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Survey of London: volume 40: The Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair, Part 2 (The Buildings)
F. H. W. Sheppard (General Editor)
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'Park Lane', Survey of London: volume 40: The Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair, Part 2 (The Buildings) (1980), pp. 264-289. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=42151 Date accessed: 27 November 2014.
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Park Lane
Nos. 55–62 (consec.) Park Lane and 2–22 (even) South Street.
Aldford House.
Fountain House.
Breadalbane House (demolished).
Former Nos. 27 and 28 (demolished).
Grosvenor House.
Nos. 93–99 (consec.).
No. 93
No. 94
No. 95
No. 96.
No. 97.
No. 98
No. 99
Dudley House: No. 100 Park Lane.
Nos. 105–108 (consec.).
Brook House.
No. 117.
Avenfield House: Nos. 118–127 (consec.).
No. 128.
No. 129.
No. 130 Park Lane and No. 23 Dunraven Street
No. 131 Park Lane and No. 22 Dunraven Street
No. 132 Park Lane and No. 21 Dunraven Street.
No. 20 Dunraven Street
No. 138 Park Lane.
Somerset House (demolished).
Camelford House (demolished).
Nos. 139 and 140 Park Lane and 527–539 (odd) Oxford Street.
Today, looking over the wide dual carriageway of Park
Lane with Hyde Park stretching beyond, it is difficult to
imagine that this road was once a narrow, rutted and unlit
track alongside a high brick wall which screened it from the
park. In 1741 Tyburn Lane (as it was then known) was one
of a number of roads taken over by the Kensington
Turnpike Trust because they had, 'by reason of many
heavy Carriages, frequently passing through the same,
become very ruinous, and many Parts thereof are, in the
Winter and wet Seasons, so bad, that the same are
dangerous to Passengers'. (ref. 1) The Trust paved the southern
end of the road but the northern part, skirting the
Grosvenor estate, was merely repaired with ballast
obtained from the nearby building operations. (ref. 2)
It is small wonder that builders were circumspect in
treating for those parts of the estate which fronted on to the
lane. A short terrace of houses—King's Row on the site of
the present Nos. 93–99 (consec.) Park Lane—was built
there in the 1720's and 1730's, but it was set back from the
roadway behind a small plantation, and few other houses
were erected directly along its remaining frontage. When
Norfolk (now Dunraven) Street was laid out in the 1750's
the houses on the west side turned their backs to Park
Lane, a circumstance that eventually led to much
picturesque modification of these rear elevations still
visible in the surviving houses of the range between Green
Street and North Row (Plate 74a, 74b: see also Plate 19c in
vol. XXXIX).
Nevertheless from the 1730's some independent houses
of substance were built sporadically along or near its length
(including, on the Grosvenor estate, those of Lords
Dudley, Petre, Bateman, and Camelford), but the social
ascent of Park Lane had no precise starting point. By the
end of the eighteenth century it was recognized as a
desirable situation even if 'long neglected', and improvements were being mooted. (ref. 3)
It was in the years 1822–32 that Park Lane finally came
into its own, however, with a spate of reconstruction which
obliterated some of the more slipshod parts of previous
development and dramatically enhanced property values.
At the southern end, these were the years of Benjamin
Wyatt's remodelling of Londonderry House and of Apsley
House (the latter strictly in Piccadilly). Further north,
Dudley House was rebuilt and Grosvenor House was
enlarged. Among the smaller buildings, Nos. 93–94,
96–99, 117 and 138 were rebuilt to a grander scale, and at
about the same time many older residences received
decorative additions in the shape of balconies and verandahs
facing the park (Plates 73a, 73b, 73c, 74a, 74b, fig. 62: see also
Plate 19 in vol. XXXIX). There was a general rise in
fashionable house prices at this time, but the inflation
along Park Lane was exceptional. Old Dudley House
fetched £6,510 in 1789, but was believed (with improvements and a new lease) to be worth £24,000 in 1826. A year
earlier, £14,000 was asked for No. 93 Park Lane, a house of
only moderate size. (ref. 4) A little earlier, Lord Grenville
managed briefly in 1816 to exact a yearly rent of no less
than £2,500 for Camelford House, perhaps with a full
establishment thrown in; yet less than twenty years before,
Somerset House next door, with quite a substantial term of
years in its lease still to come, had realized only £9,450 at
A partial explanation for these rebuildings and increases
in value may lie in the improvements made to Hyde Park in
1825–9, under the superintendence of Decimus Burton
and James McAdam. For residents, the greatest boon was
the substitution of iron railings for the old high wall which
had hitherto impeded their prospect of the park. Some
parts of this wall had already disappeared, however, for the
Office of Woods' survey of 1823 which recommended these
changes stated: 'The external Fences of the Parks, have of
late years been considerably improved, without any charge
to the public, by the Owners of Houses who have at their
own Expence, and with the Sanction of the proper
Department of the Government, removed the unsightly
Brick walls, and substituted open Iron Railing opposite to
their respective Mansions. This improvement does not
however, appear likely to be carried farther at the Expence
of Individuals . . .' (ref. 5)
High-class residents on the estate also benefited from a
change in the position of Grosvenor Gate, their chief point
of access into the park for the drives and promenades so
fashionable at this period. The original Grosvenor Gate
was opposite King Street Mews (now Culross Street) and
had a lodge attached (Plate 13a, 13b in vol. XXXIX). It had
been opened in 1724 following a petition to the Crown: Sir
Richard Grosvenor, who had probably instigated the
petition because the gate would add to the amenity of his
new developments, had agreed to pay for the lodge and
gateway and to find the keeper's salary. (ref. 6) By 1791 the lodge
had cowsheds attached and was out of repair, but the
Estate would do little, as it was hoped to remove the gate to
a smarter position, possibly opposite Upper Brook Street. (ref. 7)
Shortly after making minor repairs to the lodge in 1806–7,
Earl Grosvenor asked permission to take down the Duke of
Gloucester's old riding school (which had been built just
inside the park wall in 1768 and detracted from his view
from Grosvenor House), and to use its materials to build a
new lodge. (ref. 8) The Government rejected this application,
and a further initiative in 1808 from its own Surveyor
General to build nine select villas in this sector of the park
and move the gate to Upper Brook Street came to nothing,
after a well-orchestrated outcry. (ref. 9) Instead, the old lodge
was demolished by Earl Grosvenor in 1811 and apparently
rebuilt close to the same spot, so as to allow for a new
course already projected for the inner road behind the park
wall (ref. 10) (Plate 67a).
Then, when Decimus Burton's comprehensive improvements to the park were finally sanctioned, this was
the first sector to be improved. Work began on the revised
course of the internal road in 1825, in which year the new
fence was erected by Moorman and Westmacott and the
Grosvenor Gate transferred to a position opposite Upper
Grosvenor Street, where a new Doric lodge was ready for
occupation by November (Plate 67c). The riding school
close by had been demolished in 1824, but Burton's
ambitious plans to enlarge the reservoir of the Chelsea
waterworks next to it and build a central obelisk seem to
have been frustrated; the ramshackle building which
housed the engine (Plate 67b) did not disappear until 1835,
at last leaving Grosvenor House with an unimpeded view
over the park. (ref. 11) Burton's small Grosvenor Gate lodge
disappeared in about 1960–3, at the time of the most recent
remodelling of Park Lane.
By 1845 it was possible for an advertiser of a small house
close to the corner with Upper Grosvenor Street to
recommend its situation as 'one of the most recherché in
London, enjoying the Varied Scenery of the Park, the
distant Hills of Surrey, and the salubrious Air therefrom,
while at the same time it is placed in the Centre of
Fashion'. (ref. 12)
Though comparatively little major building occurred in
Park Lane for many years after the outburst of activity in
the 1820's, what did then appear was on the largest scale.
Dorchester House, most opulent of all the Park Lane
palaces, rose just off the estate in 1851–7, and Brook House
followed further north in 1867–9 (Plate 72a). In both fact
and fiction, no London address was so sought after during
the mid-Victorian period as Park Lane.
But in view of increasing traffic, its uneven alignment
and width began to cause serious inconvenience. In 1851
the Marble Arch, then 'lying piecemeal in an inclosure in
the Green-park' following its ignominious expulsion from
the forecourt of Buckingham Palace, was re-erected at
Cumberland Gate, next to the junction of Oxford Street
and Park Lane. (ref. 13) This led to the widening of a small section
at the north end of Park Lane, but the enlargement as far as
Grosvenor Gate at one time predicted did not take place.
Nor could the notorious bottleneck at the narrow southern
end, where Park Lane met Piccadilly, be altered for many
years. But the accident of the great Reform demonstration
of 23 July 1866, when the railings separating Park Lane
from Hyde Park were trampled down by demonstrators
almost all the way from Marble Arch to Stanhope Gate,
allowed the Government to turn the occasion to minor
advantage, and in about 1868 the road was widened from
Oxford Street to Stanhope Gate. (ref. 14) In 1870–1 Hamilton
Place was opened up to relieve the south end of Park Lane,
but with ever-increasing traffic between Paddington and
Victoria stations using this route the problem remained
unresolved. (ref. 15)
Nevertheless Park Lane remained as eligible as ever
until about 1905, though it began gradually to assume a
nouveau riche tone. The Grosvenor estate's sector enjoyed
its quota of the millionaire mineowners and financiers so
prominent in Edwardian society. But men such as Sir
Joseph Robinson of Dudley House, Alfred Beit of Aldford
House and Sir Ernest Cassel of Brook House represented
the dependable rather than the risqué element in new
riches; adventurers like Barney Barnato and Whitaker
Wright lived further south, Barnato being specifically
blocked from acquiring a lease on the estate. Most of these
magnates tried their hand at rebuilding or at least adapting
their houses, but in few cases were the results of much
architectural interest. Perhaps only Aldford House (by
Balfour and Turner, 1894–7) offered real originality, and
even this was not generally held to be successful (Plate 93).
The ostentation of these new homes led a commentator to
complain in 1901 that the street's old casual elegance was
being lost in favour of a 'frippery and extravagance' which
bade fair to convert Park Lane into another Fifth
Avenue. (ref. 16)
The American analogy was a shrewd one, for changes
over the next sixty years were to make Park Lane resemble
nothing so much as one of the great avenues of New York.
In 1905 a newspaper article questioned 'whether this
thoroughfare is becoming a less popular place of residence,
eight of the houses being to be let or sold'. (ref. 17) Soon
afterwards, the first of many complaints of noise from
motor buses was registered. (ref. 18) By 1909 the diminution in
values was so pronounced that 'only an exceptionally
attractive house would have any chance of finding a
purchaser'. (ref. 19) These were the factors which led to the
demolition of Somerset House and its replacement with the
first flats in Park Lane. Despite some public opposition to
this scheme, Frank Verity's Nos. 139–140 Park Lane went
ahead in 1915–19 (Plate 48a in vol. XXXIX).
It was the neo-Georgian tradition championed by
Detmar Blow and Edmund Wimperis rather than Verity's
neo-Grec which triumphed in the flats built between the
wars along the Grosvenor estate's frontage to Park Lane, as
the great houses became uneconomic and were one by one
torn down. The Grosvenor House development (1926–30)
was the first (Plate 74d, fig. 61). The size and prestige of the
project induced Blow to bring in Lutyens as consultant,
and he continued subsequently to help with the elevations
of later blocks. His contribution was undoubtedly largest
at Grosvenor House, but there is a general stylistic
correspondence between this and the new Brook House,
which also involved a degree of collaboration between
Lutyens and the main architects, Wimperis, Simpson and
Guthrie. The new Aldford House and Fountain House
(both by Myer and Watson-Hart) are more independent,
and Lutyens was certainly not involved in the latter.
With these flats, shops for the first time crept into Park
Lane, their lessees being 'regarded rather in the light of
pioneers'. (ref. 20) The expectation that Park Lane would in time
be considered as a shopping street has not been so far
fulfilled. But the new blocks did introduce another novelty
to the estate in the shape of the luxurious penthouse flat
overlooking the park, of which the Mountbattens' at Brook
House was by far the most impressive (Plate 72c, 72d).
Few save capitalists and contractors rejoiced over the
changes in character of the new Park Lane (which, as the
Dorchester Hotel recalls, were not confined to the
Grosvenor estate). There were questions in the House of
Commons and letters to The Times over Grosvenor House
in 1928, and in the same year a thoughtful article in The
Architect and Building News suggested a competition for a
new façade for the whole length of Park Lane. (ref. 21) In
employing Lutyens as consultant for the later flats, Blow
and the Estate were perhaps thinking along these lines, but
nothing as comprehensive as their policy for Grosvenor
Square was ever attempted here. The new buildings did,
however, precipitate a sudden onset of affection for the
remaining stucco fronts along Park Lane, with Maxwell
Fry in the van. (ref. 22) The new sentiment probably helped to
save Nos. 93–99 when their future was seriously in doubt
in 1931.
The war of 1939–45 and its aftermath have not been
kind to these remaining houses. A direct hit in the centre of
the range between Wood's Mews and Green Street led to
the demolition of Nos. 25–31 Dunraven Street (among
which No. 29 was of special interest) and their replacement
by a building of no character. Dudley House too was badly
damaged, losings its ballroom and picture gallery, though a
skilful restoration here has made partial amends. All the
older houses along the Grosvenor estate's frontage to Park
Lane are now offices, and one or two (for instance No. 129)
have been almost wholly reconstructed. Meanwhile,
several of the freeholds of the new flats have been sold by
the Estate.
When traffic had once again greatly increased, a large
slice was taken out of Hyde Park and a broad dual
carriageway with a green swathe in the centre built in
1960–3. This has once again affected Hamilton Place and
the southern reaches of Park Lane more drastically than
the northern end. But the 'parkway'-like character of the
new arrangements has helped to fulfil the prediction made
in 1901 that Park Lane would lose its individuality and
become merely cosmopolitan. Nevertheless, sufficient
remnants of the old houses still survive to fascinate, in their
picturesque variety, the passer-by or even the speeding
motorist, and to give him an inkling of former plutocratic
The houses in Park Lane have twice been officially
renumbered—in 1872 and again in 1934. Those discussed
here extend northward of the Dorchester Hotel.
The history of previous houses here will be
found under South Street on pages 338–40. Their
demolition was being contemplated from 1926, at about
the time that negotiations began for the rebuilding of
Dorchester House, off the estate immediately to the south.
Sir Howard Frank, head of the firm of Knight, Frank and
Rutley, estate agents, was entrusted with advising the
Grosvenor Estate on the sites, which were to be divided
between two developments: one (now Nos. 56–62 Park
Lane and 2 and 4 South Street) at the corner of South
Street and Park Lane, the other (No. 55 Park Lane and
Nos. 6–22 South Street) with a small wedge to Park Lane
and a long frontage to the side street. (ref. 23)
The old Nos. 2 and 4 South Street on the corner site
were demolished in 1929–30, and plans for rebuilding here
were subsequently prepared by Fernand Billerey. But in
the event these were shelved, and it was not until 1933–4
that Gee, Walker and Slater erected the present plain block
of flats at Nos. 56–62 Park Lane for Hyde Park Gate
Estates Limited, to designs by Trehearne and Norman,
Preston and Company. (ref. 24)
The developers of the new Dorchester Hotel did not
show the expected interest in the larger and more irregular
site. So precise boundaries had to be fixed between the
properties, and a further cause of delay occurred when the
tenant of the old No. 14 South Street refused to be bought
out. But in 1934 agreement was reached with J. A.
Mactaggart of the Western Heritable Investment Company Limited to build a block of flats which would
surround No. 14, and this was duly done in about 1935–8
to the designs of Joseph Wilson of Glasgow. (ref. 25) Minor
additions and alterations to these buildings have since been
made, and No. 14 South Street was demolished in 1978.
The present range of shops and flats
here, erected in 1931–2, is the third construction on this
site since the original development and the second to be
called Aldford House. The first houses to be built here
faced Park Street and are described under that street on
page 256. In 1888 when the renewed leases of these houses
were coming near to expiry, the first Duke of Westminster
determined to rebuild the whole block between Chapel
(now Aldford) Street and South Street. The undertaking
was subsequently put off until 1892, a postponement
which killed what had been a promising scheme. For in
1886–7 Robert Hugh Benson, who was to marry the
daughter of R. S. Holford of Dorchester House, approached the Duke with a view to building in Park Lane to
designs by Norman Shaw. It had been agreed that the old
houses here should be replaced by two large 'villas', one at
either end of the site with an open space between, and
Benson was tentatively offered one of these. But the
postponement occurred before Shaw could do more than
produce a few sketches, and Benson had to content himself
with No. 16 South Street as his nuptial home. (ref. 26)
In 1891 2 the matter was reopened and many enquiries
were received about the two proposed plots. The Duke's
surveyor, Eustace Balfour, laid down strict conditions for
the houses (notably that the heights to the gutter should
not exceed 27 feet), so that the amenity of the new houses
proposed for the east side of Park Street should be
protected. By 1893 the field had narrowed to two
associated South African mining magnates, Alfred Beit
and Barney Barnato. Despite repeated applications,
Barnato was unacceptable to the Duke, as he 'does not
stand in a high position in South Africa, and he is a land
speculator'; he was therefore obliged to take land and build
his house further south in Park Lane, off the Grosvenor
estate. Beit agreed to take the northern plot in March 1893,
but the future of the southern site was decided only in
November 1894, after he had begun building, when he was
permitted to use it for a single-storey conservatory or
winter garden and billiard-room here, with an open garden
towards South Street. (ref. 27) Work on the house proceeded
from 1894 under the contractors George Trollope and
Sons, who were hampered by a severe strike against them
in 1894–5. (ref. 28) The lease was granted to Beit in August 1897
for £13,000. (ref. 29)
The late change of plan harmed the appearance of the
new Aldford House (at first No. 26 Park Lane), as it turned
what had been intended as one of two sizeable but low and
compact villas into a single, straggling composition (Plate
93, fig. 59: see also Plate 38a in vol. XXXIX). The problem
was hardly made easier by the eccentric style adopted by
Beit's architects, who were Balfour and his partner
Thackeray Turner; this was an unusual, loose mode of
classicism, characterized by Arts and Crafts textures and
detailing but also strongly under the influence of nearby
Dorchester House. As a whole, it came closer to the
domestic style prevalent in France at the time of François
Premier, especially towards Park Street, where the bulk of
the house was disposed symmetrically between two strong
double-storey bay windows. But the entrance front
towards Aldford Street and the 'show' side on to Park Lane
were complicated by what The Builders' Journal termed 'a
suggestion of the Archaic', that is to say, plain, stubby
columns especially prevalent above the cornice, where they
supported the pediments or minor gables of the attic
windows. Columns of dark Alloa granite with 'archaic'
capitals also served on the ground floor as supports for the
round arches of the porch (Plate 93b), drawing-room
recess and winter garden. The exterior was faced with
rough-cut blocks of Portland stone, laid in alternately deep
and thin courses, and the roof was of the mansard type.
Two main gables to the south and one to the west were
filled with florid carving by Henry Pegram. (ref. 30)
Balfour and Turner were responsible for the plan of
Aldford House, which was straightforward, and unusual
only in confining all the reception rooms to the ground
floor. But their commission ceased after they had panelled
the hall and stair and decorated the first floor, so that the
finishing of the main rooms and toplighting of the staircase
were not their work, and one periodical was induced to
complain strongly of the want of harmony within the
interior. The architects' intention was probably to install
sober oak panelling throughout, but Beit's appetite for
variety and display led him to decorate the rooms
differently. The library received a panelled and inlaid
ceiling of French character, a marble chimneypiece and a
walnut overmantel; the dining-room was panelled in the
French style and at first painted white; the two drawing-rooms, again panelled and containing most of Beit's good
pictures, were said in 1909 to be in a 'Regency style'; while
the billiard-room had a vaulted ceiling, with walls
originally covered in silk brocade. (ref. 31) The spacious winter
garden contained'a rockery and a fountain on one side, and
a palm grove on the other. Tesselated pavements, brown
rocks, and green ferns were all intermingled. It was an
abode of dim coolness and sheltered silence.' (ref. 32)
Figure 59:
Aldford House (demolished), plans in 1898
Aldford House appears to have been untenanted for
some years after Beit's death in 1906. His heir wished to
build higher on top of the winter garden to facilitate a sale,
but this was forbidden after protest from residents in Park
Street. (ref. 33) Eventually in 1912 it was sold for £30,000 to
Captain Frederick Edward Guest, M.P., and his American
wife Amy, née Phipps. Having made some small internal
changes, probably under the architect J. D. Coleridge,
they proceeded in 1913 to undertake some larger works.
To designs by George A. Crawley (who had worked for the
Phipps family in both Britain and the United States), the
main hall and stairwell were refaced in stone, and an
entirely new staircase was inserted (Plate 93c). These
alterations were made in a convincing Louis XVI style,
with strong sculptural detailing and much ornamental
ironwork. (ref. 34)
With the change in character of Park Lane, Mrs. Guest
decided to part with Aldford House in 1929. The Estate
now made an agreement to grant a new lease to J. A.
Phillips in consideration of his pulling down the house and
building a block of shops and flats. His architects were
George Val Myer and F. J. Watson-Hart, but as was
common at this period, Sir Edwin Lutyens was brought in
by the Estate as consultant. The new building, erected by
John Knox and Dyke Limited in 1931–2, is brisker and less
cautious in detail than most other blocks of flats in Park
Lane (Plate 49d in vol. XXXIX). The elevations alternate
between brick and bands of stonework of French oolite.
Shutters and cantilevered balconies are prominent, and
towards Park Lane there is a calculated recession from the
sixth to the eighth storey, ending in a 'penthouse' with a
pitched roof. (ref. 35) Additions have since been made at high
level towards Park Street. (ref. 36)
Last of the large blocks of flats to be
built between the wars on the Grosvenor estate's frontage
to Park Lane, the present Fountain House (1935–8)
replaces a row of houses between Mount Street and
Aldford Street which were mostly numbered in and
entered from Park Street (see page 256). In 1928 the Gas
Light and Coke Company acquired a long lease of all the
properties in the block except that of the comparatively
recently rebuilt No. 15 Aldford Street (see page 256), and
in 1931 the freehold of the whole block was sold to them. (ref. 37)
The present Fountain House was designed by George Val
Myer and F. J. Watson-Hart, architects for the new
Aldford House, with W. L. Scott as engineer and Sir Giles
Gilbert Scott as consultant architect on the Grosvenor
Estate's behalf. (ref. 38) Built in 1935–8 by the contractors Sir
Robert McAlpine and Sons, Fountain House comprises a
garage and filling station in the basement, shops on the
ground floor and luxury flats above, to which the main
entrance is from Park Street. The construction is of
reinforced concrete, and the style of the building is similar
to the adjacent Aldford House, but less bold.
Figure 60:
Lord Petre's (later Breadalbane) House (demolished), plans in 1783
Built in 1766–70
for Robert, ninth Baron Petre of Thorndon Hall in Essex,
this was both the largest and the most interesting of the
three houses fronting Park Lane which formerly stood on
the site of the modern Grosvenor House (fig. 55 on page
244). It survived until 1876–7 and during the nineteenth
century was usually called Breadalbane House after the
first two Marquesses of Breadalbane whose London home
it was for sixty years. Prior to the renumbering of 1872 the
house was also known as No. 21 Park Lane and afterwards
as No. 26.
Lord Petre's architect was James Paine who subsequently published the designs in the second volume of
his Plans Elevations and Sections of Noblemen and
Gentlemen's Houses. (ref. 39) In 1766 Paine was already employed
in rebuilding Thorndon Hall (ref. 40) and he acted on Petre's
behalf in negotiating the site in Park Lane. This was a
rather oddly-shaped five-sided plot taken out of the
curtilage of No. 26 Upper Grosvenor Street and formerly
used for a mason's yard. Under the terms of the agreement
which Paine concluded with the leasehold owners in
October 1766 he undertook to spend at least £5,000 in
building 'one or more substantial messuages' here to be
completed within three years. The house was finished,
ready for Lord Petre's occupation, in 1770, and cost about
£8,000. (ref. 41)
To make the most of this difficult site Paine devised an
ingenious and irregular plan (fig. 60) for which he
nevertheless contrived a grandly formal 'centre and wings'
elevation towards Park Lane (Plate 68a: see also Plate 13b
in vol. XXXIX). In the nineteenth century the front of the
house was stuccoed, (ref. 42) but Paine's own illustration seems to
suggest that it was originally brick-faced with stone
dressings. The principal apartments were pleasingly
varied in shape and size, though not having any great depth
of plot Paine was unable to provide the sort of sequence
which distinguished the planning of Robert Adam's
houses in Grosvenor and St. James's Squares a few years
later. The entrance hall and great circular staircase behind,
however, must have made a fine effect. This arrangement
was repeated in the basement which followed the main
plan rather closely. The service quarters extended upward
into the southern end of the house at ground-floor level,
where they were completely walled-off from the family
rooms although the butler's room enjoyed a fine view of
Park Lane. Above was the chapel and a suite of rooms for
Lord Petre's Roman Catholic chaplain. (fn. a)
The drawing-room had an elaborately plastered ceiling
with a painted centrepiece (Plate 16a in vol. XXXIX), and in
both the drawing- and dining-rooms there were statuary
marble chimneypieces, all these features being illustrated
in Paine's book. Otherwise nothing is known of the original
decorations. In 1787, however, Lady Mary Coke reported
that in honour of his second marriage Lord Petre was
making 'great alterations' to the house and that 'some part
is to be new furnished with white damask—which will not
last long in Town'. (ref. 44)
After Lord Petre's death in 1801 his son, the tenth
Baron, sold the house to the fourth Earl and subsequently
first Marquess of Breadalbane. (ref. 45) Lord Breadalbane
promptly obtained a reversionary lease of the property
from Lord Grosvenor, but had to agree to give up the
stableyard on the south side of the house when the old lease
expired in 1826. (ref. 46) New stables were later secured in
Street's Buildings. (ref. 47)
Soane altered some of the windows on the principal floor
in 1803, (ref. 48) and William Atkinson, Lord Breadalbane's
architect for important additions at Taymouth Castle, (ref. 49)
carried out repairs and other small works in the 1820's.
These included the building of a single-storey stuccoed
laundry and wash house at the south corner with Park
Lane in 1828–9. (fn. b)
(ref. 49) Atkinson also drew up plans for a
proposed new staircase from the library (probably the
former chapel) to the bedrooms above. (ref. 50) By 1841 a portico
had been added to the front entrance and a 'Trafalgar
balcony' to the first-floor windows overlooking the park
(Plate 67c).
Under the second Marquess, who succeeded his father
in 1834, parts of the interior were evidently transformed in
keeping with the owner's taste for 'ancestral' styles. No
illustrations are known but the documents mention a
Gothic passage, an Elizabethan staircase in carved oak, and
an Elizabethan room. (ref. 51) Gothic panels were supplied (in
1839) by Pugin's friend Edward Hull, a dealer in antique
furniture and fittings in Wardour Street, Soho. (ref. 52)
(fn. c)
For a ball attended by Queen Victoria and the King of
Portugal in 1854 Lord Breadalbane erected a 'temporary'
dancing saloon in the garden of No. 30 Upper Grosvenor
Street which took the form of a 'Baronial Hall' with an
imposing hammerbeam roof (Plate 68c). It was built by
George Myers of Lambeth, and decorated by J. G. Crace,
who may also have provided the design for the whole
structure. (ref. 54) The principal roof timbers were coloured
crimson and gold, while the intervening panels were
painted with heraldic trophies and family crests as in the
Banner Hall at Taymouth Castle, which Pugin had
probably designed in 1838. (ref. 55) On the walls the painting
imitated gold tapestry. The floor was inlaid with oak and
cherry from the forests at Taymouth. In the roof were
dormer windows filled with stained glass which on the
night of the ball was displayed to 'great advantage' by the
'admirable mode of lighting' of Messrs. Faraday and Son,
brass-founders and gas-fitters of Wardour Street. Other
decorative features included suits of armour and heraldic
banners. (ref. 56) A glazed corridor connected the ballroom to the
house. (ref. 42)
The 'Baronial Hall' was demolished in 1863. (ref. 57) In the
following year Lord Breadalbane's executors sold the
house to Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton who bought it as a
speculation but lived there briefly before selling it to the
recently widowed Lady Palmerston. (ref. 58) On arriving in
London to take up residence in January 1866 she wrote: 'It
is a fine healthy situation overlooking the Park and I shall
be as comfortable there as I can be after suffering such an
irreparable and overwhelming loss and all my happiness on
earth.' (ref. 59)
The house was pulled down in the winter of 1876–7,
when according to the estate surveyor, the 'very fine'
reception rooms were still 'in very good order', and the site
was taken into the grounds of Grosvenor House. (ref. 60)
Occupants include: 9th Baron Petre, 1770–1801. 4th Earl and
latterly 1st Marquess of Breadalbane, 1802–34: his son, 2nd
Marquess, 1834–62. Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, bt., novelist,
later 1st Baron Lytton, 1864–5. Viscountess Palmerston, wid. of
3rd Viscount Palmerston, statesman, 1866–9. Thomas Eaden
Walker, M.P., racehorse owner, 1871–6.
Between Breadalbane House and Upper Grosvenor Street were two
small houses (latterly Nos. 27 and 28) which survived until
c. 1928 (Plate 73c). The corner house, No. 28, had
originally been built under a lease of 1729 to the masons
Richard Lissiman and William Hale, (ref. 61) and was first
occupied, as the Wheatsheaf tavern, in 1730. (ref. 62) By 1771 it
had ceased to be a tavern and may have been rebuilt at
about this time, but nothing is known about its history to
explain why the Park Lane front looked like two houses
joined together. The adjoining No. 27 was newly built in
about 1770 on part of a plot originally leased with No. 25
Upper Grosvenor Street, and first occupied in 1772. (ref. 63) In
sale particulars of 1845 it was described as 'A Compact
Cheerful Residence' which had just undergone 'Reparation and improvements'. The house then had a stone
staircase rising from the hall to a thirty-four-foot drawing-room, which was papered in compartments with satinwood
paintwork and two marble chimneypieces. (ref. 64)
Occupants include: No. 27 (formerly 22), 'Lady Bamfield',
probably wife of Sir Richard Warwick Bampfylde, 4th bt.,
1772–6. 'Lady Kircudbright', probably wife of 8th Lord
Kirkcudbright, 1790–7. 3rd Baron Hawke, 1815. Dow. Countess
of Bradford, wid. of 1st Earl, c. 1836–44. Col. (latterly maj.-gen.)
Alastair Macdonald, 1875–82. Lieut.-col. Maurice Alexander,
barrister and company director, 1923–c. 1928. No. 28 (formerly
23), Lady Almeria Carpenter, who 'reigned at Gloucester
House', da. of 1st Earl of Tyrconnel, 1787–98. Sardinian
Legation, 1857–61. Lord Ronald Leveson-Gower, sculptor and
author, son of 2nd Duke of Sutherland, 1875. Samuel Plimsoll,
M.P., 'the Sailors' Friend', 1877–96. Samuel James Waring, later
Baron Waring, director of Waring and Gillow, furnishers,
1904–12. Sir Thomas Drysdale Nicol, K.B.E., 1920–c. 1928.
The huge building which rises
along Park Lane in tellingly designed echelon demands
some account of its genesis, if only because it seems, and
seemed when it was newly built, to be symbolic of its
period, in the style used for its architecture, in the contrast
with what it replaced, and in the expression it gave to a way
of life which drew Park Lane nearer to Fifth Avenue (Plate
74d: see also Plate 48c in vol. XXXIX). Its erection as flats
and a hotel in 1926–9 was not the first massive rebuilding
on the site of a Park Lane mansion, but it was much the
biggest and most spectacular, and caught the rising wind of
disquiet at what was happening to central London. This
has affected assessments of its architectural merits. There
is some ambiguity in the evidence of the authorship of the
whole design, which was in fact divided, but the outward
face Grosvenor House presents to the world is an instance
of the way Sir Edwin Lutyens could quickly put his stamp
on a building, however difficult or imprecise the commission to him.
The transformation of the old Grosvenor House site was
determined in the years 1919–25, being occasioned by the
second Duke of Westminster's decision not to return there
after the war. Up to the end of that period, however, it was
uncertain that the redevelopment would turn out quite in
the way it did.
Continued ducal occupation of the house was briefly in
prospect in 1919, when the Duke of Sutherland was
interested in it, and the Duke of Westminster would have
accepted £6,000 a year for a tenancy—that is, £3,000 clear
of outgoings, and substantially more than he was getting
from the Government for its use of the house. (ref. 65) But the
Duke of Sutherland went to Hampden House in Green
Street instead, and the next four or five years saw
increasing requirements on the part of the Duke of
Westminster from the proceeds of any disposal of the
property, together with a diminishing likelihood of finding
an occupant for the old house. In 1923 the Duke's
architectural adviser, Detmar Blow, was evidently having
schemes for the site prepared by his associate Fernand
Billerey, one of which provided for the retention of the old
mansion, (ref. 66) and as late as the early months of 1924 it was
still being advertised to let, but an offer to the American
ambassador was unproductive. (ref. 67) The Duke was now, in
January, looking for £10,000 a year from a short letting of
the house, and by June had resolved to accept nothing less
for the house than he could expect to receive from a
building lease of the site for redevelopment. (ref. 68) The press
had for some years thought such an outcome likely, and
two syndicates had already made offers in 1923. The nearer
to success had been New York-based, with Whitney
Warren as their architect, and had impressed the Duke's
advisers by their business-like and straightforward
approach. They had offered £25,000 a year, but for an
unknown reason the Duke had not then proceeded with
the deal. (ref. 69) (No doubt various developers were turning their
minds to the site: the building firm of George Trollope and
Sons, for example, was at some time about this period
sufficiently interested to have George A. Crawley—an
architect with New York experience—and Gervase Bailey
prepare outline plans for a grouping of flats around a
central garden. (ref. 70) ) In June 1924 the search for a building,
lessee was resumed determinedly—in part to forestall
anticipated 'difficulty in the building trade' (ref. 71) —and was
successful. The buyer, with whom a conclusive agreement
was reached in October, was Lord Leverhulme.
In view of the significance which at the time and
subsequently attached to the replacement of this noble
mansion by a commercial development it is to be noticed
that the agreement, at least on paper, envisaged at this
stage that the Duke might make some economic sacrifice
for a use of the site that would not be wholly commercial. (ref. 72)
This was because Lord Leverhulme wanted, in his son's
words a few years later, 'to build on the site some form of
public building to be devoted to the Arts, but what his
scheme would have been in detail is unknown. . . . It would
probably have comprised a series of galleries, possibly a
small permanent collection of pictures and other works of
art, and premises to be used as studios and to provide
rooms for various societies. . .' (ref. 73) The option of placing
commercial buildings or (as a strangely optimistic
alternative) an opera house upon the site was provided for
in the agreement, and in that case a rent of £25,000 a year
was to be paid, with a right to buy the freehold for
£500,000. But Lord Leverhulme was conceded more
favourable terms for the art-gallery project, with a rent of
£20,000 and a purchase-option at £400,000. (ref. 72)
(fn. d) Lord
Leverhulme was in his seventies, however, and the
realization of that scheme must have seemed problematic.
In the event, he died in 1925, and it was immediately
recognized in the Grosvenor Office that a commercial use
of the site would now follow the lease to Lord
Leverhulme's executors. (ref. 75) This, granted in autumn 1925,
was assigned by them to a commercial speculator in the
following year. (ref. 76)
He was A. O. Edwards, founder and chairman of
Edcaster, a Doncaster-based building firm which undertook the development of the Mayfair Hotel on part of the
Devonshire House site in 1924–6. The architect Edmund
Wimperis, whose client Edwards was, described him as 'a
very straight little fellow'. Edwards subsequently built
several large blocks of flats in Queensway and Kensington
Park Road before emigrating to South Africa in 1936.
Later he moved to America and died in Philadelphia in
1961. (ref. 77)
Edwards's architects were Wimperis, Simpson and
Guthrie, of whom the last, a recent recruit to the firm, was
the active partner here, although Wimperis himself—who
was also, of course, the Grosvenor Estate's surveyor—is
known to have provided a general scheme for the
elevations. (ref. 78) According to one of Guthrie's daughters her
father brought Edwards's commission with him when he
joined the firm in 1926: (ref. 79) on the other hand, it seems at
least possible that Edwards would in any case have been
mindful of the advantages that might have been expected
to follow the employment of the firm of the estate surveyor.
In fact, however, it was Detmar Blow who was in the
ascendant in the Grosvenor Office, and it was, moreover,
thought desirable there that with Wimperis acting on
behalf of the developers the Duke should be independently
advised. In the summer of 1926, therefore, Sir Edwin
Lutyens was called in to assist Blow in examining and
approving the plans and elevations. (ref. 80)
The first part of the scheme to be taken in hand was a
block of flats on the southern half of the site—initially
intended to be separated from the northern half of the
development (covering the site of the mansion itself) by a
fifty-foot road between Park Lane and Park Street. At their
first meeting, probably in June 1926, Edwards told
Lutyens he wanted to build 'as tall as the L.C.C. would
allow'. Lutyens 'immediately brought out five wee little
pipes and put them on the table and exclaimed "What fun
we are going to have"'. (ref. 81) According to Christopher
Hussey, writing in 1928, the first design was to have 'gables
and hanging bay windows' (ref. 82) —possibly like a rather
enlivened version of Wimperis and Simpson's Upper
Feilde in Park Street. By mid September, however,
Guthrie had produced a design without such extravagances, but perhaps more suggestive of Baron's Court than
Park Lane (ref. 83) (fig. 61a).
The Duke had been told by Blow and Lutyens that the
development would be 'as far as possible in keeping with
present or future buildings in Park Lane, Upper Grosvenor Street and elsewhere in the immediate neighbourhood'. (ref. 84) He was interesting himself in the elevations
of the big new building, inspecting a specially prepared
model, and Guthrie's elevations came under critical
scrutiny. Before the end of September Lutyens had
contrived to have 'pavilion flats' accepted for introduction
into the design and it may therefore be that the essentials of
the present exterior had already been quickly substituted
for Guthrie's. (Writing on 23 September Edwards said 'the
elevations have been discussed over and over again with
Sir Edwin and Mr. Blow'.) (ref. 85) This had certainly been done
by November. Edwards's solicitors had become exasperated at the liberal view Lutyens was taking of his
commission, going beyond mere approval or disapproval
('We are astonished to hear from our clients that their
Architects yesterday afternoon received from Sir Edwin
Lutyens a fresh set of what he is pleased to term a tentative
set of drawings. . . . This must really come to an end.'). (ref. 86)
Guthrie also was querying whether these drawings of
Lutyens's 'were to be adhered to in toto?'. Lutyens replied
(as Edwards records) 'Not if you can show anything
better', and a few days later the Duke approved the
elevations in question. (ref. 87) They differed significantly from
what was built only in the provision of a spectacular high-level bridge linking the north and south blocks, and of a
feature somewhat reminiscent of Temple Bar to stand
across the intended roadway between them (fig. 61b).
Figure 61:
Grosvenor House
a. Part elevation to Park Lane as proposed by Wimperis, Simpson and Guthrie in September 1926
b. Part elevation to Park Lane altered by Lutyens and approved in November 1926 but executed in a modified form
Edwards was anxious to start work. His building
operations at the Mayfair Hotel site were completed, his
ground rent had become payable in full at Michaelmas
1926, and his solicitors emphasized the loss he was
incurring through the rising cost of steel since he had
concluded his agreement with the Leverhulme executors. (ref. 88)
In fact, however, the Duke's solicitors conducted their end
of the business with great dispatch.
Edwards told Blow 'we naturally want to have a nice
building'. Publicly, at least, he professed himself pleased
with the changes emanating from his landlord's advisers,
and was proud of the architectural effect. (ref. 89) Outwardly this
arises from the building's Lutyenesque features, which use
the vocabulary of classicism to smarten and vitalize the
exterior, at ground and skyline level especially. The four
crowning stone pavilions along Park Lane which add a
rather obvious 'thrill' to the silhouette of the building also
assist the apparent organization of the whole complex as a
quadruple sequence of masses—evidently without much,
if any, recasting of Wimperis, Simpson and Guthrie's
plan. (ref. 90) The two halves were joined at ground level by a
single-storey 'lounge and reception area', extending back
only part of the way to Park Street and surmounted on the
Park Lane front by an eye-catching colonnade, the whole
curved to accommodate the stepping-forward of the
building line.
Lutyens was paid upward of £9,000 by the Estate, or
perhaps in the end, if an early agreement held good, a sum
approximating to 1.05 per cent of the building cost, which
a newspaper report said was expected to be £1,250,000.
(The final cost including equipment is said to have been
'about £2 million'.) At one time Detmar Blow was to share
the money with him but this seemingly did not happen. It
is not known if Edwards also paid Lutyens a fee or if the
Estate recovered from Edwards any of their payment to
Lutyens, nor if the payment affected the fees (presumably
much greater) paid by Edwards to Wimperis, Simpson and
Guthrie. (ref. 91)
Whether the excogitation of the exterior treatment was
much influenced by larger ideas for Park Lane as a whole is
not certain, probably because they were never clearly
formulated. The intention to treat all the Grosvenors' Park
Lane frontage consistently (and with stone facing at
ground-floor level) was mentioned by Christopher Hussey
in Country Life in 1928 and was evidently associated with
the idea that 'there are to be shops in Park Lane',
announced as a news item in The Architect and Building
News in the same year. (ref. 92) That announcement spoke of a
colonnaded treatment of the shop fronts, and the idea of
incorporating an arcade of shops into at least part of the
frontages of Grosvenor House had been considered in
1926. Blow wrote to Lutyens that the Duke had been
interested by the suggestion, for the ground-floor frontage,
of 'an arcadian type [sic] similar to one which used to be in
Regent Street'. (ref. 93) In another recollection, the Duke had
some hopes that Park Lane might become a 'rue de
Rivoli', (ref. 94) but evidently there was not the resolve to attain
that elusive end.
The Duke's solicitors had told Edwards he could begin
excavations in October 1926. (ref. 95) By the early months of 1928
work on the south block was outwardly finished—sufficiently so, at least, for outraged letters to appear in The
Times and a question to be asked in Parliament about the
control of buildings that overlooked the Royal Parks. (ref. 96) The
block, containing flats, was opened in May. (ref. 97) In October
1927 the demolition of old Grosvenor House began. (ref. 98) The
northern block was commenced in the spring of 1928. (ref. 99)
Built as a hotel, it was completed by the early summer of
1929. (ref. 100) Edwards claimed that 'as an individual effort there
have been few undertakings of equal size or intricacy', (ref. 81)
and in 1928 Christopher Hussey commented on the
efficiency with which Edwards's building firm, Edcaster,
was carrying on the work. It was employing 'many
American methods ... to eliminate delay and inconvenience' (for example, in the disposal of builders'
rubble). (ref. 82)
One respect in which Grosvenor House differed from
many buildings of its type and date was in the stone chosen
by Edwards to set off the brickwork, which is not Portland,
but a French stone, Salamandre. Being imported from
France, the stone merchants stressed in their advertisement in 1930 that it was 'carried in British Boats, handled
by British Dock Labour, and worked and carved by British
Artisans'. (ref. 101)
Critical reaction to the new building was chiefly adverse,
but, as Hussey pointed out at the time, the hostility was
mainly directed at the size and scale of the development
and its impact on the Park and the surrounding streets
rather than at the design itself. (ref. 82) Typical of this sort of
criticism was a letter to The Times expressing concern that
buildings 'which at one blow can alter the aspect of a whole
neighbourhood, can apparently be erected without
reference to any standard but that of private interest'. (ref. 102)
Hussey himself took exception to some of the details, the
'unvarying fenestration' for example, but in his opinion
Grosvenor House at least avoided the look of a small
building magnified. That, however, was exactly how it
appeared in 1930 to the architectural correspondent of The
Times: 'It is an overgrown small building, stretching a
familiar and endearing style of domestic architecture
beyond its capacity to please.' Its great fault was 'that of a
big woman who dresses to look petite. It never comes
off.' (ref. 103)
In the transatlantic boom-years, then coming to an end,
the hotel part of the complex had been specifically
designed to appeal to the American market, and Edwards
had collected information about the layout of 'Apartment
Hotels' in the United States. At that time Grosvenor
House was the only hotel in London to have a separate
bathroom and a separate entrance lobby to each bedroom
and running iced water in every bathroom. (ref. 104) As a further
stimulus to the American trade a New York office was
opened in Fifth Avenue. Prices ranged from a guinea a
night for a 'minimum' single room in the low season, to ten
guineas a night for two 'superior' double rooms with a
sitting-room in the high season. Servants were accommodated at an inclusive daily rate of eighteen shillings. To
facilitate telegraphic bookings there was a code based on
the names of well-known figures from classical antiquity:
'Horatius', for example, reserved a sitting-room, a double
bedroom and a bathroom. (ref. 105)
In the block of service-flats the advertized ideal was to
'embody the best that New York can give and that Paris
can offer'. (ref. 106) A wide range of wants was to be supplied
within the building. As Guthrie told a newspaper early in
1927 'tenants will be able to insure their lives and read the
latest tape-machine prices without leaving the premises'. (ref. 107) An ice rink in the basement of the hotel block,
now converted into the Great Room, was advertized as 'the
Mürren of London'. (ref. 108)
The decoration of many of the public spaces in the hotel
was designed and executed by Chappelow and Son of
Charles Street, Mayfair, and included a Tudor grill-room. (ref. 109) The large 'Imperial Suite' was, as to its
'conception', by Mrs. Fargo Thomas of New York, who
with Oliver Hill designed the furniture and fittings. (ref. 110) A
later but informed comment is that 'from the outset
Grosvenor House was advertized and maintained as one of
the leading luxury hotels in London. But it never set out to
provide the sort of luxury service of Claridges or the
luxurious furnishings of the Savoy.' (ref. 111)
The Duke of Westminster's interest, so far as it went, in
what Grosvenor House would look like was chiefly as the
ground landlord of the surrounding property: it was
always probable that the lessees would exercise their
option to buy the freehold, which they did in 1935 for
£475,000. (ref. 112) The deduction from the £500,000 envisaged
in the agreement with Lord Leverhulme (which had been
reflected also in a proportionate diminution of the ground
rent) was in accordance with provisions made in that
agreement and occasioned by the refusal of the tenant of
No. 35 Park Street to surrender that property (see page 257
and Plate 63b). This prevented the extension of Grosvenor
House over all its destined site until 1956–7, when an
addition at the rear of the hotel was built to the designs of
Gordon Jeeves. Here, and in a redecoration of much of the
rest of the hotel in the 1950's, the interior designers were
R. D. Russell and Partners. (ref. 113)
The present houses constituting
this attractive range between Upper Grosvenor Street and
Culross Street were not the first to fill these sites. In
accordance with the haphazard development of the estate's
frontage to Park Lane, there originally stood here a row of
modest, flat-fronted houses occupying shallow plots,
erected between about 1727 and 1733 by a number of
building tradesmen among whom the principal was
Lawrence Neale, carpenter. (ref. 114) At first they were called
King's Row, but in the early years of the nineteenth
century the alternative name of Grosvenor Gate was
adopted. By then the houses were shielded from Park Lane
at the south end by some mature trees that had grown up
on the strip of land in front, while at the other end a
number of outbuildings had appeared (Plate 13a, 13b in vol.
The mistake of tolerating such poor houses on this site
had been appreciated by 1791, when William Porden took
the unusual step of suggesting that leases here should not
be renewed, 'with a view to the building [of] houses better
qualified to range with Lord Dudley's and Lord Petre's in
order if possible to gain the advantage which was lost in
originally laying out the ground of making a handsome
front towards Hyde Park'. (ref. 115) At this time the social
character of King's Row was mixed, with a public house at
either end but, among other inhabitants, the fifth Earl of
Scarbrough and Thomas Sanders Dupuis, composer and
organist at the Chapel Royal. (ref. 116) The standard of the houses
may perhaps be better judged from a tenant's complaint in
1811 as to the thinness of the walls and the lack of sewers or
drains, 'which obliges me to submit to a cesspool and its
bad smells'. (ref. 117)
Though Porden's policy was adhered to for twenty
years, continued pressure by some of the tenants led to the
renewal in 1811 of three of the leases, on the sites of Nos.
94, 95 and 96. This meant that when rebuilding became a
reality in the 1820's, it could be undertaken only in parts
and the old sites had, by and large, to be retained. But the
rebuilt houses did adopt the prominent bays, bows and
external ironwork gradually coming into fashion in Park
Lane, though they were different from other such houses
on the Grosvenor estate's sector in having their entrances
on the west (fig. 62: see also Plate 19a, fig. 10 in vol. XXXIX).
Whether architects were employed on most of the houses is
doubtful, but John Goldicutt certainly designed Nos. 98
and 99.
The 'Grosvenor Gate' addresses were dropped in 1872,
when these houses became Nos. 29–35 (consec.) Park
Lane, which they remained until the present numbering
was adopted in 1934. During later Victorian and Edwardian days the houses continued to be popular and were
variously adorned with extra storeys, balconies and
internal decorations, but increased traffic subsequently
made them less fashionable. Rebuilding was on several
occasions debated by the Estate, notably in 1931 when it
was reported that four of the seven houses were unoccupied and two of the other lessees were keen to sell their
interests. (ref. 118) But again no action was taken, and eventually
each of the houses was made available for office use.
No. 93, at the corner of Upper Grosvenor Street, is
notable as the home of Benjamin Disraeli from 1839 to
1872. Together with No. 94 it was rebuilt as a speculation
by Samuel Baxter of Regent Street, builder, in 1823–5. As
it covered the site not only of the old King's Head public
house at the corner but also of the previous No. 24 Upper
Grosvenor Street, No. 93 enjoyed an L-shaped plot of
some size and depth, with a strip extending right back to
behind No. 97. (ref. 119) The house, at first called No. 1
Grosvenor Gate, had from the start stuccoed fronts, four
main storeys, a bow to Park Lane and an entrance in Upper
Grosvenor Street (Plate 60c), but a later attic has concealed
what was once a prominent domed skylight over the
staircase. In November 1825 Wyndham Lewis, M.P., was
reporting to his wife that 'Baxter's House is still for sale but
he now asks fourteen thousand Pounds for it being an
addition of two thousand since we were last in Town'.
Rather over a year later, in February 1827, they clinched
the deal and in the following May George Morant of New
Bond Street was estimating for decorating the drawing-rooms. (ref. 120)
Figure 62:
Nos. 93–99 Park Lane, ground-floor plans and elevations
Wyndham Lewis died in 1838, bequeathing to his wife a
life-interest in the house. In the following year she married
the thirty-four-year-old Disraeli, and the couple were to
live here until her death in 1872. It was at No. 1 Grosvenor
Gate that much of Coningsby, Sybil and several other of the
novels were written. In 1842 Disraeli obtained a mortgage
on the house, and an accompanying inventory itemizes its
contents. The first-floor drawing-rooms seem to have been
furnished in the French taste with carved and gilt chairs,
an ormolu clock and several ornamental tables, while in the
ground-floor dining-room and library the furniture was
mostly of mahogany. Disraeli's books occupied 'a magnificent winged bookcase of ebonized wood richly ornamented with omolu ... the upper part enclosed with plate glass
and supported by carved and gilt female figures'. (ref. 121)
In 1874 the house (by now No. 29 Park Lane) was
bought and subsequently altered by the builder Charles
Fish. (ref. 122) By 1876 he had sold to a new tenant, who
employed the builders Jackson and Graham to make
additions at the rear. (ref. 123) In 1887 further changes were being
made, and in 1903 the dining-room was enlarged by the
architect William Wallace for Mr. and Mrs. Hornby
Lewis, who however were forbidden to throw out an
additional small bow window towards the park. (ref. 124) Despite
three such subsequent applications, the second Duke of
Westminster refused to countenance external alterations to
the house because of the association with Disraeli, to
whom a plaque was erected at his expense in 1913. An
attempt in 1914–16 to add No. 94 to No. 93 in exchange for
the back premises behind Nos. 95, 96 and 97 also came to
nothing. In 1931 the lease was purchased by the Estate,
and since 1936 the building has been used for offices. (ref. 125)
The present interior of No. 93 combines good surviving
features of Baxter's original house of 1823–5, particularly
the stairs and fine toplight, with much decoration in the
French and Adam tastes carried out since 1872, perhaps
principally by William Wallace for the Hornby Lewises.
The chief fittings of interest are two fine figurative marble
chimneypieces in the Greek taste in the first-floor
drawing-rooms (Plate 75a), which could either belong to the
original house or have been imported at a later date.
Occupants include: Wyndham Lewis, M.P., 1827–38: his
wid., Mary Anne, 1838–9: her 2nd husband, Benjamin Disraeli,
Prime Minister, 1839–72. 2nd Baron Robartes, later 6th Viscount
Clifden, 1889–96. Arthur Hornby Lewis, iron-master, 1900–26.
No. 94, like its southern neighbour, was rebuilt in
1823–5 by Samuel Baxter, who had acquired the reversionary lease of the premises granted in 1811–12 and
exchanged it for a new one from Earl Grosvenor. Baxter let
the house to Lady Mary Ross in December 1825 and
mortgaged his head lease, but Wyndham Lewis of No. 93
appears subsequently to have acquired an interest in this
house as well as his own. (ref. 126) Though both houses were
stuccoed and had bows towards the park they were not part
of a single design, as No. 94 (originally No. 2 Grosvenor
Gate) was much smaller and had lower storey heights than
No. 93. No further details of the house are known until
1874, when it had become No. 30 Park Lane and
alterations were being made by C. and W. Moxon,
decorators. (ref. 127) In 1900 the decorators Charles Mellier and
Company divided the ground floor to make two rooms; (ref. 128)
it was perhaps then that the drawing-rooms received their
present French character and a new stair was put in.
Recently a lift has been installed and an extra storey added.
There are however a few traces of Baxter's work remaining
within the house.
Occupants include: Joseph Kelway, musician, 1746–82: his
servant, Ann Philips, 1783–90. Robert Bourke, M.P., later Baron
Connemara, 1870–4. (Sir) Arthur Frederick Bradshaw, principal
medical officer to H.M. forces in India, later K.C.B., 1895–1900.
Sir Philip Grey-Egerton, 12th bt., 1911–12. Laurance Lyon,
No. 95 was not rebuilt until 1842–4 because General
William Thornton, tenant of the previous house here from
1797 to 1842, had been so persistent that his lease had been
renewed in 1811. (ref. 129) The new house (at first No. 3
Grosvenor Gate and later No. 31 Park Lane) was erected
by John Harrison of Green Street, gentleman. (ref. 130) It is taller
than its neighbours, having always had six full storeys above
ground, with a three-sided bay running through them all;
the front is mainly of brick.
Occupants include: Col. (latterly lieut.-gen.) William Thornton, 1797–1842. Col. Algernon G. A. Durand, formerly Military
Secretary to the Viceroy of India, 1911–22.
The old house on this site was, like No. 95,
renewed to General Thornton in 1811, but his tenant here,
Captain E. Brenton, must have decided in 1826 to rebuild
along with his neighbours. (ref. 131) The new house here, at first
No. 4 Grosvenor Gate and later No. 32 Park Lane, was
stuccoed and bowed and had five storeys above ground,
and was elegant enough to be let to the fifth Duke of
Manchester in 1828. (ref. 132) In 1894 a conservatory was built at
half-landing level, and in 1903 White Allom and Company
made alterations for a new tenant, Rufus Isaacs. (ref. 133) In its
present state, however, the interior owes most to a
thorough reworking by the architects Hildebrand and
Glicker in about 1973.
Occupants include: John Dupuis, 1735–60: his wid., 1760–86:
their son, Thomas Sanders Dupuis, organist and composer at the
Chapel Royal, 1785–96. Capt. Edward Brenton, R.N., author,
1816–26. 5th Duke of Manchester, 1828–43. Sir Montagu
Edward Smith, kt., judge, 1867–91. Rufus Isaacs, M.P., later
Viceroy of India and 1st Marquess of Reading, 1903–10. Sir
James Calder, kt., timber merchant, 1922–31.
A very large rise in the rateable value between
1826 and 1827, when this house (then No. 5 Grosvenor
Gate) was unoccupied, indicates that it was rebuilt at this
time. (ref. 132) In 1828 the tenant, Mrs. Harriet Scott Waring,
was granted a new lease but sub-let to the Duchess of
Marlborough until 1835. (ref. 134) Though the present angular
bay and central entrance hardly warrant the suggestion,
the house may have been half of an informal pair with No.
96, also rebuilt at this date. In 1893 a new tenant, Miss
Dove, lavished large sums on the house (then No. 33 Park
Lane) adding a storey and altering the back parts. (ref. 135) It is
likely that the present arrangement of a capacious entrance
hall and a staircase across the house at the rear dates from
this time or from 1900, when a further £7,000 was spent on
miscellaneous alterations including new panelling, windows and fireplaces. (ref. 136) In 1914 there was talk of rebuilding
the house, but war intervened. (ref. 137)
Occupants include: Joseph Goupy, watercolour painter and
etcher, 1750–2. Duchess of Marlborough, wife of 5th Duke,
1829–35 (later at No. 129). Sir John William Fisher, kt., surgeon-in-chief to Metropolitan Police, 1853–76: his wid., 1876–93. 8th
Viscount Molesworth, 1895–9.
No. 98, together with No. 99, is known to have been
designed by the architect John Goldicutt, as a drawing for
the elevation of the two houses survives. (ref. 138) The tenant of
the previous house here, Susannah Curtis, was given a new
lease in 1822 in anticipation of her erecting a new house 'of
the Second Rate of Building', and this was duly done in
1823–5, (ref. 139) the house being known as No. 6 Grosvenor
Gate. As befitted a more modest house than No. 99, the
elevation from the first floor upwards was of brick; the bay
running through the original four storeys above ground
was three-sided (fig. 12b in vol. XXXIX), and it is likely that
the elegant drawing-room verandah proposed by Goldicutt was not erected. When the lease ran out in 1886, the
house (now No. 34 Park Lane) was offered to William
Cubitt and Company, who undertook large internal works
and may also have added the obtrusive top storey. (ref. 140) The
interior of the house today exhibits a pleasant mixture of
the original finishings of 1823–5, chiefly visible on the
staircase, and some well-executed and preserved French
decorations in the principal rooms, which were perhaps
done at around the turn of the century.
Occupants include: Sir John Davis, kt., 1775–84. 5th Earl of
Scarbrough, 1784–1807. Comte De Vandreuil, 1811 14. Maj.-gen. Sir Henry Bunbury, K.C.B., later 7th bt., 1815–16. Sir
Augustus Foster, 1st bt., diplomatist, 1840–2. Archibald Billing,
physician, 1843–81. Frank Harris, author and adventurer,
No. 99, the corner house with Culross Street, was also
built to designs by John Goldicutt in 1823–5. It was
undertaken by Thomas Martin, probably the builder of
that name, of George Street, Portman Square. (ref. 141) A broader
house than No. 98, bowed and entirely stuccoed, it was
originally meant by Goldicutt to have a verandah over the
first-floor balcony, with an ornamental frieze above. The
lease was granted in 1824 to (Sir) Moses Montefiore,
successively stockbroker, philanthropist and centenarian,
the house being then known as No. 7 Grosvenor Gate.
Many of Montefiore's meetings on behalf of Jewish causes
were held here, and he retained the house until his death in
1885, though nothing is known of any changes it
underwent during this time.
The house (by this time No. 35 Park Lane) was then
reserved by the Estate for the recently widowed Countess
Grosvenor. William Cubitt and Company were entrusted
with extensive works to the value of almost £12,000 on her
behalf in 1885–6, which included demolishing the adjacent
building behind in Culross Street and erecting a red-brick
addition comprising a kitchen and three floors of rooms
above. (ref. 142) Countess Grosvenor then moved in, and from
1889 lived here with her second husband, George
Wyndham, M.P. Here too her son, the future second Duke
of Westminster, resided as a boy. The interior retains some
nice Grecian cornices.
Occupants include: (Sir) Moses Montefiore, latterly bt.,
stockbroker and philanthropist, 1826–85. Countess Grosvenor,
wid. of Victor, Earl Grosvenor, 1887–1929 (and her 2nd
husband, George Wyndham, statesman, 1889–1913). Douglas
Fairbanks jun., actor and producer, 1939–40.
This is now the
one aristocratic mansion of size to survive upon the
Grosvenor estate's sector of Park Lane. Built almost
certainly to designs by William Atkinson in 1827–8, then
later altered by S. W. Daukes and more recently by Sir
Basil Spence, it occupies a plot which for more than two
centuries was associated with the Ward family.
The whole site of the present Dudley House was leased
in 1736 to William Barlow and Robert Scott, (ref. 143) but was not
at first treated as one. Almost immediately a house with
stabling behind was built on the southern half of the plot at
the corner with King Street Mews (now Culross Street),
and leased in 1737 to Anna Ward. (ref. 144) The precise identity of
this lady is unknown, but the natural assumption must be
that she was a relation of John, sixth Baron Ward, who in
1742 acquired Nos. 35 and 36 Upper Brook Street, which
were adjacent to the north (see page 213). Anna Ward also
intended in 1737 to take a lease of the northern portion of
the site, but for some reason she never completed the
transaction, nor did she apparently ever live in the house
on the southern plot, the history of which is somewhat
obscure. It had a frontage towards the park of thirty-four
feet, and Earlom's view of Park Lane in 1799 shows an
elegant Palladian façade and pediment, perhaps embellishments of later date than the original building (see Plate 13a
in vol. XXXIX); yet in its last years of independent existence
the site seems mainly to have been used for livery
stables. (ref. 145)
To its north, the broader part of the plot probably stood
bare until just before 1759, when the ratebooks reported a
'house lately built'. (ref. 132) This was almost certainly the
responsibility of John Spencer, carpenter, who at this time
was helping to build Nos. 30–34 (consec.) Upper Brook
Street to the immediate north. In 1756 Spencer leased this
plot to John, sixth Baron Ward, subsequently first
Viscount Dudley and Ward, who for the previous fourteen
years had been living at No. 36 Upper Brook Street. (ref. 146)
With brief interludes, the Ward family retained possession
of the house and its replacements from this time until 1940.
The original Dudley House had a plain but ample front
fifty feet wide, with five windows and three lofty main
storeys. In 1789 the third Viscount paid £6,510 at auction
for his late half-brother the second Viscount's interest in
the house, and proceeded over the next two years with
'judicious alterations', which included an entrance portico
of wood and glass protruding fifteen feet out to the street (ref. 147)
(Plate 67a: see also Plate 13a in vol. XXXIX). A few years
later, perhaps in 1803, a stained-glass window by Francis
Eginton illustrating 'The Elements' was installed in the
house. (ref. 148)
The third Viscount Dudley and Ward was perhaps
considering extension or rebuilding as early as 1809, when
he attempted to purchase the head lease of the southern
house and stables behind. (ref. 149) Having secured this, he
obtained a new lease of it in 1819 and then sub-let it for
seven years. (ref. 150) He died in 1823 and was succeeded by John
William, fourth Viscount Dudley and Ward (created Earl
of Dudley in 1827), an intellectual and politician of minor
distinction but eccentric habits. Without waiting for the
sub-lease of the neighbouring house to expire, the new
owner quickly put in motion major alterations to the
northern house and negotiated a new lease of it. (ref. 151) Nearly
£4,600 of work was done by R. and J. Newton of Wardour
Street, upholsterers, and W. T. Newton of Margaret
Street, builder; of this, more than half was spent on
furnishings. (ref. 152) The bills suggest that at this stage the
house's front was at least partly stuccoed, and that the
staircase was lined with mirrors. In February 1826 the
refurbished house was said to be 'the most pleasing object
in the vicinity', and the entrance hall or conservatory
housed statuary and had stained glass (very possibly
Eginton's) in the windows. (ref. 153) At about this time Lord
Dudley told a friend that he had refused £24,000 for the
house. (ref. 154)
Yet despite these improvements Lord Dudley decided
towards the end of 1826 on a plan of total rebuilding, to
include the southern house at the corner with King Street
Mews. His architect was almost certainly William
Atkinson, who also rebuilt his country house, Himley Hall
in Staffordshire. (ref. 40) Whether Atkinson had been engaged on
the works of 1823–4 is unknown; though he undertook a
minor surveying job here in January 1826, for some reason
it was not he but J. P. Gandy Deering who later that year
applied for a new lease for Lord Dudley 'in consideration
of his building one Mansion upon the Ground'. But in the
summer of 1827 Atkinson was again concerned in gaining
possession of part of the site. By August work was
proceeding; the new house was nearing completion late in
1828, and was shown off to Lord Dudley's guests in May
1829. (ref. 155)
Because of later alterations, the precise extent and
arrangement of the new Dudley House remain obscure.
With the exception of the first-floor conservatory, the front
probably appeared much as it does now (Plate 21a in vol.
XXXIX): stuccoed, of three main storeys and nine windows'
width, with a gently projecting centre bearing the Dudley
arms upon the attic balustrade: a screen of Ionic columns,
breaking forward at the centre to accommodate the
entrance lobby, supports a first-floor balcony across the
whole width of the front. The design is quiet, and perhaps
owed something to Dudley's previous house upon the site.
Within, there are four fine surviving ceilings, one on the
ground floor (Plate 70a: see also Plate 21b in vol. XXXIX),
and two still visible and one covered up on the first floor
(rooms A, E, F and G on fig. 63). These are in the mixed
Greek and Roman manner prevalent in the late 1820's, as
are several chimneypieces. The old gilding of the
plasterwork in these ceilings is probably part of Atkinson's
decoration. At the back of the house is a staircase with a
fine eighteenth-century wrought-iron balustrade which
was perhaps retained from the old house (see fig. 6e in vol.
The Earl of Dudley having died childless and insane in
1833, his estates passed to cousins, and Dudley House was
sub-let, first to the second Marquess Conyngham (1833–9)
and then to the second Marquess of Abercorn (1839–47). (ref. 156)
In 1847 the eleventh Lord Ward took over the house,
remaining here after becoming the first Earl of Dudley of
the second creation until his death in 1885. If, as a tradition
goes, (ref. 157) any work was done here by Sir Charles Barry, it
would have been in about 1847, but there is nothing to
prove it. But in 1855 Lord Ward did put in hand a
spectacular campaign of improvements under Samuel
Whitfield Daukes, also his architect from just this time for
the transformation of Witley Court, Worcestershire. With
George Myers as builder, a ballroom on the north side
connected to an eighty-foot picture gallery on the east was
made at first-floor level. As at Witley, the style was
strongly French, especially in the ballroom, which was
gilded and ornamented in a Louis XVI manner, with
mirrors and tapestry panels between pilasters, and a coved
ceiling bearing emblems of music (Plate 40a in vol. XXXIX).
Beyond this, the magnificent picture gallery (Plate 71a)
was divided into three sections by pairs of columns, 'of
white Parian marble or scagliola', to distract attention from
its narrowness; each part was toplit, and special crystal
gasoliers with hidden lights were installed by Hancock,
Rixon and Company. The ceiling and other architectural
features were ornamented in white and gold, while the
walls were painted in a subdued green and gold diapered
pattern, 'extremely harmonious with the pictures and
frames'. The painting and gilding in both ballroom and
picture gallery were done by Charles Moxon, but the
architectural decoration in carton pierre was by Haber of
Paris and the elaborate parquet floors were the work of
another French firm, Messrs. Laurent. Several of these
concerns also worked at Witley. Lord Ward's famous
collection of Italian and Flemish paintings, which had for
some years been shown at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly,
was transferred to the completed gallery in about 1858. (ref. 158)
It is likely that other parts of the house which have a
French flavour, such as the entrance hall and principal
stairs, were transformed to fit these additions at the same
time, though the iron balustrade of the latter may be by
Atkinson (Plate 70b). The main part of the conservatory
towards Park Lane (Plate 71b) may also belong to Daukes's
In 1867 Lord Dudley lent the house for the state visit of
the Khedive of Egypt and subsequently found himself
obliged to make some repairs; The World commented, 'the
expense was considerable, but then a nobleman whose
money is generally reported to stock most of the banks in
the Black Country could well afford it'. (ref. 159) Further small
works were also undertaken in 1881–2, mainly to the
stables. (ref. 160) After his father's death in 1885 at Dudley
House, the second Earl kept the house for a few years.
Photographs taken in 1890 show the ballroom and gallery
in their full splendour and a suite of drawing-rooms on the
first floor called respectively 'blue', 'yellow' and 'red' and
also containing fine paintings and furniture. Two years
later, W. Turner Lord and Company extended the
conservatory over the porch and may also have made
changes within. (ref. 161) But much of the picture collection was
sold at this time, and in 1895 Dudley House was acquired
by (Sir) Joseph Benjamin Robinson, a hard-headed South
African mining magnate. During Robinson's time the
house was described as 'a veritable palace, adorned with
splendid pictures, beautiful statuary and priceless art
treasures', (ref. 162) and his biographer commented that 'it could
never be said of Robinson as it was of another magnate who
also bought himself a house in Park Lane, that the only
pictures it contained were photographs of himself, and the
only book was Ruff's Guide to the Turf'. (ref. 163)
Figure 63:
Dudley House, plans in 1968–9. Modern partitions shown in outline
Seventeen years later the second Earl's brother, (Sir)
John Hubert Ward, bought back Dudley House for
£10,000 and lived here from 1912 until his death in
1938. (ref. 164) The stucco was removed from the elevations
during his occupancy, probably in 1930, when Trollope
and Sons made alterations (perhaps under the architect
W. A. Forsyth, who was paid a small sum in 1934 by the
Estate for 'works of permanent improvement' here). (ref. 165)
Dudley House was badly damaged by bombing in 1940
and reverted into the Estate's possession. (ref. 166) The ballroom
and gallery were the principal casualties, and their
decorations were subsequently destroyed. Much later, in
1969–70, a major internal reconstruction was undertaken
by the property group Hammersons to designs by Sir Basil
Spence and Anthony Blee, with Sir Robert McAlpine and
Sons as contractors. The fronts were re-stuccoed, the
rooms in the rear of the house wholly reconstructed, and in
the old light well behind the main stairs a new upper hall in
classical taste was created, with a marble floor and a coved
ceiling whose details were taken from those of the
ballroom. Several new chimney pieces were also installed:
that in the former yellow drawing-room is a handsome
later eighteenth-century example in the Adam style
flanked by a pair of Ionic columns and was formerly at
Gloucester House, Park Lane. In the old red drawing-room Atkinson's ceiling was covered over, but the mid-Victorian fireplace with its mirrored overmantel, and the
dado were moved to the former boudoir at the front of the
house overlooking the park. The large Venetian window
which used to light the main staircase was re-erected as a
'feature' in the larger of the two ground-floor conference
rooms. Behind the house a noticeable survival in Culross
Street is the old entrance to the stables, a substantial block
of buildings now converted into flats for company
executives and linked to the house by a cast-iron bridge at
first-floor level. (ref. 167) Despite the many changes the entrance
hall and staircase, the ground-floor waiting-room (formerly the dining-room) and the main front rooms on the
first floor retain much of their character.
Occupants include: southern part of site, Lieut.-gen. Henry
Hawley, 1746–58. Sir Robert Kemys (Kymiss), 1821–4. House
demolished in 1827, site incorporated into Dudley House.
Northern part of site and, after 1828, combined site, 6th
Baron Ward, latterly 1st Viscount Dudley and Ward, 1758–74:
his wid., 1774–82: her stepson, 2nd Viscount, 1783–8: his half-brother, 3rd Viscount, 1789–1823: his son, 4th Viscount, latterly
Earl of Dudley, 1823–33, who rebuilt the house in 1827–8. 2nd
Marquess Conyngham, 1833–9. 2nd Marquess (later 1st Duke)
of Abercorn, 1839–47. 11th Baron Ward, latterly 1st Earl of
Dudley of 2nd cr. (who was 2nd cousin of Earl of Dudley of 1st
cr.), 1847–85: his wid., 1885–8: her son, 2nd Earl of 2nd cr.,
1889–95. (Sir) Joseph Benjamin Robinson, latterly 1st bt., South
African gold mine proprietor, 1895–1912. (Sir) John Hubert
Ward, latterly K.C.V.O., brother of 2nd Earl of Dudley,
1912–38: his wid., Lady (Jean) Ward, C.B.E., 1938–40.
This building, consisting of a
bank with flats above, replaces three houses in Upper
Brook Street whose history is given on page 210. Coutts
and Company entered into negotiations with the Estate in
1930 to rebuild here and were speedily given the relevant
permissions. The block was built in 1930–2 by Gee,
Walker and Slater with W. Downs Limited, to designs by
Wimperis, Simpson and Guthrie (ref. 168) (Plate 49c in vol.
XXXIX). The whole building was treated in a careful neo-Georgian style so as to harmonize with the new Grosvenor
House further south. The elevations are of stone on the
bottom three floors, with Corinthian capitals and a strong
cornice at mezzanine level; the upper storeys are in picked
red bricks, and the roof is pantiled. The cornice and storey
levels of Nos. 105–108 were followed when the new Brook
House was undertaken shortly afterwards. Inside the bank,
the elaborate fittings were supplied by Betty Joel. (ref. 169)
The present block of luxury flats here
was built in 1933–5. It stands on the site of three early-Georgian houses numbered 27, 28 and 29 in Upper Brook
Street whose history is discussed on page 210, but the first
Brook House was a building of intervening date. In 1854
(Sir) Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks, banker and M.P.,
subsequently first Lord Tweedmouth, bought No. 29 at
the corner with a view to rebuilding it in the future,
possibly in conjunction with No. 28; this he was able to
acquire ten years later, when its lease expired. (ref. 170) Marjoribanks then sought permission to build a grand mansion
overlooking the park to designs by Thomas Henry Wyatt,
and having gained vacant possession of No. 28 proceeded
with the work in 1867. During construction there was
some difficulty over a 'tower' destined for the outlying
buildings at the north end of the site near Wood's Mews,
but Marjoribanks agreed to omit or reduce this (Plate 27a
in vol. XXXIX). The operations of his builders, J. and C.
I'Anson, were completed by the end of 1869. The
decorations were entrusted to Wright and Mansfield, the
marble work to Banks and Company, and the ironwork to a
Mr. Carslake. (ref. 171)
Figure 64:
Brook House (demolished), ground-floor plan
Even from its earliest years T. H. Wyatt's Brook House
(as the mansion was called from about 1872) was thought
somewhat inelegant in appearance (Plate 72a). Its very
French façades, of red brick with Portland stone dressings
endowed with a medley of bays, balconies and crestings,
were deemed by The Building News 'remarkable' rather
than 'handsome', and 'unobjectionable in mass but not so
in detail'. (ref. 172) But as Wyatt prided himself particularly on his
arrangements, Brook House offered all that was latest in
town-house planning (fig. 64). The entrance from Upper
Brook Street led into a broad hall and hence to a mahogany
staircase, rising in double flights and lined with variegated
marbles. At ground level the chief rooms were the library,
furnished in cherrywood, and the dining-room, which was
probably where Marjoribanks installed 'the entire carved
work of one of the rooms at Drapers' Hall', recently
demolished. On the first floor was a great suite of drawing-rooms in the French style, perhaps including the Parisian
panelling obtained from the 'Maison de la Poste'. In 1902
this suite, which had elaborate gilded ceilings and French
furniture, was adorned with some of the largest paintings
in the Marjoribanks collection, including canvases by
Boucher and Fragonard (Plate 72b). (At this date it was
said: 'There is no need for dwellers in Brook House to
dream that they dwell in marble halls. They do dwell in
them. They realise what the poet merely imagined.') On
top of the house was a spacious flat roof, 'so as to give access
for a large party in case of reviews and other displays in
Hyde Park'. Separately, at the north end of the garden,
stood servants' quarters with a large billiard-room above;
this too had a prominent roof and was connected to Park
Lane by its own outside staircase and an open colonnade. (ref. 173)
In 1897 J. D. Crace made designs for an eight-light
stained-glass window on the main staircase of the house,
but it is not known whether this was executed. (ref. 174) By 1904
the second Lord Tweedmouth had acquired an interest in
No. 27 Upper Brook Street, where he put on a porch to
designs by T. H. Smith, but shortly afterwards a reversal
in his fortunes led him to part with his art treasures and
look for a buyer for Brook House. (ref. 175) One was soon found in
Sir Ernest Cassel, then at the height of his repute as one of
the great financiers of the day and the closest confidant of
Edward VII. Cassel, who also bought Tweedmouth's
country estate at Guisachan, purchased Brook House only
on the understanding that he could throw the small No. 27
into it. The Estate agreed, provided that the new elevation
here was similar to the main house, and also submitted to
the reconstruction of the garden buildings and a prominent
new linking passage, which Cassel insisted had to be 'level
with the ground floor (for the convenience of the king)'. (ref. 176)
These lavish works were undertaken in 1905–7 with
Holland and Hannen as builders. The architect, Arnold
Mitchell, was responsible chiefly for external and structural matters, as the interior was entrusted to Charles
Allom of White Allom and Company, then decorator to the
Royal Family. The old No. 27 was heightened and its
ground floor transformed into a luxuriously marbled suite
of entrance hall, dome-topped staircase and upper hall,
facetiously known to the next generation as the 'Giant's
Lavatory'. The outer hall was veneered in a special blue
marble from a quarry in Ontario owned by Allom and
previously used by him at Marlborough House, while the
inner hall and stair were of white Tuscan marble from
Sarravezza. Beyond this the corridor, which could be
closed off to form an octagonal morning-room, led to the
new single-storey garden building, designed in a stone-faced Baroque style with apsidal ends and a coved ceiling.
This was the dining-room, capable of seating a hundred
and adorned with carving, works of art, and a Grecian
chimneypiece of high quality designed by Mitchell for
White Allom (ref. 177) (Plate 75e).
Sir Ernest Cassel retained Brook House until his death
in 1921, but after his sister, Mrs. Wilhelmina Cassel, died
in 1925 the house became the property of his granddaughter and her husband, Lord and Lady Louis
Mountbatten, who had since 1922 enjoyed a suite on the
third floor. They soon brought the living quarters up to
date by installing smart bathrooms with naval decorations
to suit Lord Louis' tastes. (ref. 178) But in 1930 the Mountbattens
resolved on selling Brook House. Owing to the terms of
Cassel's will there was some difficulty about this, but
ultimately it was agreed that the Mountbattens would take
a penthouse on the top of a new building to be erected on
the site. The purchaser of the main interest was George
Gee of the builders, Gee, Walker and Slater, who brought
in Wimperis, Simpson and Guthrie as architects. But the
Estate, probably in order to secure harmony with their
other new buildings in Park Lane, paid small sums both to
Fernand Billerey (1932–3) and to Lutyens (1933–6) in
connexion with the project. (ref. 179)
The new Brook House, built in 1933–5 with neo-Georgian elevations similar to those of the neighbouring
Nos. 105–108 Park Lane, epitomized the luxury of the
inter-war apartment block in Mayfair. There was a single
flat on each of the main floors, one of which was decorated
by Robert Lutyens for Israel Sieff. (ref. 180) <Panelling and furniture by D. Bianco and Sons Ltd. Syrie Maugham may have provided some furnishings.> But the crowning
feature was the Mountbattens' double-storey penthouse,
not finished until 1937 but then much publicized.
Designed by L. Rome Guthrie and accessible from a
special high-speed lift, the apartment was furnished and
decorated by Mrs. Joshua Cosden of New York in
collaboration with Victor Proetz. There was a spacious
curving staircase (Plate 72c), a suite of reception rooms
where the fine picture collection was lit by the latest in
concealed lighting, and a room for cinema projection. The
climax of the flat was Lady Mountbatten's boudoir on the
upper floor, where the walls were entirely lined with
decorative paintings on canvas, executed in silver and
grisaille by Rex Whistler, who also painted the ceiling
(Plate 72d). The wall-paintings were removed when the
Mountbattens were obliged to leave Brook House in
1939. (ref. 181) <The building was demolished in 1994.>
Occupants include: Sir Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks, M.P.,
bt., latterly 1st Baron Tweedmouth, partner in Meux's brewery
and a director of the East India Company, 1870–94: his son, 2nd
Baron Tweedmouth, politician, 1894–1905. Sir Ernest Cassel,
G.C.B., financier and philanthropist, 1908–21: Lord Louis
Mountbatten, later Admiral of the Fleet Earl Mountbatten of
Burma, and Lady Louis Mountbatten, grand-da. of Sir Ernest
Cassel, 1922–31, and (after rebuilding of 1933–5) 1937–9
(penthouse flat).
This house, originally No. 32 Norfolk Street,
and from 1872 to 1934 known as No. 37 Park Lane, stands
on a plot sub-leased by Edmund Rush, mason, to John
Adams, glazier, in 1756. (ref. 182) It is broader than were other
houses between Wood's Mews and Green Street, having
five windows towards Park Lane, four towards Dunraven
(formerly Norfolk) Street, and stucco on all three
elevations (Plates 73b, 74e). Almost certainly it is an entire
replacement of the previous house on the site, which was
smaller and was entered from Norfolk Street. The Greek
style of the present broad porch and passage towards Park
Lane and of the surviving interior features (Plates 74c,
75c), principally a fine staircase from ground- to first-floor
level, suggest that this reconstruction took place in about
1822, when a new lease came into operation, but there is no
certain evidence on the point. (ref. 183) Possibly somewhat later,
an elaborate first-floor verandah was added, with a
conservatory over the entrance passage.
In 1884 the house was taken by Robert Wellesley
Grosvenor, subsequently second Lord Ebury, a first
cousin to the Duke of Westminster. On his behalf new
rooms were erected on the top, and the exterior was
painted, 'orange colour with a deeper shade for the ground
floor' being suggested. (ref. 184) In 1903 the next occupant, Victor
Cavendish, M.P., added a completely new top storey. (ref. 185)
On succeeding in 1908 as ninth Duke of Devonshire he
moved to the family mansion in Piccadilly. The house then
fell empty and a proposal by John Garlick to refront it
came to nothing. But in 1911 Lord Moreton took it on, and
his family remained here for some years. (ref. 186)
The house suffered some damage in the war of 1939–45,
and much renovation took place in 1948–9 under the
direction of C. Edmund Wilford for Hammersons, the
developers. Inter alia, the approach from Park Lane and
the verandah above were simplified. (ref. 187)
Occupants include: Countess of Huntingdon, wid. of 9th Earl
and foundress of 'Lady Huntingdon's Connexion' of Calvinistic
Methodists, 1759–62. Lieut.-gen. Lord John Murray, son of 1st
Duke of Atholl, 1764–70. Lady Cunliffe, wid. of Sir Ellis
Cunliffe, 1st bt., 1771–1814: her son-in-law, William Gosling,
banker, 1816–27. Robert Wellesley Grosvenor, latterly 2nd
Baron Ebury, 1884–94. Victor Cavendish, M.P., later 9th Duke
of Devonshire, 1895–1908. Lord Moreton, son of 3rd Earl of
Ducie, 1911–20: his wid., 1920–44.
This site is
now occupied by a single plain building which is entered
from Dunraven Street and was erected in 1959–61 to
designs by Wills and Kaula. It replaces seven houses, some
of which were badly bombed during the war of 1939–45.
Plans for Avenfield House anticipated the extension of the
building to Nos. 117 and 128 when these houses fell out of
lease, but this did not occur. (ref. 188)
The previous houses here were numbered 25 to 31
consecutively from north to south in Norfolk (later
Dunraven) Street, their sites having been sub-leased in
1756 by Edmund Rush, the principal developer of Norfolk
Street (see page 194). (ref. 189) All the houses were gradually
adorned by verandahs, balconies or prominent bays at the
back overlooking Park Lane, reflecting their changed
orientation as the former rear elevations facing Park Lane
came to assume the character of principal fronts (Plate 73a,
73b: see also Plate 19b in vol. XXXIX). Towards the park, No.
25 retained a flat brick elevation until its demolition, but
boasted three storeys of delicate iron balconies. Major
works were undertaken here by General Alastair Macdonald in 1885, (ref. 190) the house being united for a few years
with No. 26, when both houses were unofficially known as
No. 37A Park Lane. Both No. 26 and No. 27 had a three-sided bay and iron verandahs and balconies at the back.
No. 28 was a broader house with a back bay to the ground
and first floors only; in 1890 the front towards Norfolk
Street was still of brick but had recently been painted
white. (ref. 191) The most important house in this group was
probably No. 29, for many years the town house of the
Agar family. Here Welbore Ellis Agar had his fine picture
collection in the latter years of the eighteenth century. (ref. 192) A
remarkable stuccoed rear elevation towards the park,
consisting of a bowed first-floor extension on iron columns
and an open Egyptian-style loggia above, must have dated
from the occupation of Sir Emanuel Felix Agar (1806–31).
Towards Norfolk Street, a new porch was added in 1879. (ref. 193)
At No. 30, a smaller house which again was bowed and
stuccoed at the back, additions were built for Lady
Abinger by John Kelk in 1852, and further major changes
may have been made in 1917–18. (ref. 194) The back bay at No. 31
was altered in 1858 and allotted a verandah, while in 1887–8
a storey was added and a porch put on the front. (ref. 195)
Occupants include: No. 25 Dunraven Street, Countess of
Harborough, wid. of 3rd Earl, 1774–97. Abraham Wildey
Robarts, banker, 1809–19. Henry Philip Hope, diamond
collector, 1820–35. Gen. Sir Gordon Drummond, G.C.B.,
1838–54. 4th Earl of Annesley, 1858–74. 5th Earl of Shannon,
1876–80. Lieut.-gen. Alastair Macdonald, c. 1885–99 (during
most of these years the house was united with No. 26). Edward
Kenrick Banbury Tighe, Irish railway director, 1900–5. Lieut.-col. James Blyth, company director, 1909–17, 1920–3. No. 26,
'Miss Catherine Fisher',? Kitty Fisher, courtesan, 1760–2.
Lieut.-gen. Edward Bligh, 1823–40. Col. (later Gen. Sir) George
W. A. Higginson, G.C.B., 1861–3. William Turquand, accountant, 1870–6 (later at No. 20). Lieut.-gen. Alastair Macdonald,
1885–93 (during most of these years the house was united with
No. 25). John Young Buchanan, chemist, 1904–15. No. 27,
Thomas Pownall, formerly Governor of Massachusetts and of
South Carolina, 1764–6. William Maxwell, self-styled Earl of
Nithsdale, son of attainted Jacobite 5th Earl, 1768–76. Countess
of Elgin, wid. of 5th Earl, 1776–8. Lady Mary Ker, da. of 2nd
Duke of Roxburghe, 1795–1818: her sister, Lady Essex Ker,
1819. George Stanley Repton, architect, 1821–58: his wid., Lady
Elizabeth Repton, 1858–62. Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, 1st bt.,
M.P., brewer, 1867–8: his son, Sir Arthur Edward Guinness, 2nd
bt., later Baron Ardilaun, M.P., brewer, 1868–76. 7th Viscount
Galway, M.P., 1881–2: his mother, wid. of 6th Viscount, 1883–5.
Sir Philip Currie, K.C.B., diplomatist, later Baron Currie,
1886–9. 4th Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, 1890–1905 (later
at No. 22). Sir Ernest Burford Horlick, 2nd bt., 1923–34. No. 28,
George Hunt, M.P., 1758–60. Lady Hesketh, wid. of Sir Thomas
Hesketh, 1st bt., 1781–97. 7th Earl Ferrers, 1798–1827. Sir
George Duckett, 2nd bt., 1829–32. Dow. Countess Somers, wid.
of 1st Earl, 1844–68. James Milnes Gaskell, sometime M.P.,
1871–3: his son, Charles George Milnes Gaskell, sometime M.P.,
1872–6. William Quilter, accountant, 1877–88. No. 29, 2nd Earl
of Uxbridge, 1758–61. Sir Charles Hotham, 6th bt., 1762–7. 4th
Earl of Abingdon, 1767–8. 5th Baron Leigh, 1768–74. Welbore
Ellis Agar, art collector, 1774–1805: his son, (Sir) Emanuel Felix
Agar, 1806–31 (also at No. 21). Charles Waring, M.P., public
works contractor, 1873–7. (Sir) Charles Edward Lewis, M.P.,
later bt., 1879–86. No. 30, Lady Mary Ker, 1786–94. Lady
Tancred, wid. of Sir Thomas Tancred, 5th bt., 1796–1809. Sir
William Wolseley of Mount Wolseley, 3rd bt., 1810–19. (Sir)
Joseph Littledale, judge, 1821–42. Dow. Lady Abinger, wid. of
1st Baron, 1845–58. Lady Kerrison, wid. of Sir Edward
Kerrison, 1st. bt., 1859–60. No. 31, William Dundas, M.P.,
1799–1813. Col. (latterly maj.-gen.) William Hull, 1835–40: his
wid., 1840–56. Lady Charles Bentinck, da.-in-law of 3rd Duke of
Portland, 1860–75: her da., Anne Cavendish Bentinck, 1875–88.
The original house on this site was sub-leased
by Edmund Rush, mason, to Edward Chapman Bird,
stone merchant, in 1756. (ref. 196) It was demolished by order of
the second Marquess of Westminster and entirely rebuilt
in Thomas Cundy II's most Italianate style in 1857–8, with
facings of white Suffolk bricks, cement dressings and
strong consoles to the cornice (Plates 48a, 73a); the
contractor and lessee was John Kelk. (ref. 197) In 1889–94 Lady
Bouch, widow of the engineer of the ill-starred Tay
Bridge, undertook extensive works including over £9,000
of upholstery and decorations by Cowtan and Sons; (ref. 198) she
also during her residence installed a verandah and awning
overlooking the park, and altered a recently erected
conservatory over the porch, then in Norfolk Street. (ref. 199)
In 1902 the art dealer Henry Joseph Duveen agreed to
buy the house, and the Estate was told it was to be
'practically reconstructed'. The works, carried out in 1903
by William Flockhart with Prestige and Company as
builders, included a shallow two-storey bay towards
Norfolk Street and a three-storey projection and new
entrance in Green Street; the first-floor bay towards the
park was also widened, and the attic cornice facing Norfolk
Street carried up into a bold elliptical bow. (ref. 200) In 1905 the
garden was re-arranged and further internal changes were
made by White Allom and Company, but the house seems
to have been spared another set of alterations proposed by
W. H. Romaine-Walker and Besant in the following
year. (ref. 201) Though the upper storeys have now been
converted following war damage, and the sweeping cornice
towards Dunraven Street has disappeared, the main
interiors still keep much of the French character with
which Duveen endowed them.
The house was originally No. 24 Norfolk Street, but in
Duveen's time it was at first known as No. 37A and from
about 1908 as No. 38 Park Lane. In 1934 it was officially
renumbered as No. 128 Park Lane.
Occupants include: 4th Earl of Dysart, 1758–70: his 2nd son,
Wilbraham Tollemache, later 6th Earl, 1770–81. Sir Thomas
Hare, 2nd bt., 1868–75. 3rd Marquess of Bristol, 1876. William
Gerard, later 2nd Baron Gerard, 1879–81. Lady Bouch, wid. of
Sir Thomas Bouch, engineer of the first Tay bridge, 1882–1902.
Henry Joseph Duveen, art dealer, 1903–16. 9th Duke of
Manchester, 1917. Sir Edward Mackay Edgar, bt., 1924.
Originally sub-let to Thomas Walley Partington in 1758 by John Spencer, carpenter, and Edmund
Rush, mason, (ref. 202) this house had a bow towards Park Lane in
1798 and was entered through a small lobby from Green
Street. (ref. 203) In 1851 the sixteenth Lord Trimlestown was the
occupant and requested a renewal, which was granted in
return for substantial alterations by Thomas Cundy II.
Though the house retained its previous shape, the three
elevations were stuccoed, the attic storey was raised and
garrets inserted, balustrading of stone replaced a previous
iron balcony on the first floor, and the single-storey lobby
was given a Doric character. These works were carried out
by William Cubitt and Company in 1853, with the help of
Trimlestown's architect, George Legg. (ref. 204)
Alterations were made in 1883 for a new resident by
William Wallace and Flockhart, but these scarcely affected
the exterior. (ref. 205) The next occupant was the art dealer Joel
Joseph Duveen (latterly Sir Joseph Duveen), who
remained here until his death in 1908, and probably made
internal changes. The house sustained damage in the war
of 1939–45, and was subsequently almost entirely rebuilt
in 1950–2 to designs by Bernard Engle and Partners for the
developers Hammersons (ref. 206) (Plate 74a, 74b). The original
shape of the building was retained, but the entrance was
moved to Dunraven Street. On this and the Green Street
frontages the walls above ground-floor level are now not of
stucco but of brick, and display unusual bonding patterns.
The house was at first numbered 33 in Green Street, but
in the early nineteenth century was known as No. 35 Green
Street. By 1851 it had become No. 24 Park Lane, and in
1872 it was officially renumbered as 38 Park Lane. In
Duveen's time it was known as No. 24 Norfolk Street—
very confusingly, this having hitherto been the number of
the adjoining house (now No. 128 Park Lane) occupied by
his brother, Henry Duveen. In 1923 it returned, by an
official order, to its original number, 33 Green Street, but
in 1925, by another official order, it became No. 38A Park
Lane. In 1934 it was again renumbered as No. 129 Park
Occupants include: 'Colonel Frederick', i.e. Frederick De
Neuhoff, Corsican adventurer, 1761–2. Sir Hildebrand Jacob,
4th bt., 1762–90. Sir Charles Watson, 1st bt., 1799–1835.
Duchess of Marlborough, wife and latterly wid. of 5th Duke,
1835–41 (previously at No. 97). 16th Baron Trimlestown,
1841–79. Joel Joseph Duveen (latterly Sir Joseph Duveen, kt.),
art dealer, 1905–8: his son, Joseph Duveen, later Baron Duveen,
patron of and dealer in art, 1908–13. Sir Percy Malcolm Stewart,
1st bt., Chairman of London Brick Co. Ltd., 1929–40.
No. 130 Park Lane and No. 23 Dunraven Street,
although transformed almost beyond recognition, was
originally built under a sub-lease granted in 1758 to John
Foord, painter, by John Spencer, carpenter, and Edmund
Rush, mason, who were responsible for the development of
Norfolk (now Dunraven) Street. (ref. 207) In 1885 alterations of
an unknown extent were executed by Bywaters, (ref. 208) but the
present appearance of the Dunraven Street front dates
principally from 1907–8 when George Trollope and
Sons and Colls and Son refaced the erstwhile brick façade
with stucco in a mid nineteenth-century style and added an
Italianate portico for good measure. They also built a bay
window on the Park Lane front (ref. 209) (Plate 74a, 74b).
Occupants include: 4th Duke of Gordon, 1813–24. Sir John
Carr, kt., traveller, 1825–32. Samuel Jones Loyd, later Baron
Overstone, banker, 1835–8 (also at No. 22). James Arthur Joicey,
latterly 2nd Baron Joicey, 1922–40.
No. 131 Park Lane and No. 22 Dunraven Street was
erected under a sub-lease granted in 1758 to Robert
Bacchus of St. Marylebone, carver, by John Spencer,
carpenter, and Edmund Rush, mason, the developers of
Norfolk (now Dunraven) Street. (ref. 210)
In 1801 (Sir) John Soane carried out alterations for John
Hammet, M.P., banker, but the extent of his work here is
uncertain, partly because his scheme was altered in
execution and partly because this in turn led to an
acrimonious dispute between architect and client and the
replacement of Soane by John Spiller. The principal
additions appear to have been a series of segmental bows
on the Park Lane front, and one source of dispute was
Hammet's instruction to the builders, made without
consulting Soane, that the first floor was to be cantilevered
out two feet beyond the ground floor. Soane wrote in
peremptory tones which were hardly calculated to heal the
breach, 'I flatter myself Sir inattention makes no part of
my character, nor can I silently suffer any man to impute it
to me and permit me to add what appeared to you neglect
on my part was probably the mere effects of your own
indecision, . . . if your communication had been directed to
me . . . it would have prevented all the unpleasant
sensations that your confidence in your own knowledge [of
building] has produced'. Hammet replied by asking Soane
to submit his account and had his way with the bows. (ref. 211)
Nevertheless a photograph of c. 1911 (ref. 212) shows several
Soanic decorative touches to the Park Lane elevation, all
now removed with the exception of the balcony at second-floor level (Plate 74a). On the Dunraven Street front, the
porch, although much altered, may also show vestiges of
Soane's work (Plate 48c). A section by Soane, presumably
of the house as it existed, shows that it then had three main
storeys above a basement and an attic to Norfolk Street,
but four full storeys with an additional floor in the roof to
Park Lane. This arrangement, whereby the back was
higher than the front, also existed at No. 20 Norfolk Street
before that house was heightened, although not to such an
exaggerated extent, and may have been a common feature
of these houses backing on to Park Lane. It is not known
when the Dunraven Street front was raised and stuccoed.
Between 1818 and 1853 the house was occupied by the
Loyds, the wealthy banking family, who were on friendly
terms with the architect George Stanley Repton and were
instrumental in getting Repton to settle nearby at the now
demolished No. 27 Norfolk Street. (ref. 213) Repton produced an
attractive design for stabling for S. J. Loyd in Wood's
Mews (Plate 22c in vol. XXXIX), which, if erected, no longer
survives, and he may also have carried out work at their
Among alterations made by the fourth Earl of Dunraven
and Mount-Earl was the reconstruction of the first-floor
balcony to the Park Lane front in steel with stucco facing,
replacing the existing balcony of wood, to a design by John
P. Bishop and H. L. Etherington-Smith in 1914 (ref. 214) (Plate
74a: see also Plate 19c in vol. XXXIX). New supporting
columns on the ground floor also replaced existing iron
stanchions and brackets. Lord Dunraven was a member of
the London County Council, and when a change of street
name was thought advisable in 1939 to avoid confusion
with other Norfolk Streets, the name Dunraven Street was
chosen because of his occupancy of this house.
Later alterations have included the extension of the
porch in Dunraven Street to the front of the entrance steps
in 1927, and the addition of a balustrade, probably at the
same time (Plate 48c). In 1948 Nos. 21 and 22 Dunraven
Street were united and converted into offices and flats, and
shortly afterwards an entrance was made in the Park Lane
front. (ref. 215)
Occupants include: 'Lady Powerscourt', either Viscountess
Powerscourt, wid. of 1st Viscount, or wife of 3rd Viscount,
1761–71. Gertrude Reeson, heiress, 1771–8: and her husband,
(Sir) Ralph Woodford, latterly 1st bt., diplomat, 1778–1801.
John Hammet, M.P., banker, 1802–11. Lewis Loyd, banker,
1818–23: his son, Samuel Jones Loyd, latterly Baron Overstone,
banker, 1823–53 (also at No. 23). Lady Northwick, wid. of 3rd
Baron, 1894–1905. 4th Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl,
1910–26 (previously at No. 27). 1st Baron Denham, 1939–42.
This is the much-altered house which was built on the west
side of Norfolk Street during the first development of the
street by John Spencer, carpenter, and Edmund Rush,
mason. Their building lessee here was John Coffin of
Tooting, a paper merchant, in 1758. (ref. 216)
In 1834–5 Sir Emanuel Felix Agar, a former officer in
the Life Guards who had been knighted by the Prince
Regent, added two storeys, (ref. 217) and further alterations were
carried out by later occupants, including C. J. Wertheimer, a notable art collector. He enclosed the semi-circular balcony on the Park Lane front in 1887 (ref. 218) (Plate
19c in vol. XXXIX) and four years later added a portico to the
Norfolk Street front, which was apparently still brick faced
at that date. (ref. 219)
In 1948 No. 21 was united with No. 22 to the south and
the basement, ground and first floors were converted to
office use with flats above. (ref. 220)
Occupants include: Lady Hotham, wid. of Sir Charles
Hotham, 5th bt., 1759–75. Sir William Thomas, 2nd bt., 1776–7:
his son, Sir George Thomas, 3rd bt., 1777–81. Sir Emanuel Felix
Agar, kt., 1816–40 (also at No. 29). Edward Levy (latterly Levy-Lawson), later 1st Baron Burnham, newspaper proprietor,
1870–80 (later at No. 20). C. J. Wertheimer, art collector,
No. 20 Dunraven Street, which has undergone a
similar transformation to the other surviving houses on the
west side of Dunraven Street (Plate 19c in vol. XXXIX), is
structurally the original house which was built during the
development of Norfolk Street in the 1750's by John
Spencer, carpenter, and Edmund Rush, mason, who
granted a sub-lease of the plot to Richard Smith,
carpenter, in 1757. (ref. 221)
As late as 1875 the house still retained much of its
original character with a brick façade of three main storeys
to Norfolk Street. Since then the house has been raised by
squaring off an attic storey and adding another full storey,
probably in c. 1876 when a new lessee proposed to
undertake works which were later said to have cost
£2,000. (ref. 222) The present stucco façade apparently dates
from after 1890. (ref. 223)
Occupants include: Lady Delaval, wife of Sir Francis Blake
Delaval, 1762–3: her husband, Sir Francis Blake Delaval, K.B.,
1764: her da. by previous marriage, Isabella Powlett, 1764–5,
who in 1765 married Lord Perceval, later 3rd Earl of Egmont,
1765–8. Lady Montagu, 1775–9. Sir John Lade, 1st bt., 1796–9.
Lord Ashley, later 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, the philanthropist,
1833. Capt. (later Adm. Sir) Arthur Cumming, (K.C.B.),
1867–76. William Turquand, accountant, 1877–94 (previously at
No. 26). William Hesketh Lever, later 1st Viscount Leverhulme,
soap manufacturer, 1894–7. Sir Edward Levy-Lawson, latterly
1st Baron Burnham, newspaper proprietor, 1898–1916 (previously at No. 21), and his da., Lady Hulse, wid. of Sir Edward
Hulse, 6th bt., 1907–16.
This house occupies the site of two
small houses, originally built at the corner of Dunraven
(then Norfolk) Street and North Row; they were let in
1758 by John Spencer, carpenter, and Edmund Rush,
mason, to John Morrice, glazier, and were known as No. 19
Norfolk Street and No. 1 North Row. (ref. 224)
In 1831 the builder John Elger applied for the site with
the intention of 'laying the two houses . . . together', and
there seems no question that they were substantially
rebuilt by him in the following year. (ref. 225) The new house (at
first No. 25 Park Lane but in 1872 renumbered as No. 39)
was lofty and capacious, and had the stucco fronts,
balustrading and first-floor balconies by now common
hereabouts (Plate 19c in vol. XXXIX). Elger's first tenant was
Lord Lincoln, M.P., subsequently fifth Duke of Newcastle. (ref. 226)
In 1909 the house fell out of lease. Despite doubts
whether, with increased traffic and rebuilding contemplated to its north, it could still attract fashionable
occupants, it was taken by the fourth Lord Newborough
after works in 1910 to the value of £5,000 by the builders
Higgs and Hill, probably under H. O. Cresswell. (ref. 227) In
1928, however, the Estate bought out the lease and
prepared to convert the house to a shop, offices and flats.
This was duly undertaken in 1928–9 by Bovis Limited at an
expense of £12,500 to designs by G. Thrale Jell, but Sir
Edwin Lutyens was called in on the Estate's behalf to add
worthy Doric stone surrounds to the shop fronts, and these
still remain. (ref. 228) The address, at that time still No. 39 Park
Lane, was changed to No. 138 in 1934.
Occupants include: No. 19 Norfolk Street, (Sir) Joseph
Pennington, latterly 4th bt., 1765–8. Richard Fitzpatrick, M.P.,
son of 1st Earl of Upper Ossory, 1773–91. Henry Fitzroy
Stanhope, son of 2nd Earl of Harrington, 1792–1802. Lord
Charles Bentinck, son of 3rd Duke of Portland, 1822–6: his wid.,
1826–31. Combined site, Earl of Lincoln, later 5th Duke of
Newcastle, 1834–42. John Attwood, M.P., 1842–52. Sir John
Villiers Shelley, M.P., 7th bt., 1854–9. James Hall Renton, stock
dealer and railway company director, 1882–95. 4th Baron
Newborough, 1911–16: his wid., 1916–28.
Known latterly as No.
40 Park Lane but more frequently referred to as Somerset
House, this house was originally erected in 1769–70 by
John Phillips, carpenter, for the second Viscount Bateman.
Phillips was the undertaker for the whole of this northwest corner of the estate, and a surviving building
agreement suggests that he was both principal contractor
and designer of this house. It was from the first an irregular
composition, built side-on to Park Lane, with an entrance
from a courtyard which, like that of its neighbour
Camelford House, continued the line of Hereford Street
and was perhaps never wholly private (fig. 65). To the
north of the yard, at the corner of Oxford Street, lay the
stable building with a kitchen and offices beneath,
connected to the main house by a basement passage (Plate
45a: see also Plate 14b in vol. XXXIX).
The house itself was of four storeys above ground and
had bay windows running through the main floors, one
towards Park Lane and two towards the garden, which
stretched down to North Row (Plate 68b, 68d). The façades
were probably in brick with Portland-stone dressings to
the windows, though all known illustrations show the
house recased in stucco. There were three principal rooms
on each floor, including Lady Bateman's bedroom and
dressing-room on the first floor, and a dining-room,
drawing-room and Lord Bateman's dressing-room at
ground level. The finishings seem to have mostly been of a
simple plastered character; the main rooms were painted
white ready to receive hangings, and given chimneypieces
of £25 or, in the case of the two rooms facing the park, £50
in value. The entrance hall was paved in Portland stone
and the staircase which rose from it had Portland steps and
plain iron rails. By an interesting mid-Georgian prescription, Phillips was instructed to make the woodwork in
all the sashes to the basement storey 'small and neat and
the Glass as large as possible'. Lord Bateman agreed to pay
Phillips £7,000 for building and completing the house, but
seems in the end to have paid rather under £6,000, perhaps
because other contractors were also involved. (ref. 229)
Figure 65:
Camelford and Somerset Houses (demolished), ground-floor plans in c. 1820
In 1789 Lord Bateman left the house and was succeeded
by Warren Hastings, who, having returned from India
four years earlier, had recently been impeached. During
the remainder of his long trial, culminating in acquittal in
1795, this was Hastings' London house, and his period
here also coincided with his rebuilding of Daylesford
House, Gloucestershire, under S. P. Cockerell. (ref. 40) The
price paid to Bateman was probably £8,000, of which
Hastings paid half immediately, moving in during
November 1789. He made some minor changes which
probably involved Cockerell, but does not appear to have
undertaken serious alterations. In 1797 he resolved on
selling the house and found a buyer in the third Earl of
Rosebery, who paid £9,450 for it at auction but declined
the pictures; these, Hastings laconically observed in his
diary, were 'sold at Christie's for nothing'. (ref. 230)
After Lord Rosebery's occupation, in 1808 the eleventh
Duke of Somerset bought the house, then described as 'a
very good one'. (ref. 231) The Duke soon had plans for extension
which necessitated the first of several negotiations with his
close neighbour at Camelford House, Lord Grenville.
Though not aligned, the houses nearly touched at one
point, so that any southward enlargement of Somerset
House was bound to detract from the amenity of
Camelford House. In 1810, therefore, the Somersets
agreed not to build on their garden and approached Earl
Grosvenor with a view to filling in the space in the court
between the house and stables. The Estate was averse to
allowing this, as there was doubt as to the precise legal
status of the court, and Lord Grosvenor thought that such
an extension would darken Hereford Street. Eventually a
small addition, probably designed by Jeffry Wyatt and
consisting merely of a single-storey entrance corridor from
Park Lane to the front door, was sanctioned but not built
for the time being. (ref. 232) Instead, the Somersets contented
themselves with interior decorations. In 1813 the Duke
told his brother: 'Charlotte is as busy as a bee upon a bank
of thyme. Furnishing her house has been one occupation,
and she has the fashionable predilection for old things.' (ref. 233)
The confrontation with Camelford House recurred in
1819, when the Duke of Somerset again contemplated
building on his garden, this time under P. F. Robinson,
currently his architect at Bulstrode Park, his country seat.
Alternatives were proposed: a long projection against the
wall along Park Lane, or a shorter one close to the west-facing windows of the library at Camelford House. After
delicate negotiations with Lords Grenville and Grosvenor,
conducted upon what Edward Boodle was pleased to call a
'footing of liberal forebearance', the Duke accepted a
curtailed version of the shorter projection, hardly
interrupting the westward view from Camelford House.
Even then Thomas Grenville was inclined to make light of
Somerset's intentions: 'one has seen so many architectural
plans discussed by the noble Duke, without a single brick
being placed, that I know not how to think the danger very
pressing, more especially when I recollect that there are
already more rooms in their present house than are actually
furnished or likely to be inhabited'. However the two-storey extension was duly built, and in 1820 the Duke was
still thinking of further enlargements in the garden. These
came to nothing, so in 1821 or 1822 he contented himself
with building his single-storey entrance corridor on the
north side, though whether to designs by Robinson or by
Wyatt is unclear. (ref. 234)
The Duke's first wife died at Somerset House in 1827,
but he remarried in 1836; after his own death there in 1855
his second Duchess lived on at the house until she died in
1880. At that date, the first floor was being used for
drawing-rooms rather than bedrooms. (ref. 235) The twelfth
Duke promptly made some repairs, which were undertaken by William Cubitt and Company and may have
included alterations to the balconies and the raising of
some of the bays to attic level. (ref. 236) After his death in 1885 the
house was empty for some years, but in 1906, when Mrs.
Murray Smith was living here, negotiations first began for
rebuilding this site together with Camelford House. (ref. 237) The
second Duke of Westminster was at first disinclined to
allow the demolition of the houses, 'particularly having
regard to No. 40 having historical associations', but
eventually he submitted, though Somerset House remained inhabited for some little time after Camelford
House was pulled down in 1913. (ref. 238) When Mrs. Murray
Smith left in May 1914 she reported that 'there were vaults
with chains in them'; the estate surveyor, Edmund
Wimperis, duly investigated, but could find no trace of an
alleged cell supposed to have been used for prisoners being
taken to Tyburn. (ref. 239) When demolition occurred in 1915,
four of the better mantelpieces were moved to houses
elsewhere on the estate, two to No. 11 Green Street and
two to No. 50 Park Street; those at the latter house still
exist today (ref. 240) (Plate 75d).
Occupants include: 2nd Viscount Bateman, 1772–89. Warren
Hastings, Governor General of India, 1789–97. 3rd Earl of
Rosebery, 1798–1808. 11th Duke of Somerset, 1809–55: his wid.,
1855–80: her step-son, 12th Duke, 1880–5.
This interesting
house, built in about 1773–4 on a confined site just behind
Oxford Street between Lord Bateman's house in Park
Lane and the new Hereford Street, survived until 1913. Its
designer and first inhabitant was Thomas Pitt, M.P., of
Boconnoc, from 1784 first Baron Camelford, a nephew of
William Pitt the elder and an amateur architect of some
ability. The site, averaging about ninety feet in width and
stretching through from Oxford Street to North Row, was
part of the large area in the north-west corner of the estate
taken by John Phillips, carpenter, in 1765. Phillips granted
a sub-lease to Pitt in 1773, when the house was probably
nearing completion, and Pitt was soon afterwards in
occupation. (ref. 241)
The result was a formally planned late-Palladian villa
with a modest garden behind, a square courtyard in front
on the line of Hereford Street, and a pair of low buildings
housing stables and offices in the front toward Oxford
Street, separated by a small yard (fig. 65). The house itself
was of plain brick construction, with two storeys only
above ground; there were three-sided bays in the centre at
front and back, and a small open porte cochère in front
(Plate 69c: see also Plate 14a in vol. XXXIX). The interior
was probably characterized throughout by refined neo-classical detailing, some of which (notably in the octagonal
entrance hall) survived until the house's demolition (Plate
69a). There were five main rooms on the ground floor and
seven above, two of them octagonal and one almost
circular. The staircase, though toplit, was described in
1822 as 'unusually small and contracted'. (ref. 242)
How far Pitt himself was responsible for all the
arrangements and decorations at Camelford House is not
known, but the house was completed and occupied before
he met the young John Soane at Rome in 1778. Shortly
afterwards, Soane was entrusted with repairs and improvements at a number of Pitt's properties, and in a letter he
referred to 'a sketch of your house in London'. (ref. 243) In
1783–5 he superintended minor works at Camelford
House, perhaps in connexion with the letting of the house
during one of Pitt's frequent absences abroad. (ref. 244) He also in
1785 produced for his patron an ambitious scheme for
reconstructing the two houses closest to Camelford House
in Hereford Street as a headquarters for the Society of
Dilettanti (Plate 69d), but this came to nothing. (ref. 243)
The first Lord Camelford may not have lived much at
the house after his ennoblement, for in 1787 he was
thinking of letting 'my palace in Oxford-Street till my son
is old enough to marry and live in it'. Then, shortly after
his daughter had married the first Lord Grenville in 1792,
Camelford went to Italy and the Grenvilles moved in. (ref. 245)
Following his death abroad in 1793, rates were paid by his
son the second Lord Camelford till 1799, and then by the
Dowager Lady Camelford until she died in 1803. (ref. 132) But
after the second Baron was killed in a duel in 1804, the
house passed permanently to Lord Grenville, then a
prominent Whig politician and soon afterwards head of the
'Ministry of All the Talents'. In 1806–9 Grenville was
undertaking major works to his country house, Dropmore,
under the architect C. H. Tatham, (ref. 246) but the authorship of
'some very elegant improvements in the ornamental
decorations of Camelford-house' reported in 1809 remains
unknown. (ref. 247) Some florid plasterwork in the dining-room
could well have dated from this time (Plate 69b).
In 1814 a small extension to the library on the west side
of the house was contemplated to designs by Robert
Smirke. This was not carried out, and Lord Grenville now
began to look for another house. In 1816 he secured a short
lease of a house in Hamilton Place, and offered a seven-year tenancy of Camelford House to Prince Leopold of
Saxe-Coburg and his new wife, Princess Charlotte,
through the Commissioners of Crown Lands. Soane
surveyed the house, valuing it at £18,000, and Grenville
managed to secure the vast rent of £2,500 per annum. But
the Prince and Princess were soon disillusioned with the
house and endeavoured to sub-let it and move elsewhere;
in the end they were at Camelford House for scarcely more
than eighteen months. (ref. 248) New tenants were found for the
next five years in the persons of the Earl and Countess of
Tankerville. (ref. 132) In 1819 came a further difficulty, when the
Duke of Somerset contemplated overshadowing Camelford House with an extension to his house. This was
quickly resolved, but Grenville soon afterwards determined to sell the house. Henry Harrison, who surveyed
it, regarded it as 'not calculated to suit many persons' and
pointed out the deficiency of the stairs and the bedrooms;
he suggested a price of £13,000. (ref. 242) Eventually a buyer was
found in Lord Midleton, who in 1824 paid only £11,000
for it. Lady Williams-Wynn, reporting this, added: 'for
myself I have always thought it one of the most unpleasant
habitations in London'. (ref. 249)
In 1828 Camelford House passed to (Sir) Charles Mills,
of Glyn, Mills' bank, who early in the following year was
'modernizing and improving that spacious mansion'. (ref. 250) He
lived here until his death in 1872, when he was succeeded
by his son Sir Charles Henry Mills, from 1886 first Lord
Hillingdon. In 1898 the second Lord Hillingdon succeeded his father, keeping the house till it fell out of lease in
1907. Few details are known of works carried out by the
Mills family. The carriage entrance from Oxford Street
between the stables and offices had been filled in by 1844,
leaving the approach to the house from Hereford Street or
from Park Lane through the neighbouring courtyard of
Somerset House, and shortly after this date a verandah
appeared on the garden front. Alterations by the builder
John Kelk and his successor George Smith and Company
are recorded in 1852, 1873, 1875 and 1898. In one of these
campaigns the porte cochère was extended and filled in, and
by the end of the house's life some of the rooms had been
redecorated in the French style (Plate 69b). In 1879, 'a one
storey Arab room' was erected by Smith to designs by
George Aitchison; this was simply a small, separate
smoking-room, built in the south-east corner of the
garden. (ref. 251)
On the expiry of the lease in 1907, Camelford House
became empty. At the second Duke of Westminster's
insistence, terms were offered in 1909 to Mrs. Beatty, wife
of Captain (later Admiral of the Fleet, Earl) Beatty; her
refusal sealed the fate of the house, which was already
being considered for rebuilding along with Somerset
House. Photographs were taken by the London County
Council shortly before demolition in 1913, after which the
Pavilion Cinema was built on the site. (ref. 252)
Occupants include: Thomas Pitt, latterly 1st Lord Camelford,
1774–93: his son, 2nd Lord Camelford, 1793–9: the latter's
mother, wid. of 1st Lord, 1799–1803: her son-in-law, Baron
Grenville, Prime Minister, and his wife, Anne, da. of 1st Lord
Camelford, 1805–16. Princess Charlotte, da. of George, Prince of
Wales, and her husband Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg,
1816–17. 4th Earl of Tankerville, 1818–22: his wid., 1822–3. 4th
Viscount Midleton, 1824–7. (Sir) Charles Mills, latterly 1st bt.,
member of banking firm of Glyn, Mills and Co., 1828–72: his
son, Sir Charles Henry Mills, 2nd bt., latterly 1st Baron
Hillingdon, banker, 1872–98: the latter's son, 2nd Baron
Hillingdon, banker, 1898–1907.
The large stone-faced range of flats here,
originally accompanied by a cinema behind, was built to
the designs of Frank Verity in 1913–19. The main range
has long been one of the most admired of Verity's large
blocks of West End flats, and its clever mixture of Beaux-Arts and Greek motifs executed in Portland stone make a
striking feature on one of London's most prominent sites
(Plate 48a in vol. XXXIX).
When the lease of Camelford House was nearing expiry
in 1906, the Estate started to think of rebuilding this whole
site, but an offer at this time from the builders Perry
Brothers to construct a hotel here, and another in 1910
from J. Lyons and Company, both fell through. This was
chiefly because Somerset House did not fall out of lease
until 1914; it was therefore necessary to build first on the
site of Camelford House, where buildings of any height
would have obstructed Hereford Gardens. The second
Duke of Westminster and his surveyor, Edmund Wimperis, were also reluctant to sacrifice these two historic
houses, even for the greater rent obtainable. (ref. 253)
Eventually it was agreed to build a low cinema first, next
to Hereford Gardens, followed by flats on the corner site.
In December 1911 the Grosvenor Board was entertaining
several such propositions, of which one to be designed by
Frank Verity met with most favour. At an advanced stage
Verity's client backed out, and it was left to the Board to
press his scheme on Israel Davis, another of the applicants.
Though Davis and his company, the Electric Pavilion
Limited, had already built several London cinemas, his
financial position was somewhat infirm. His intention was
to complete the cinema and then assign the site for the flats
to another undertaker. On this basis work began in 1913 on
the cinema, which was finished at a cost of about £24,000
shortly after the outbreak of war. The lease was then
quickly granted to Davis, whose affairs were now
pressing. (ref. 254)
The Pavilion Cinema, Marble Arch, as it was called,
stretched right through from Oxford Street to North
Row. It had a simple auditorium with decorative balconies,
a generous vestibule, and four free-standing columns along
the low stone front towards Oxford Street, with small
shops left and right (Plate 47c). The cinema prospered as a
result of the war and survived with some vicissitudes until
1957, when the site was rebuilt in a somewhat plebeian
manner with shops, offices and a garage behind in North
Row. (ref. 255)
The flats did not progress quite so smoothly. At first it
was hoped to have shops on the ground floor and six
storeys of flats above, but as early as 1912 agitation in the
press against shops in Park Lane induced the Grosvenor
Board, which was 'somewhat nervous as to the effect on the
residents and public of the erection of the buildings', to
request a revision. (ref. 256) New plans were soon forthcoming,
and Wimperis in particular was impressed by 'the helpful
spirit in which Mr. Verity has uniformly met every
criticism made in the interests of the estate'. (ref. 257) In 1914
Somerset House was vacated and the site was made
available to Davis, but not long after the completion of the
cinema he assigned the flats to (Sir) John W. Lorden, a
prominent developer with a base in South London. Under
difficult wartime conditions his firm, W. H. Lorden and
Son, began work on the flats in 1915, but in September
1916, when the structural steelwork was nearly complete,
Lorden lost his licence for building here and operations
closed down. A perspective view by William Walcot of
Verity's revised design, which now included an extra
storey of flats, was shown at the Royal Academy in 1917. (ref. 258)
Meanwhile, a legal wrangle between Davis and Lorden
had arisen over the payment of rent. This took some time
to settle, and the work seems to have been resumed and
finished only in 1919. The completed buildings were
assigned to Sir Thomas Brooke-Hitching. (ref. 259) Some years
later, in 1932, the Estate sold the freehold of the flats to the
lessees, Town Investments Limited, for £44,000. (ref. 260) The
present numberings in Park Lane and in Oxford Street
were adopted in 1934 and 1939 respectively.
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