So long a street was naturally divided up into a large number of different building 'takes' of varying size. Development continued over about twenty years from 1720 and appears chiefly to have been in the hands of building tradesmen who also worked elsewhere on the estate. Most of the houses had quite narrow fronts and were of three storeys above ground plus garrets. There are some indications that shops were from the first concentrated to the east of South Audley Street, but they were certainly not excluded (as is now the case) from the western section of Mount Street stretching through to Park Lane.
The appearance of the workhouse after reconstruction is not recorded. It seems to have been heightened all round, while the front and back courtyards were filled in; this centre part included 'plaster floors' supplied by John Papworth, like those at the St. Marylebone workhouse. At the west end, additional space was taken to build a watchhouse with premises over, and here the Vestry met regularly from this time until 1886. The watch-house was the chief object of aggression during riots of June 1792 in Mount Street. (fn. 10) Subsequent alterations at the workhouse appear to have included the formation of a chapel at the eastern end of the burial ground, and other changes may well have been made by the time of its demolition in 1886.
The rest of old Mount Street seems not to have boasted business concerns of quite the same size, except for John Robson's coach manufactory at the north-west corner with South Audley Street, with workshops in Reeves Mews. (fn. 25) There were however assorted taverns and eating houses. At the door of one such coffee house the poet Shelley waited in order to elope with Harriet Westbrook of Chapel Street early one morning in August 1811, exclaiming to his accomplice as he flung the shells of oysters on which he had breakfasted across the street, 'Grove, this is a Shelley business'. (fn. 26) To the west of South Audley Street, as has been said, more of the houses were confined to domestic use, and close to the park the neighbourhood was quite fashionable. At the north-east corner with Park Street (the site of the present No. 54 Mount Street) a discreet private hotel was established, probably by Michael Lemm in 1828; at first known as Lemm's Hotel but from 1840 as the Grosvenor Hotel, it had for a time an extension almost opposite, on the west side of Park Street. (fn. 25) On the north side of Mount Street there was only one house west of Park Street, the rest of the frontage up to Park Lane being taken up by the end of the garden to Grosvenor House.
On the south side of Mount Street towards the west end, a number of rebuildings took place in the 1820's and 1830's. A major operator here was William Skeat (father of the philologist), whose claim to undertake redevelopment was admitted by the Estate in 1820, 'his Ancestors having built a considerable part of the adjoining Houses': (fn. 27) this doubtless refers to Thomas Skeat. At this date William Skeat's own premises comprised a large irregular dwelling (No. 65 Mount Street) with sheds and an ice-house beyond to the west at the corner of Park Lane. (fn. 28) It was eventually agreed that so long as he lowered these sheds so as to make them invisible from Grosvenor House, he could erect a short range of three new houses (originally Nos. 65–67 consec.) between Park Lane and Park Street. (fn. 29) This range was built in about 1829–31, and towards Mount Street had a stucco ground floor and brick upper storeys with Ionic pilasters at the ends, rather in the manner of some of Cubitt's work in Bloomsbury (Plates 73d, 88c: see also Plate 23b in vol. XXXIX). Skeat soon let No. 66, the middle house, which was taken in 1832 by William Brougham, brother of the Lord Chancellor and himself later second Lord Brougham, but the smaller house nearest the park (No. 65) remained empty for several years. (fn. 12) From about 1835 Skeat's workshops to the west of No. 65 were in the hands of the builder John Elger who converted part of them into stables for General (Sir) Henry Wyndham, Brougham's successor at No. 66 from 1838. In that year Wyndham ran Nos. 65 and 66 together, and this double house with a fine view over the park was usually known subsequently as No. 66. Between 1864 and 1875 George J. Goschen, M.P., lived here; (fn. 30) after he left, in 1875, an open portico was added by the architects Joseph and Pearson. (fn. 31) Less is known about the next-door house, No. 67 Mount Street, which Skeat retained for his own occupation until 1838, but photographs of 1913 show that a new tenant, Eustace Pandia Ralli, had just installed rich woodwork and fine carpets on the first floor. (fn. 32) All three houses, having survived the first Duke's rebuildings, disappeared with the construction of Fountain House in 1935–8.
Between South Audley Street and Davies Street the low status of the old houses on the south side of Mount Street was governed by the proximity of the workhouse and their own lack of depth, since the burial ground and the boundary of the Grosvenor estate came close behind. One exception was a large house set well back from the street to the east of the workhouse, and accessible only from a long covered entrance passage. Numbered 108 on Horwood's map of 1792 it was later known as No. 111 Mount Street. Though mainly on Grosvenor land, it enjoyed a sizeable garden and by 1811 also a two-storey octagonal extension on the Berkeley estate. (fn. 37) Only the plan is known of this ample house, which had been built in about 1724–5 by John Elkins, bricklayer, and by him assigned to Samuel Nociter; its later residents included John Conyers, esquire, (1776–1811) and Sir George Philips, M.P., (1813–45). (fn. 38) When the Farm Street Catholic Church was built in 1844–9 it abutted to its east on the garden and octagon of this house, which was subsequently acquired for the accommodation of Jesuits, and its site is now filled by the Farm Street Presbytery at No. 114 Mount Street.
One or two houses further east were of fair quality, but the only one of real note on this side of Mount Street was at its extreme eastern end, at the corner with Davies Street. The building lease for this house was granted to Francis Commins, mason, in 1732, (fn. 39) but Commins died shortly afterwards and in 1735 his widow granted a sub-lease of the still unfinished house to Thomas How, upholsterer. (fn. 40) Although numbered in Mount Street until c. 1840, the house fortuitously acquired a fine southward aspect over Berkeley Square when that square was laid out in the 1740's, and it was eventually given the more prestigious address of No. 34 Berkeley Square. This was because the west side of the square at its northernmost point was set back some forty feet from the entrance to Davies Street, thus turning what had been the back of the easternmost plot in Mount Street into a forty-foot 'frontage' to the square, an effect which has now been entirely lost by the widening of the roadway at the junction of Mount Street, Berkeley Square and Davies Street.
Lady Mary was 'perfectly satisfied' with her new house although she thought the purchase of it would make her 'extremely poor'. (fn. 42) Nevertheless in 1780 Lancelot (Capability) Brown and Henry Holland undertook a major remodelling of the interior, after which she pronounced herself 'much pleased with my little Apartment'. (fn. 43) She retained the house until her death in 1811. Succeeding occupants were the second Earl of Abergavenny, 1812–43; his son, the third Earl, 1843–5; and Sir Charles Wetherell, a former Attorney General, 1845–6.
On Wetherell's death in 1846 his widow sold the house to Samuel Pratt, an upholsterer of New Bond Street, (fn. 44) who converted it into two houses. A complete rebuilding does not seem to have taken place, but very extensive alterations were made to the designs of the architect Thomas Little. The two new houses shared a common elevation to Berkeley Square and here Little dressed them in the full Italianate manner with porticoes, columns, pediments, balconies and a deep bracketed cornice. (fn. 45) The easternmost house, which did not have an entrance in the square, was at first numbered in Mount Street but this was quickly changed to 33 Berkeley Square, while the western of the two was numbered 34 Berkeley Square. Admiral Lord Colchester, the second Baron, lived in the latter house from 1856 until his death there in 1867.
The newly converted houses had a relatively short life, however, for in 1879 they were demolished and a large part of their site was thrown into the roadway at a new junction between the north-west corner of Berkeley Square and Mount Street (see page 329).
1. In October 1727 bills to the value of £1,480 were due for payment to the following craftsmen: Thomas Phillips, carpenter, £500; Benjamin Timbrell, carpenter, £500; William Barlow senior, bricklayer (with Henry Elkins), £200; David Audsley, plasterer, £100; George Pearce, plumber, £100; Francis Commins, mason, £50; Thomas Goff, smith, £30. Advances of £200 had already been made to Timbrell and Phillips, and of £100 to Barlow and Elkins.
2. According to the ratebooks the style of the firm was successively Elward and Marsh, or Messrs. Marsh and Company (1785–97); Elward, Marsh and Tatham (1798–1802); Marsh and Tatham (1803–6); Tatham and Bailey (1807–10); Tatham, Bailey and Saunders (1811–17); Bailey and Saunders (1818–27); and Edward Bailey (1828–42).
3. Survey of London, vol. XXXIX, 1977, p. 12.
4. P.R.O., C54/5236, no. 7.
5. W.C.L., C766, pp. 1–120 passim.
6. An Account of Several Work-Houses for Employing and Maintaining the Poor, 1732, pp. 26 7: B.M., Dept. of Prints and Drawings, Crace Views, Suppl., portf. XXIX, no. 23.
7. W.C.L., C768, pp. 60–3.
8. Ibid., C771, pp. 265, 304.
9. Ibid., C774, passim, esp. pp. 298 300; C775, C913, C914: The World, 23 Jan., 18 March, 17, 25 April 1787.
10. W.C.L., C775, p. 226: The World, 6, 8 June 1792.
11. R.B.: Gunnis, pp. 375, 396.
13. R. Edwards and M. Jourdain, Georgian Cabinet Makers, 1955, p. 111: Country Life, 8 June 1972, pp. 1481 6.
14. G.O., survey plans, Mount Street, 'Mr. Vernon', 2 July 1813.
15. Somerset House Gazelle and Literary Museum, no. XLIX, 11 Sept. 1824, p. 349: A. Graves, Dictionary of Royal Academy Exhibitors, vol. 1, 1905, p. 224.
16. GBM 6/46, 50: G.O., misc. 19th. cent. deeds, agreement of 20 March 1815, Earl Grosvenor with T. Tatham and E. Bailey.
17. R.B.: The Proceedings of the Wedgwood Society, no. 8, 1970, pp. 193 6.
18. E. T. Cook, Homes and Haunts of John Ruskin, 1912, p. 6.
20. Ibid., 6/109, 306; 7/472: R.B.
21. G.O., survey plans, Mount Street, ground plans of Nos. 24 and 25.
22. GBM 8/17, 43; 9/391: R.B.
23. GBM 8/43, 333: G.O., survey plans, Mount Street, Nos. 24–26, 1852.
24. GBM 12/515, 549; 13/91, 203: G.O., survey plans, Mount Street, Nos. 24 26, 1852: Furniture History, vol. 6, 1970, pp. 43–7, 54.
26. Edward Dowden, The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1909, vol. 1, p. 82.
28. G.O., survey plans, Mount Street, 'Messrs. Pritchard and Skeat', 1808.
29. GBM 8/331; 10/375, 470: W.C.L., C138, Mount Street, plans and drawings.
30. G.L.R.O.(L), BRA 658: R.B.
31. M.B.W. Minutes, 12 March 1875, p. 336.
32. N.M.R., Bedford Lemere photos. nos. 22209, 22211.
33. GBM 10/420, 423: W.C.L., C138, Mount Street.
37. G.O., survey plans, Mount Street, Mr. Conyers' house, 6 Dec. 1811.
42. Unpublished journal of Lady Mary Coke in possession of Lord Home, 21 Sept. 1775, 2 4 Jan. 1776.
43. Ibid., 23 June, 4, 26 July, 1 Aug., 18 Oct., 11, 28 Nov., 7, 13, 20 Dec. 1780.
45. Ibid., 1850/2/315; 1850/3/696: G.O., survey plans, Berkeley Square, plans and elevations by Thomas Little, Dec. 1846.
46. Ibid., C766, pp. 30, 120.