such as Trafalgar and Sloane Squares, which have much in common with the Places of Paris, are not included in the perambulation which we are about to undertake.1

Those which I have dealt with in this volume, are practically all the residential Squares in London ; their number is a larger one than many people would at first imagine, and their characteristics are curiously diverse. As Charles Lamb speaks of certain books which are “ no books,” so I may well describe certain Squares as being “no Squares”; and by this is not meant merely that their form logically precludes the appropriateness of such a designation, for were this so, this book would be a small one, as it is a curious fact that hardly any of the Squares of London are, in form, square at all ; there are some which are triangles, some with only three, and many with unequal sides, and a few mere wedges and excrescences from adjoining thoroughfares ; but by “ no Squares ” are meant such curious survivals of a past time, as, to take an instance, Gough Square, which contains one house of great interest and a few other buildings of little or none.

Then, the diverse characteristics of London Squares will be found in the antithesis of those in the east, to those in the west, end of the City. The former, once important in their buildings and their past residents, but now fallen from their high estate to merely commercial and

1 Neither are the Squares belonging to the various Inns of Court dealt with, as being in their character sui generis ; and requiring for their adequate treatment, a volume to themselves.

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INTRODUCTION professional uses ; the latter still retaining their original character, but even here, in some instances, as in the case of Hanover Square, which appears to be following in the wake of Soho, Red Lion, Golden, Devonshire, and Salisbury Squares, to mention but these, gradually undergoing a metamorphosis no less sure because it happens to be slow.

We shall find that, apart from those in the City, the great majority of London Squares are of comparatively recent date, that is, not earlier than the eighteenth century ; the exceptions can be counted on the fingers, and many of the more important, not historically but residentially speaking, if the word can be used in this connection, will be found to be situated on ground regarded, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, as being almost, if not quite, in the country ; some of which were not formed till the century had reached the second half of its course.

Some Squares that are no longer in existence will be found dealt with ; some, like Queen Square, Westminster, now known as Queen Anne’s Gate, that have lost their identity in a change of nomenclature, but have otherwise practically retained their original features; some having so little of historic or antiquarian interest attaching to them that they have to be perforce dismissed with a mere allusion; others so full of interest that it has been difficult to discriminate between what should be said about them and what left unsaid. What I have attempted to do, is to set down the history of the various Squares, to describe their formation, to trace the occupancy of their houses to interesting, notable, in some cases notorious, people, and to, here and there, enliven a mere dull enumeration of names and dates, by some story or anecdote, which may seem to be not wholly out of place in a book of this character. Had I attempted to do more than this, the result would have been stupendous, the number of volumes required appalling, and the time needed for its completion lifelong, for it is a fact that, taken as a whole, the history of the Squares of London and their inhabitants, past and present, makes a large inroad on the literary, the artistic, and the political annals of the country. Statesmen and poets, writers and politicians, men and women of fashion, artists and doctors, people who have been famous or infamous, those who have been celebrated and those who have only been notorious, will all be found among the past residents, all having the same varied characteristics and the same various claims to attention as the Squares in which they once lived, and who are now

“ Cold, cold as those who lived and loved a thousand years ago.”

Obviously I have been forced to refrain from any excursion into what may be termed conjectural hypothesis, for had I done this, I might have

INTRODUCTION xi reasonably connected with the many houses, with the very stones of the Squares, nearly all the great ones of the past who have made London their home, and whose footsteps must so often have echoed on the pavements or in the rooms, from Devonshire Square in the east to St. James’s in the west.

But although I have not attempted any such rehabilitation of life in the past as this, I have noticed the residence in various Squares of such real personages as Esmond and Sir Charles Grandison, Ralph Nickleby and Amelia Sedley ; and even if these names are not to be found in the Rate Books, their ghosts must surely haunt the Squares where their actual presence seems hardly less real than does that of the many famous men and women whom we shall meet with in the following pages.

Apart from the intrinsic interest attaching to the various Squares,1 we must remember that they all form part of that great organic whole, that wonder and mystery, that microcosm of the universe, London ! Johnson once said that “ London is nothing to some people ; but to a man whose pleasure is intellectual, London is the place.” If my readers agree with the great lexicographer, to borrow Miss Pinkerton’s phrase, I shall hardly want a further inducement to tempt them into a perambulation of these lesser lungs to which the innumerable arteries of this great organism lead, and they will be more ready to find excuses for the many imperfections and shortcomings in the following pages, because these pages try to tell, however inadequately, something of the City they love.

NOTE

During the writing of this book a few alterations have taken place in the occupancy of some of the houses in the various squares, apart from the changes of private ownership which are constantly occurring, and these call for a word of notice.

In Hanover Square, Harewood House has been sold this year (1907) by the Royal Agricultural Society to the Central London Property Syndicate for ,£45,000, and the Society’s new headquarters are now at 16 Bedford Square.

No. 20 St. James’s Square, late the residence of the Watkin Wynn family, has been purchased by the Earl of Strathmore ; while Winchester House, next door, has ceased to form part of the War Office, in consequence of the completion of the new War Office buildings in Whitehall.

In Cavendish Square, Harcourt House, as indicated in the text, has now been completely demolished, and on its site residential flats are being erected.

I have not mentioned the so-called Audley Square, because it cannot, notwithstanding its

1 Those mentioned, some only mentioned I need hardly say, number about 200. To these the tiny Princes Square, situated between Little Queen Street and Gate Street and once in the parish of St. Giles, might be added.

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INTRODUCTION name, be regarded as other than an integral part of South Audley Street ; its seven houses simply standing back from the main thoroughfare. It is, however, interesting to know that the Duke of York was occupying one of the houses at the time of his death, although that did not actually occur here, in 1827 ; that Spencer Perceval was born herein November 1762 ; and that Lady William Russell, the mother of the late Lord Ampthill, whose charm of manner attracted to her salon so many notable people, lived at No. 2 for a number of years.

There should, too, be added to the account of Orme Square, the fact that the late Lord Leighton occupied No. 2 from the autumn of 1859, till he removed to his house in Holland Park Road in 1866 ; while the eminent Lord Chief Justice Coleridge resided at No. 1 Sussex Square.

An error has crept into p. 46. It was not the “ Princely Chandos” who died of grief at the loss of his infant son, as there stated, and as mentioned by Hare ! As a matter of fact, the duke died in 1744, aged seventy-one, and was succeeded by his sixth son, the second duke.

The date of the planting of the plane-trees in Berkeley Square should be 1789, and not 1759-

Contents

PREFACE .

INTRODUCTION .

CHAP.

Chapter I

“ A broad square, filled with trees, flowers, and garden-ground opens before us.”

Max Schlesinger, Saunterings in and about London.

THOUGH not so old as St. James’s or Bloomsbury Squares, Berkeley Square is one of the oldest and most important of the squares or “quadrates,” as Maitland1 terms them, in the west end of London. Its genesis, the noble family and mansion from which it takes its name, and the original appearance of many of the houses, as well as its position in the heart of the most fashionable portion of the town, all contribute to its importance and interest ; while the number of remarkable people who have, at one time or another, lived in it, give it an almost historic position in the annals of the country.

It was formed in the early part of the eighteenth century,2 on a portion of the “ noble gardens,” as Evelyn calls them, of Berkeley House which John, Lord Berkeley, the hero of Stratton fight, erected at a cost of over ^30,000 on his return from his tenure of the vice-royalty of Ireland. “It was built not only in the country, but where a rustic structure stood, called Hay Hill farm,” says the Hon. Grantley Berkeley,3 “ nevertheless it was on the north side of Piccadilly, opposite the Green Park. The estate of which it formed a part was afterwards selected for building purposes by his widow, and a square and two streets in a few years sprang up around it, much to the distaste of honest John

1 History of London.

2 In Aggas’ plan {temp. Queen Elizabeth) the site is shown as open fields, as it also is in the later plan by Faithorne dated 1655.

3 My Life and Recollections , vol. i. p. 78.

Evelyn, who feelingly expressed his disapprobation at the overgrowth of London ! ”

In 1736, Messrs. Cock and Hillyard, described in the deeds as “ carpenters,” had obtained building leases and erected houses in Bruton Street and Berkeley Street, and having been successful in their undertaking, were anxious to enlarge their operations, whereupon William, Lord Berkeley, agreed to grant them a lease of certain ground on the understanding that the necessary space should be left to complete the square. It was not, however, till eleven years later that Lord Berkeley’s successor, John, Lord Berkeley, executed this lease, by which he granted to Edward Cock and Francis Hillyard of the parish of St. George’s, Hanover Square, about three acres of land, which now comprises Berkeley Square. In the lease thus granted, this land is described as being “ enclosed by dwarf brick walls, and wooden rails and pallisadoes set thereon.” 1

Old Berkeley House,2 which Evelyn calls “one of the most magnificent pallaces of the towne,” and which had been built by Hugh May in the classical style, in imitation of a design by Palladio, became the residence at one time of the Princess Anne until January 1695, and in 1697, was purchased by the first Duke of Devonshire, “ the finest and handsomest gentleman of his time.” On October 16, 1733, it was burnt to the ground, through the carelessness of workmen engaged in repairing it,3 and although many of the more valuable contents were saved, the loss was estimated at ^30,000 — the sum which it was said to have originally cost. The present house, built from designs by Kent and now known as Devonshire House,4 was erected on the site of the former mansion, of which all that was incorporated in the later building was the portico and marble staircase. Although Evelyn saddened at the thought of the extension of London, as we have seen, it was nevertheless he who was consulted by Lady Berkeley in the development of a portion of her estate, and in his Diary , under date of June 12, 1684, he writes: “I went to advise and give directions about building two streets in Berkeley Gardens, reserving the house and as much of the garden as the breadth of the house. In the meantime I could not but deplore that sweet place (by far the most noble gardens, courts and accommodations, stately porticos, etc.,

1 Information kindly supplied me by Walter Boodle, Esq., of the Grosvenor Estate Office.

2 The only view of it known to exist is that on the large map of London published by Ogilby and Morgan about 1682. It shows a palatial erection not unlike old Burlington House

close by.

3 Wheatley’s Round about Piccadilly , p. 96.

* The name seems to have been changed when the Duke of Devonshire purchased it in 1697, for his death in 1707, is stated by Bishop Kennet to have occurred at "Devonshire House Piccadilly.” N ote to Evelyn’s Life of Mrs. Godolphin.

anywhere about town) should be so much straitened and turned into tenements.” The Diarist, however, finds some excuse for Lady Berkeley’s action, in the fact that Lord Clarendon’s house close by had met the same fate, and also in consequence of “ so excessive a price as was offered, advancing near ^iooo per annum in mere ground rents.” Could Evelyn have anticipated what would be the value of these mere ground rents two centuries later, he might have regarded the change still more philosophically !

In a plan of the Parish of St. James’s taken from a survey made in 1755, and reproduced by Jesse,1 we can see the relative size of old Berkeley House and its grounds ; practically the northern half of the ground there shown now forms the site of the present Lansdowne House, which occupies the whole of the south side of Berkeley Square, except the south-eastern corner, which forms the opening into Berkeley Street.

Notwithstanding the central position which Berkeley Square occupies, Beloe in his Sexagenarian tells an anecdote which curiously illustrates the restricted peregrinations of our forefathers ; it was the last story which he heard Horace Walpole relate, and is to the effect that “ in the time of Sir Robert Walpole it was the established etiquette that the Prime Minister returned no visits, but on his leaving office Sir Robert took the earliest opportunity of visiting his friends, and one morning he happened to pass, for this purpose, through Berkeley Square, the whole of which had been actually built whilst he was Minister, and he had never before seen it. This incident alone prevailed upon his son Horace to take the first opportunity which offered of purchasing a house here.” 2

Lansdowne House, which with its grounds occupies the whole of the south side of the square, was commenced in the middle of the eighteenth century by the Earl of Bute, from designs by Robert Adam ; and it is known, as Wraxall phrases it, that this magnificent residence “ exposed him to very malignant comments respecting the means by which he had reared so expensive a pile ” ; while political scandal, at the time, asserted that Lansdowne House was built by one Peace (Lord Bute’s in 1762) and paid for by another (Lord Shelburne’s in 1783). It was not, however, till 1765 that Lord Bute sold the place in an unfinished condition to the Earl of Shelburne for ^22,500, although as it then stood

1 Memorials of London.

2 This is given in Wheatley and Cunningham’s London Past and Present. But it is hardly correct to say that the whole Square had been built during Walpole’s tenure of office. Walpole’s first premiership lasted from 1715-1717, his second from 1721-1742; and, as we have seen, the Square was formed early in the eighteenth century. Allowing, however, for its very gradual development, we may substitute the word “finished” in place of “built,” and be tolerably correct.

it is supposed to have cost him some thousands more. Lord Shelburne, the “ Malagrida ” 1 of Junius and the “Jesuit of Berkeley Square” of George 111., would appear to have been contemplating the purchase of a house, or a site on which to build one, some years previously, for we find C. J. Fox writing to him, on June 29, 1761, when he talked of retiring from public life, thus : “ I see you have ordered Mr. Adam to look out for space to build an Hotel upon. The late Lord Leicester2 and the late Lord Digby were about a fine piece of ground for that purpose, still to be had, the garden of which, or the court before which, may extend all along the bottom of Devonshire garden, though no house must be built there ; the house must be where some old paltry stables stand at the lower end of Bolton Row.” 3 This site was, however, secured by Lord Bute, before Lord Shelburne could make up his mind to take Fox’s advice, and the present position of Lansdowne House, not facing Berkeley Square as one might have supposed it would, is thus accounted for by the restrictions mentioned by Fox — restrictions undoubtedly made when Lady Berkeley of Stratton originally developed the estate. We find a reference to the new house in Lady Shelburne’s Diary, where, under date of January 14, 1760, she writes: “Lord Dunmore breakfasted here, and went afterwards with Lord Shelburne to the new house in Berkeley Square.” Although Lord Shelburne gave a sort of house-warming in his new possession on August 1, 1760, it was even then in an unfinished state, for Lady Shelburne’s Diary contains this entry for August 20th of the same year : “ I had the pleasure of coming to Shelburne House, from whence I continue this diary My Lord was just going to the Council, as I arrived, with Lord Granby; we had some little conversation upon the steps, and I had full time to walk over and examine the house. It is very noble and I am much pleas’d with it, tho’ perhaps few people wou’d have come to live in it in so unfinished a state.”4 Although Lord Shelburne held various high offices and was Prime Minister in 1782—3, being created Marquis of Lansdowne in the following year, and although, as Mr. McCarthy says, “ most of his political ideas were in advance of his time, and his personal friendships prove him to have been a man of appreciative intelligence,” 5 it seems to have been

1 Goldsmith once naively remarked to Lord Shelburne that he could not imagine why any one should compare him to Malagrida, “for Malagrida was a very good sort of man."

2 Thomas Coke, created Earl of Leicester 1744, and Edward, sixth Lord Digby.

3 Fitzmaurice's Life of Lord Shelburne , vol. i. p. 106.

4 Ibid., vol. ii. p. I S3.

5 Hayward tells a story to the effect that “when Gainsborough painted his portrait, his lordship complained that it was not like. The painter said he did not approve of it either, and

begged to try again. Failing a second time he flung down his pencil, saying : “D it,

I never could see through varnish, and ‘there’s an end.’”

rather his misfortune than his fault that he could never attain a reputation for sincerity ; and we shall not be surprised to find Lord Brougham, considering that the fact that Dr. Priestley was Librarian at Lansdowne House in the time of Lord Shelburne, constituted its chief glory. The passage in the life of Priestley can, mutatis mutandis , be compared with Gibbon’s more celebrated apotheosis of Fielding: “With whatever difference of sentiment statesmen may at any time view Lansdowne House, the lovers of science in the latest ages will gaze with veneration on that magnificent pile, careless of its architectural beauties but grateful for the light which its illustrious founder caused to beam from thence over the whole range of natural knowledge ; and after the structure shall have yielded to the fate of all human works, the ground on which it once stood, consecrated to far other recollections than those of conquest or power, will be visited by the pilgrim of philosophy with a deeper fervour than any that fills the bosom near the Forum or the Capitol of ancient Rome.”

Although Brougham makes this statement with regard to Priestley alone, it is probable that when he wrote it he did not foresee the illustrious ones in all walks of life whom the third Marquis of Lansdowne was to gather around him in Berkeley Square. Without taking up a large portion in the annals of his country, the third Lord Lansdowne was a remarkable man and held many high offices of state, and indeed in his later years became a sort of Nestor to the Liberal Party. Lucky in himself and his possessions, he was luckier still in his friends, and the pages of Moore’s Diary and similar records of the period attest the amiability of his character and the discrimination of his judgment. One reference in Moore’s journal may parenthetically be given here. He was told by Jekyll that the proprietor of Lansdowne House before the old Lord Lansdowne, presumably Lord Bute, had a project of placing twenty-seven fiddlers in an underground apartment, hermetically sealed, from which room pipes introduced into any other chamber where required, would conduct the music ; Lord Lansdowne himself confirmed this, but stated that an organ and not men, was intended to be thus placed, and that the pipes were actually discovered when some repairs were being subsequently made to the mansion.

The son of the first Marquis was also a man of some little note — “ a tall personable man, rather regardless of his dress,” according to a contemporary authority ; 1 he succeeded as second Marquis in 1805, and died four years later. His first act on succeeding to the title was to disperse the fine collection of literary and artistic treasures which his

1 Public Characters, 1809-10.

father had collected in Lansdowne House. The pictures went in all directions, but the invaluable Lansdowne MSS. were purchased en bloc by the British Museum. But although the second Marquis showed so little care for these treasures, he proved his appreciation of the collection of antique statues, which he took over from the executors of the first Marquis, at ^6000 or £jooo. It was this nobleman who tried to emulate Sir William Petty’s principle of a double-bottomed ship1 — with somewhat disastrous results. Eccentric in most things, he took a pride in emerging from Lansdowne House in the coldest weather without great-coat or gloves, and in town he became a marked man.2

When the third Marquis succeeded his half-brother, he found, with the exception of a few family portraits, hardly a picture in Lansdowne House, and it became his immediate care to bring together a fine and representative collection of the works of the old masters, while the contemporary records of celebrated painters show that he was a liberal and discriminating patron of the artists of his own time ; he also purchased from the widow of the second Marquis, the collection of sculpture which had been left her by that peer, and which is thus proved, rather curiously, not to have been an heirloom.

The pictures which grace this noble house are too numerous to mention with anything like completeness ; but special attention may be drawn to Reynolds’s beautiful portrait of Mrs. Sheridan as St. Cecilia, and the celebrated portrait of Pope by Jervas, as well as Hogarth’s well-known representation of Peg Woffington, Reynolds’s portrait of Horace Walpole, the sleeping child by Velasquez, and the Due de Reichstadt by Lawrence, besides examples of the great painters from the early days of the art down to Leighton and Millais.

The beautiful furniture and objtts d' art equal in value and rarity the canvases that hang on the walls, and the magnificent reception rooms, of which a characteristic is that they all communicate, and thus form, on the occasion of balls and receptions, one vast and complete suite of apartments, as do those on the first floor, form a fitting setting for these treasures, and place Lansdowne House amongst the half-dozen finest private palaces (to call them houses seems inadequate) in London.