Chapter III: Part 3

One of the most historic mansions in London is No. 10, Downing Street, facing the Foreign Office, which has been the official home of the first Lord of the Treasury ever since Sir Robert Walpole moved into it from St. James's Square in 1735. It had belonged to the Crown, and had been granted by George I. to Baron Bothmar, the Hanoverian minister, for life. The residence really consists of two houses, with a covered way between them. That which faces the street is a plain Georgian structure, resembling No. 11, which forms part of the same block. The building at the back seems little to accord with its surrounding. It stands in a garden, much frequented by woodpigeons, which once, no doubt, formed part of St. James's Park. On a misty morning in spring one might imagine it to be on the outskirts of some peaceful country town. The view shows the south side, the part towards Downing Street being discernible behind a tree on the right: the building to the left is the Treasury. The artist has ventured to clothe his little figures in costumes which harmonise more with the old place than the frock coats and trousers of the present day. The windows opening on to the terrace belong to the famous old cabinet room, where Pitt and Sir Robert Peel, Disraeli and Palmerston, have often sat. In the large reception room on the first floor which forms the subject of drawing No. 76, are a series of interesting portraits, the best, perhaps, being that of Richard Weston, Earl of Portland, Lord High Treasurer in 1633. The portly form of Sir Robert Walpole is in the place of honour, empanelled above a fine marble mantelpiece. It was in the ante-room, on the first floor of No. 10, Downing Street, that on January 12th, 1887, the Earl of Iddesleigh, better known as Sir Stafford Northcote, breathed his last. This house, although it has undergone various changes, was originally designed by Sir Christopher Wren, as is proved in the London Topographical Society's Record, vol. 2, pp. 23-26 (1903).

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77. Schomberg House, Pall Mall, 1894 (Black and white).

Schomberg House, Nos. 81 and 82, on the south side of Pall Mall, is an interesting specimen of a nobleman's mansion in the late seventeenth century, though its symmetry has been spoiled by the destruction of the east wing, about the year 1850. Timbs thought that it dated from the time of the Commonwealth; it is, however, generally supposed to have been begun for the famous Duke of Schomberg, the favourite of William III., who was killed at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and not to have been finished until some years after his death. His second son, Meinardt, the third Duke, died in 1719, when the title became extinct. The house then came into the hands of Meinardt's daughter, Frederica, who married first the Earl of Holdernesse, and afterwards Benjamin Mildmay, created Earl of Fitzwalter in 1730. Thirty years later, on the accession of George III., the Duke of Cumberland, victor at Culloden, came here as tenant, from St. James's Palace, but he did not remain long; the Earl of Holdernesse soon afterwards selling the mansion for £5,000 to "Beau" Astley, the portrait painter, who had married Lady Daniell, a wealthy widow. Astley spent a large sum in converting it into three dwellings, and fitting up the central part fantastically for his own use. It was probably he who set up the bas-relief of "Painting" over the doorway, which still remains. He was succeeded by Nathaniel Hone, R.A., now chiefly remembered by his picture called "The Conjuror." In 1781 this central portion was let to Dr. Graham, the notorious quack, who exhibited here his "Temple of Hymen" and "Celestial Bed," and here "the blooming Priestess of the Temple endeavoured to" "entertain ladies and gentlemen of candour and good nature" by reading a lecture on the means of preserving "health, beauty, and serene mental brilliancy even to the extremest old age." Soon, however, the farce was played out, and in 1786 Graham was succeeded by Richard Cosway, the miniature painter, and his handsome wife. They lived here for some years, and society flocked to their parties, which were not unfrequently attended by the Prince of Wales, who had access to them through a private door from the garden of Carlton House. The western wing of Schomberg House was from 1774 occupied by that great artist, Thomas Gainsborough, and here he died in 1788. Reynolds had visited him, at his request, a few days before, when he used the often-quoted words: "We are all going to Heaven and Vandyck is of the party." And here in the following spring his widow held an exhibition of his works still remaining on her hands. In the course of last century Messrs. Dyde and Scribe converted the east wing into a place of business. They were succeeded by Mr. Harding, in whose time George III. and the Princesses used to visit the shop and make their own purchases. Other well-known people have been connected with Schomberg House. Robert Bowyer, miniature-painter to Queen Charlotte, here collected a large number of engravings and paintings to illustrate the history of England, which he called the Historic Gallery. It proved unsuccessful, and he applied for help to Parliament, which passed an Act empowering him to dispose of it by lottery; this he did in 1807. The bookseller, "Honest Tom Payne," moved in 1806 to Schomberg House from his old shop at the Mews Gate, where the National Gallery now stands. Messrs. Payne and Foss succeeded him, who brought together a matchless collection of old books, and stayed here until their retirement from business. It had been said (Smith's Nollekens, Vol. II., p. 398) that Jervais, the portrait painter, eulogised by Pope, was also for a time a tenant. Schomberg House, or what remains of it, has for many years been incorporated in the War Office.

(14 × 8-5/8) D. 63-1896.

78. Back of Devonshire House, Piccadilly, from the Garden, 1893
(Black and white).

Devonshire House stands on the site of Berkeley House, built in 1665 for Sir John Berkeley (created Lord Berkeley of Stratton), which in its turn was on the site of Hay Hill Farm. The property at first included the site of Lansdowne House and Garden and Berkeley Square. Lord Berkeley died in 1678, and in 1684 two new streets (Berkeley Street and Stratton Street) were built on a portion of the grounds by his widow. In 1695 the Princess Anne, who was then on bad terms with her brother-in-law, William III., lived here with her husband till the death of her sister, Queen Mary, in the same year. William, first Duke of Devonshire, bought the house in 1697, and the first and second Dukes both died here. The original mansion was destroyed by fire in 1733, and the present one—rather a dull piece of architecture—was built from William Kent's design in 1735, at a cost of £20,000. It has since been considerably altered. In 1874, as we are told by Sir N. W. Wraxall, the great rallying points of the coalition against Pitt were Carlton House, Burlington House, and Devonshire House, where Georgiana, the charming Duchess of Devonshire, reigned over her brilliant court. In the ball-room here was acted before the Queen and Prince Albert, on May 16th, 1851, for the benefit of the Guild of Literature and Art, Lord Lytton's play, "Not so bad as we seem." Among the actors were Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Augustus Egg, Frank Stone, R. Horne (the author of "Orion"), Mark Lemon, and John Tenniel. The fine wrought-iron gate in front of the house, facing Piccadilly, which was placed there in Queen Victoria's Jubilee year (1897) had stood since 1837 at the entrance to the grounds of Chiswick House, having been brought originally from Heathfield House, Turnham Green, once the residence of Lord Heathfield, who, as General Elliot, so bravely defended Gibraltar. Devonshire House is one of the few London mansions still possessing a large garden, which is adorned by copies of antique statues.

(10-7/8 × 15-1/16) D. 64-1896.

79. Lansdowne House, from Berkeley Square, 1893 (Black and
white).

Dividing the gardens of Devonshire House and Lansdowne House is Lansdowne Passage, a short cut for walkers from Curzon Street to Hay Hill. Thomas Grenville records that the iron bars at the two ends were put up late in the 18th century, because a mounted highwayman who had committed a robbery in Piccadilly escaped through this passage by riding down and up the steps. Lansdowne House, like that last described, is interesting from its connection with historic personages, as a specimen of the dwelling of a great nobleman in the 18th century, and from its having a considerable garden. It was designed by Robert Adam (the most famous of the brothers who built the Adelphi) about the year 1765, for Lord Bute, then Prime Minister, whose treaty of peace with France raised such a fury of opposition that his enemies did not hesitate to say that he had been bribed. On his fall from power it passed, as yet unfinished, into the hands of Lord Shelburne, afterwards the first Marquis of Lansdowne, to whose descendant it still belongs. Embowered in foliage it certainly has a picturesque effect from the adjoining Berkeley Square.

(7-5/8 × 10-3/8) D. 65-1896.

80. Library of Chesterfield House, South Audley Street, 1893
(Black and white).

Whatever may have been their defects, the noblemen's mansions built in the eighteenth century were mostly distinguished by fine staircases and reception rooms. A notable specimen is Chesterfield House, which was planned by Ware, an architect of no mean merit, for Philip, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, who wrote the famous _Letters to his Son_. Here Samuel Johnson is popularly supposed to have "waited in the outer rooms" and been "repulsed from the door;" but this must have occurred not later than 1747, as is clear from Johnson's own words, and the Earl did not take possession of his new home in South Audley Street till March 13th, 1749. The ground attached to it has been sadly curtailed since he wrote to a friend "My garden is now turfed, planted, and sown, and will in two months make a scene of verdure and flowers not common in London." Inside, however, there has been comparatively little change. The marble staircase, with its pillars, has a very stately effect; it was brought from Canons, near Edgware, the letters on the wrought iron balustrade being the initials of the "princely" Chandos, whose ducal coronets were removed by Lord Chesterfield and replaced by his own. On the ground floor at the back there is a splendid suite of rooms, including the library, which is represented in drawing No. 80. Its first owner called it with pardonable pride "the best room in England," and here are still to be seen under the cornice, in capital letters a foot high, the Horatian lines:

"Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno et inertibus horis,
Ducere solicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ";

an indication of the life he proposed to lead amidst his books and pictures. The portraits in framed panels, which decorate the walls, are a most interesting series, representing, as they do, eminent people painted by some of the finest artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Scattered throughout the mansion there are many other superb portraits by Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Romney, which were collected by the late owner, Lord Burton, and are here appropriately housed.

(18 × 22-1/4) D. 66-1896.

81. Bourdon House, Davies Street, 1893 (Black and white).

North of Berkeley Square begins the estate of the Duke of Westminster in this part of London, brought to the Grosvenor family by Miss Mary Davies, who married Sir Thomas Grosvenor in 1676. And here, on the east side of Davies Street, named after her, stands Bourdon House, a pleasant old dwelling, over-shadowed by the trees which grow in its little courtyard. Inside, the most noteworthy feature is the carved woodwork, which seems to be French in style, dating, perhaps, from the early part of the eighteenth century. There is a strong tradition that this house was originally occupied by the Davies family; it is certainly one of the oldest on the estate. The name Bourdon first appears on the parish rate books in 1739. Within the last few years the house has been enlarged.

(11-1/16 × 8-1/2) D. 67-1896.

82. Scarsdale House, Kensington, 1892 (2 Water-colours).

Scarsdale House stands—perhaps one should now say stood—a little back, at the north-east corner of Wright's Lane, within a stone's throw of the Kensington High Street railway station. Of its early history little is known, but the main part of the building must have been at least coeval with Kensington Square; that is, it must have existed for more than 200 years. It is stated by one of his descendants that this property first belonged to John Curzon, who is perhaps best remembered in the family as having owned a horse of Eastern blood, one of the progenitors of the modern racehorse. For a short time Lord Barnard occupied the house; in 1721 William Curzon was living here, and was one of the largest contributors to the parish poor-rate. Early in the nineteenth century it was a ladies' boarding school, but many years ago it became the residence of the Hon. Edward Curzon (second son of Mr. Robert Curzon and Lady de la Zouche), who bought it from his cousin, Lord Scarsdale. The pair of Jacobean mantelpieces in the drawing-room once graced a wing, now destroyed, of the historic mansion of Loseley. The old house in Wright's Lane, with its delightful garden, is immortalized in Miss Thackeray's novel, "Old Kensington." This was Lady Sarah's home, "with its many windows dazzling, as the sun travelled across the old-fashioned housetops," and here was the room with the blue tiles which Lady Sarah's husband brought from the Hague the year before he died. The garden is now partly a coalyard, and part is absorbed by the widening of the roads. The house, wholly transformed and dismantled, is converted into an annexe of a draper's establishment in High Street, Kensington.

(7 × 9-3/4) (6-1/4 × 9-3/4) D. 68 A, B-1896.

83. Turner's House, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, 1880 (Water-colour).

On the river front beyond Lindsey House, no great distance from the site of Cremorne Gardens and next but one to a tavern called the Aquatic Stores, stands a small cottage, one of a pair now joined together and numbered 118, Cheyne Walk, to which in his old age J. M. W. Turner, the great artist, used to retire from his house in Queen Anne Street. He must have loved the Thames, for he had previously resided first at West End, Upper Mall, Hammersmith, and afterwards, from time to time, at Sandycombe Lodge, Twickenham. He, no doubt, selected the humble dwelling at Chelsea chiefly because, from its low roof, still protected by a wrought-iron railing which he caused to be placed there, he could get a fine view of Chelsea reach, now obscured by the modern house next door, which projects in front. For the sake of privacy he took the name of the landlady, and was known in the neighbourhood as Mr. Booth, Admiral Booth, or "Puggy" Booth. The cottage is now somewhat below the level of the roadway; an old inhabitant, formerly a waterman, told the writer that in his youth it was only separated from the Thames by a raised path. Turner died here December 19th, 1851, in a room the window of which may be seen immediately below the railing or balcony whence he is believed to have studied the view. Afterwards, for many years, the place remained outwardly in much the same condition as when he left it. By degrees it became dilapidated, the little trees in front disappeared, and in 1895 there was an ominous announcement that the property was to be sold for building purposes. The late Mrs. Haweis made efforts to save it; and there was a correspondence on the subject in the "Times." After remaining empty and dilapidated during many months, the pair of cottages were bought and judiciously restored by one who valued the memory of our illustrious landscape painter. A large studio was then built at the back, where there were formerly other tenements.

(8-1/2 × 6) D. 83-1896.

84. Old Fish Shop, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, 1887 (Water-colour).

This quaint little house, one of the oldest in the parish, stood in what used to be known as Lombard Street, but now forms part of Cheyne Walk. It was four doors west of a tavern called the Rising Sun, and in old days had been a freehold, with the right of pasturage on Chelsea Common. In front of the gable was a plaster or terra cotta medallion, with a head in relief which might have been copied from a classical coin. This, though a humble specimen of its class, belonged to a style of decoration common in the seventeenth century. The writer has before him a view, dated 1792, of a building then on Tower Hill, with similar medallions. Sometimes the heads of Roman Emperors were thus placed, sometimes the Cardinal virtues and other emblematic figures. The fish shop in Cheyne Walk, long kept by Mrs. Elizabeth Maunder, was pulled down in November, 1892. Mr. Percy Thomas etched it, and there is a famous lithograph of the lower part, by Whistler, who for years lived hard by. The medallion is now in the Chelsea Free Library. After the destruction of the old fish shop Mr. C. R. Ashbee built a house on this and the adjoining site, numbered 72 to 74, Cheyne Walk, and in that house Whistler died, July 17, 1903.

(11 × 6-7/8) D. 69-1896.

85. Old Thatched Cottage, near Paddington Green, 1895.
(Water-colour).

This was considered to be the last thatched cottage in London, though at the time of writing one in Camberwell still survives. It stood on the west side of the old burial ground of St. Mary's Church (now a public garden), and behind No. 12, St. Mary's Terrace, Paddington Green, and in 1895 was occupied by Welsh-speaking people connected with a temporary Welsh chapel which stood hard by. The walls of this cottage were composed of pebbles and broken flint plastered over, and its rural look was enhanced by the surrounding ground with trees growing thereon. The date of its erection was not known. In the "Bayswater Annual" for 1885 there was a statement that in 1820 the cottage belonged to a Mr. Chambers, "a banker of Bond Street." In those days the occupants commanded an uninterrupted view of the Harrow Road as it turned northward. Claremont House, within a short distance of Chambers's Cottage, was remarkable for the "Claremont Caverns" about which many uncanny tales were told. They were the work of a Mr. Southgate Stevens who here carried on in secret processes for extracting gold from quartz and other minerals. He was said to have spent some £30,000 in this fruitless quest. A drawing and short account of Chambers's Cottage will be found in the "Builder" for May 18th and June 8th, 1895; it was demolished a year or two afterwards, to make room for St. David's Welsh Church.

(7-3/4 × 10-11/16) D. 85-1896.

INDEX.

No. of
Drawing.

Admiral Carter Inn, Montagu Court, 56

Aldgate, Old houses in, 19

Allhallows the Great, Church of, 53, 54

Austin Friars, No. 10, Staircase of, 36

Austin Friars, No. 21, 37

Baptist's Head Public-house, St. John's Lane, Clerkenwell, 60

Barnard's Inn, Holborn, 62, 63

Bartholomew Close, Old house at entrance of, 57

Blakeney's Head Public-house, No. 35, Bartholomew Close, 58

Botolph Lane, Staircase of house in, 26

Bourdon House, Davies Street, 81

Bull Inn, Aldgate, 20

Bunyan's Monument, Bunhill Fields, 41

Chapter Coffee House, Paternoster Row, 44

Cheshire Cheese Tavern, Fleet Street, 65

Chesterfield House, South Audley Street, Library of, 80

Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, Old Fish Shop, 84

City Greenyard, No. 18, Whitecross Street, 40

City of London School, Victoria Embankment, 67

Clare Market, Old Butchers' Shops, 64

Cock and Pie, Drury Lane, 69

Coleman Street, No. 4, 42

College Hill, Gateways on the east side, 25

Crosby Hall Chambers, Bishopsgate Street, 31, 32

Crosby Square, No. 4, Garden of, 33

Devonshire House, Piccadilly, 78

Downing Street, No. 10, 75, 76

Elephant and Castle, Old, Newington Butts, 1

Emanuel Hospital, Westminster, 73, 74

George Inn, Southwark, 8, 9

George Inn, Old, Trinity Square, 24

Great St. Helen's, Entrance to, 28

Great St. Helen's, Old houses in, 30

Great St. Helen's, No. 9, Staircase of, 27

Great St. Helen's, No. 10, 29

Great Winchester Street, No. 23, 38, 39

Green Dragon Inn, St. Andrew's Hill, 52

Green Man and Still, Cow Cross Street, Clerkenwell, 59

Hare Court, Temple, 66

King's Head Inn, Southwark, 11, 12

Lansdowne House, from Berkeley Square, 79

Laurence Poultney Hill, Nos. 1 and 2, 55

Nag's Head Inn, Whitcomb Street, 72

Nag's Head Inn Yard, Southwark, 10

Nevill's Court, Fetter Lane, House in, 70

New Exchange Court, Strand, 71

Old Bell Inn, Holborn, 61

One Swan Inn, Bishopsgate Street Without, 35

Oxford Arms, Warwick Lane, 46

Paddington Green, Old thatched cottage near, 85

Paul's Pier, View from, 51

Pindar, Sir Paul, House of, Bishopsgate Street Without, 34

Queen's Head Inn, Southwark, 13, 14

Rising Sun, Wych Street, 68

Royal Mail Tavern, Noble Street, 45

St. Paul's Churchyard, Dean's Court, 48

St. Paul's Churchyard laid out as a garden, 49

St. Paul's, Deanery of, 47

Saracen's Head Inn, Aldgate, 21

Scarsdale House, Kensington, 82

Schomberg House, Pall Mall, 77

Sieve Public-house, Minories, 15-18

Sion College, Victoria Embankment, 67

Skinners' Company, Almshouses of the, Mile End Road, 22, 23

Swan and Horseshoe Inn, Montagu Court, 56

Swan with Two Necks, Carter Lane, 50

Tabard Inn, Southwark, 7

Turner's House, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, 83

Two Brewers Public-house, London Wall, 43

White Hart Inn, Southwark, 2-6