No. 31: Norfolk House
Architects, Messrs. Gunton and Gunton, 1939
The history of this site is made obscure in some
respects by the absence of the relevant title-deeds
and estate papers of the Dukes of Norfolk. Some
of this evidence is recorded by Dasent, who had
access to the papers.
The present building has the same frontage of
about 107 feet to the square as the house built by
Matthew Brettingham for the Duke of Norfolk
in 1748–52. This frontage comprised that of two
older houses, the more southerly, with a frontage
of about sixty-eight feet, being the original St.
Albans House (A on fig. 36), first owned and occupied by the Earl of St. Albans before his removal
to the site of Nos. 9–11, and the more northerly,
with a frontage of about thirty-nine feet, being
one of the three houses originally built by
Lord Belasyse under a grant from the Earl
(B on fig. 36).
The Dukes of Norfolk acquired the St. Albans
House site in 1722 and the Belasyse house site in
1748. The history of these two sites is discussed
before that of the house built in 1748–52 and its
modern successor. In the following account the
name 'Norfolk House' will, unless otherwise indicated, be applied only to the house which existed
from 1748 to 1938.
St. Albans House site
The house built on this site by the Earl of St.
Albans for his own occupation was the first
erected in the square, within two years of the
Crown's grant of the freehold in 1665 and during
the period of the Earl's early plans for a square
occupied by mansions even greater than those
which were ultimately built. The history of the
house does not, however, suggest that its construction was particularly sound. Nothing is known of
its erection, although Sutton Nicholls's view of c.
1722 (Plate 128) shows that it had been built in a
style uniform with that adopted for the other
houses erected in the square in the next decade or
so. Dasent summarizes an inventory of 1674 (ref. 532)
and notes that this indicates that there were twelve
or thirteen rooms in all on the main floors. The
house is included in the ratebook for 1667.
According to Dasent, on the authority of ratebooks no longer available, (ref. 533) this is the first year
it appears. (fn. a) Dasent says that the house was
undoubtedly approached from Pall Mall when
first built, (ref. 535) and this has perhaps encouraged the
mistaken belief, not shared by Dasent, that the older
building which until 1938 stood on the eastern
side of the garden of Norfolk House (C on fig. 36)
was the original St. Albans House, Sutton
Nicholls's view, however, shows clearly that the
house fronted on the square and this is confirmed
by such evidence as survives from title-deeds. The
statement that it was approached from Pall Mall
probably derives from its inclusion in that section
of the ratebooks down to 1672: the three houses
in the opposite, south-westerly, corner of the
square were similarly listed under Pall Mall in the
ratebook for 1675. (fn. b)
Figure 36:
Norfolk House, layout plan. Based on the Ordnance Survey 1869
Key. The bold line indicates the boundary of the Norfolk House property in 1869.
A. Old St. Albans House. B. House on Belasyse freehold, bought for Duke of Norfolk in 1748. C. Garden block probably
erected by Earl of Portland, c. 1710–13. D. Houses hired by Prince of Wales, 1738–41. E. Broken-and-dotted line indicates
boundary of stables and yard (sometime Hubbard's Yard), leased from Crown in 1710. F. Dotted line indicates boundary
of stable yard (sometime Robin Hood Yard) as in 1794. G. Entrance to stable yard probably built by the New Street
Commissioners c.1814. H. Entrance to stable yard of No. 32 built by the New Street Commissioners c. 1814–16. I. Frontage of five houses acquired by Dukes of Norfolk between 1730 and 1777
The Earl was himself rated for the house down
to 1672. (fn. c) In 1669 it had been put at the disposal
of Cosmo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, during
his visit to London. (ref. 539) The Grand Duke caused
the King's birthday to be celebrated with a display
by 'a machine with different fanciful artificial
fire-works and squibs' before the house, and a distribution of Italian wine and beer to the onlookers.
An unexplained episode in the house's history is its
sale in April of the following year, 1670, for £5200
to the Earl of Essex, who sold it back to the Earl
of St. Albans and his trustees in January 1670/1: (ref. 540)
in 1679 Essex bought and occupied No. 19.
By deeds of March and May 1676 St. Albans
and his trustees sold the house to the builder
Richard Frith and his trustees, John Grosvenor
and Richard Heyburne, reserving a rent of £36
per annum. (ref. 541) At that time St. Albans's big new
house on the north side of the square was probably
recently built or still building by Frith (see page
118), and the conveyance to him of the original
St. Albans House may have been intended as some
kind of security for his outlay on the new house.
On 9 September following Frith and his trustees
re-sold the house (it is not clear whether for
£6000 or £6500) to James Bridgman of St. Martin's in the Fields, esquire, and William Masemore
of the Middle Temple, gentleman (who the previous year had witnessed the Earl of St. Albans's
grant of the site of No. 4 to Nicholas Barbon), as
trustees for Lord Duras, Marquis de Blanquefort
(subsequently, when second Earl of Feversham,
commander of the royal forces at Sedgemoor), who
moved into the house in the same year. In 1675
Lord Duras had married a daughter of the first
Earl of Feversham, who lent him part of the purchase money, and whom he succeeded in 1677 as
second Earl. Dasent records what he calls a bill of
sale of the goods of Sir John Duncombe (the outgoing tenant), also of 9 September 1676, from St.
Albans and Frith to Lord Duras. The 'goods'
were presumably furnishings which were perhaps
handed on from one owner to the next. (ref. 542) A few
days later, on 12–13 September, Lord Duras's
trustees mortgaged the house back to trustees for
Frith, as security for the payment of the purchase
price. (ref. 543) The second Earl of Feversham was
rated for the house until 1681 although in 1677–8
he was ambassador in Paris, and he was again
rated for the house in 1692–3, after a number of
short tenancies. In March 1695/6 he and others,
who were evidently mortgagees, conveyed the
house for £5000 to two lawyers, Martin Folkes,
esquire (a trustee of the Jermyn estate), and
Andrew Card, gentleman, both of Gray's Inn, in
trust for Sir Stephen Fox. (ref. 544)
(fn. d) The house was then
already occupied by the second Earl of Sunderland
(of whom Fox had been a creditor). (ref. 546) The
Sunderlands inhabited the house until 1708,
owning it in at least the later years of their occupation. During their residence here the house was
the scene of the highly romantic return of the
Jacobite Lord Clancarty to his wife, the second
Earl's daughter, in 1698. (ref. 547)
In November 1708 Lady Wentworth was
looking for a house in the square for her son, later
Earl of Strafford, who eventually settled at No. 5.
Two of her voluble letters describe old St. Albans
House, which she seems to have thought better
built than its later history suggests. (ref. 548) She describes
it as 'a very good hous. . . . It has thre large rooms
forward and two little ons backward.' The rooms
were wainscoted at top and bottom, with provision
for hangings and with 'picturs' inset over most of
the chimneypieces. She conveyed the gratifying
intelligence that 'New River water' was available,
as well as a supply from lead cisterns, and that the
chimneys did not smoke. She was evidently impressed by the amplitude and convenience of
the back premises; this suggested to her that 'you
may build a gallary over the offisis'. The construction was thought to be sound: 'they say this hous is
soe strong it will last for ever'. In short, 'it is a
noble hous'.
Lady Wentworth said that Lord Sunderland had
found the house too small for him, and had disposed
of it to a 'marchant' with whom she was dealing. (fn. e)
By 1710 the house was in the possession of the
second Earl (later first Duke) of Portland, who
purchased the house at about this time, (ref. 549) and
moved hither from No. 32. In September 1710
and in April and May 1712 the Earl acquired
leases of additional stable yards and coach-houses.
Part of this leasehold property, held from the
Crown, was in Hubbard's Yard and gave access to
the back or eastern side of the freehold site from
St. Albans Street (E on fig. 36). (ref. 550) Previously,
access to the back of the house had been only from
Charles Street by a passage across the easternmost
part of the site granted to Lord Belasyse, the use
of which had been reserved in St. Albans's grant of
1670. (ref. 561) Lord Portland's leasehold acquisitions
also included stable yards evidently communicating
with Charles Street and he was perhaps responsible
for the enlargement of the yard off that street
shown in eighteenth-century maps and plans (fn. f) (F
on fig. 36). The present more extensive frontage
of the 'Norfolk House' site to Charles Street
forming the present No. 30 Charles II Street (G
on fig. 36), was, however, probably formed in
about 1814, when the back premises in the southeastern corner of the square were being reconstructed by the New Street Commissioners in
consequence of the formation of Waterloo Place.
Dasent says that on acquiring the freehold of
St. Albans House the Earl of Portland 'made extensive alterations and improvements utilizing the
courtyard or garden for the erection of new reception rooms . . .'. (ref. 549) These improvements almost
certainly included the erection of the building
which until 1938 stood on the eastern side of the
garden of Norfolk House and which has sometimes been supposed to have been the original St.
Albans House (C on fig. 36; see also Plate 163,
fig. 39). In the summer and autumn of 1713
Lord Berkeley of Stratton discussed Lord
Portland's 'great room' in letters to his friend the
Earl of Strafford, (ref. 552) who was thinking of building
a similar addition in the garden of No. 5 (see page
100). (fn. g) Lord Berkeley thought the room 'dark
and unpleasant', but it was evidently admired
and in 1714 was, with the 'Duke of Kent's
Gallery' at No. 4, thought especially worthy
of 'the Curiosity of a Stranger' viewing the
square. (ref. 553)
The building on the east of the garden had a
coved painted ceiling. This may have been one of
the works of the Venetian, Giovanni Antonio
Pellegrini, who is said to have painted 'the hall
and Staircase and one or two of the great rooms'
here for the Duke of Portland, and whose 'very
noble and fruitfull invention' has been celebrated
by Vertue. (ref. 554) Alternatively, Sebastiano Ricci,
who worked for the Duke of Portland at Bulstrode, may have been responsible for the ceiling. (ref. 556)
An architectural description of this building is
given on page 200.
By deeds of 31 May and 1 June 1722 the Duke
of Portland sold the house and assigned the leasehold properties at the back to Lord Howard of
Effingham and Lord Frederick Howard, doubtless as trustees for the eighth Duke of Norfolk. (ref. 556)
The price is said to have been £10,000. (ref. 557) The
site was henceforward owned by the Dukes of
Norfolk until 1938. The eighth Duke and the
four succeeding Dukes all died here or in the rebuilt house.
In September 1737 Frederick, Prince of Wales,
having been dismissed from St. James's Palace by
his father, took the Duke of Norfolk's house furnished, at a rent said to be £1200 per annum. (ref. 558)
The Prince was rated here and also for three
adjacent houses in Pall Mall during the years
1738–41. It was in this house that the future
George III was born, on 24 May (the New Style
'Fourth of June') 1738. (ref. 559) The Rev. James
Dallaway, chaplain of the eleventh Duke of Norfolk, told his fellow topographer, J. T. Smith,
that at that time 'only the buildings on the north
side of the inner court were completed' and that it
was these which were leased to the Prince. (ref. 560) This
is perhaps the origin of the belief that the painted
room on the eastern (not the northern) side of the
garden was the birthplace of the future King. But
Dallaway's account of the rebuilding of the house
is not in other respects accurate, and it seems
possible that the birth took place in the main part
of the old house.
Some building at about this period was, however, in progress on the leasehold property to the
east of the freehold site. On this Crown property
immediately east of the garden block, a 'large and
commodious kitchen' had in 1739 lately been
built. Other coach-houses and stables here were
said to be 'old and ruinous'. The Surveyor
General of Crown Lands recommended a renewal
of the Duke of Norfolk's leasehold interest, derived from the Duke of Portland, until Lady Day
1789. (ref. 561)
Old St. Albans House was itself already in
decay, and this hastened the Prince's departure in
the summer of 1741. On 4 June Lady Irwin
wrote to Lord Carlisle: 'The Prince has met with
a great disappointment in regard to Norfolk
House; upon making some repairs the workmen
found the house in a dangerous condition; upon
this it was examined by two or three head builders,
who report the front to the square to be in a falling
condition—several cracks and failures in the wall.
Upon this the Prince has left it, and proposes being
in the country all winter.' (ref. 562)
It was not, however, until 1748 that the house
was demolished and rebuilt with a wider frontage.
This was made possible by the acquisition in that
year of the adjacent house to the north, the site of
which was incorporated in the new Norfolk
House, but which had had a separate history as
part of Lord Belasyse's freehold.
Lord Belasyse's house site
This house (B on fig. 36) was the southernmost
of three which were built for the first Lord
Belasyse, a younger son of Thomas Belasyse, Lord
Fauconberg. They were built on a site with a
frontage of 133 feet to the square south of Charles
Street. The sites of the two more northerly
Belasyse houses survive as those of Nos. 32 and
33.
The overall site was granted (ref. 563) by the Earl of
St. Albans and Baptist May on 24 March 1669/70
to Viscount Fauconberg and Viscount Castleton
in trust for Fauconberg's uncle, the first Lord
Belasyse, at a rent of £30 per annum. (fn. h) Dasent,
who doubtless saw the original grant or an associated covenant, records that Lord Belasyse undertook to build three houses before 1671, as well as
to pave the square sixty feet in breadth in front of
his property. (ref. 564) The ratebooks suggest that the
undertaking was not exactly fulfilled as Nos. 32
and 33 were the first to appear in 1673: all were
first listed under Charles Street. The southernmost house first appears in 1674, its first occupant
being the Countess of Newburgh. She remained
here only until 1678 and the subsequent history of
the house was one of comparatively short tenancies. From the Belasyses the house descended to
John Talbot of Longford, Shropshire, (ref. 565) who
lived there in 1706–7 and possibly later. For the
years 1716–17 it was occupied by the Lord
Mayor, Sir James Bateman. Sutton Nicholls in
c. 1722 shows the original seventeenth-century
front (Plate 128), and this doubtless survived until
its demolition in 1748: when it was being offered
for sale in January 1726/7 it was said to have been
'lately repaired and painted'. (ref. 566) It stood empty
during 1726 and 1727, and in March 1727/8
was sold by John Talbot and his wife to Joseph
Banks of Revesby Abbey, Lincolnshire, (ref. 567) who
about this time was elected member of Parliament.
He occupied the house for two years or so,
and then let it to the Prussian minister, Count
Daggenfielt, at a rent falling from £30 to £20 a
month. In August 1731 repairs were being
carried out. (ref. 568)
In 1748 an Act of Parliament was obtained (ref. 569)
enabling the Banks family to sell the house, which
had been entailed by a marriage settlement. The
Act stated that the Duke of Norfolk's house to the
south was 'now pulling down' to be rebuilt and
that this removed the likelihood of leasing the
Banks's house which was unlet and 'much out of
Repair'. Whether this was so or not, the Earl of
Effingham had agreed in March of that year to
buy the house, undoubtedly on behalf of the Duke
of Norfolk, for the very low sum of £1830. (ref. 569) In
the same year the house was pulled down.
Norfolk House
The great house built for the ninth Duke of
Norfolk between 1748 and 1752 was the work of
Matthew Brettingham the elder, who also built
No. 5. His account book survives and gives a
rather summary statement of the work on the
house. (ref. 570) The total cost, including the purchase
of materials, but excluding the fine furnishings
and perhaps also some of the interior decorative
work, seems to have been about £18,575. This
included payments in cash totalling £800 to
Brettingham himself 'for my trouble Jorneys
Drawings and expences and attendance'.
The 'pullying down' of the two old houses was
completed by September 1748, and the rebuilding
was begun in that month. By August 1749 the
house was sufficiently advanced for a watchman
to be employed; he was paid until the spring of
1751. In that year the Duke of Norfolk reappeared in the ratebook after two years' absence,
while he lodged in No. 32, but the payment to
workmen for building the house continued until
the spring or summer of 1752.
One payment of £48 is mentioned 'for 32000
white brick from Norfolk'; their 'ship freight'
cost £44 and land-carriage a further £13 11s. 6d.
Payments to a Mr. Scott for bricks are also recorded, including one for £1000. There were
also separate purchases of lime and sand.
Between September 1748 and July 1750 payments by Brettingham are recorded to 'Mr. Leoni,
my clark' for 'trouble and attendance'; it is not
known whether he was related to the Duke of
Kent's architect (see page 90) who died in 1746.
The mason was 'Mr. Rouchead', probably the
mason later employed at No. 15. Other workmen
were John Elliott and his brother, and William
Clark, bricklayers; William Edwards, carpenter
and joiner; another workman named Clark, a
plasterer; Broadbelt, painter; Cook or Cock,
plumber; Fitzgerald, slater; Stephens, smith;
Airs or Ayray, glazier; and Davis, paviour. A
Mr. Croucher paved over the Vaults' and a workman called Griffon was paid for 'paving the
Square'.
The decoration of the interior continued for
some years, and it was February 1756 when Mrs.
Delany wrote to a friend: 'The Duke of Norfolk's
fine house in St. James's Square is finished, and
opened to the grand monde of London; I am asked
for next Tuesday. . . .' (ref. 571) This reception celebrating the completion of the house was attended also
by Horace Walpole who described the effect of
the brand-new splendour on the guests: 'All the
earth was there. . . . You would have thought
there had been a comet, everybody was gaping in
the air and treading on one another's toes. In
short, you never saw such a scene of magnificence
and taste. The tapestry, the embroidered bed, the
illumination, the glasses, the lightness and novelty
of the ornaments, and the ceilings, are delightful.' (ref. 572) This interior brilliance was in striking
contrast to the quiet unostentatious exterior which
is well shown in Bowles's view of c. 1752. By 1771
this exterior was being ridiculed by the author of
Critical Observations on the Buildings and Improvements of London, whose hand can probably be seen
in the more assertive façade of No. 15: 'Would any
foreigner, beholding an insipid length of wall
broken into regular rows of windows, in St.
James's Square, ever figure from thence the residence of the first duke of England ? "All the blood
of all the Howards" can never ennoble Norfolk
House.' (ref. 573)
In 1802 the eleventh Duke bought from the
Crown for £1634 the freehold of the stable yard
running back to St. Albans Street which had
hitherto been held on lease. (ref. 574) In December 1813
the stables here, which had evidently been repurchased by the New Street Commissioners, were
being pulled down, (ref. 575) to allow the creation of
Waterloo Place. At about the same time the Commissioners probably rebuilt the approach to the
back of the house from Charles Street as a stable
yard (G on fig. 36), with a wider frontage to that
street of nearly seventy feet. (ref. 576) This, like the
approach to No. 32 across the back premises of
No. 33 which the Commissioners constructed (H
on fig. 36), was on part of the original Belasyse
freehold where five small houses faced Charles
Street (I on fig. 36), which the Dukes of Norfolk
seem to have acquired at some time between
1730 (ref. 577) and 1777, (ref. 578) and to have surrendered to
the Commissioners. (ref. 579)
The eleventh Duke died in 1815. Before the
twelfth Duke entered into occupation of the house
it was repaired and stood empty for two years. (ref. 6) It
was reported in 1819 that the Duke had in the
previous year wished to raise his garden wall and
had been prevented because it would darken
houses in Pall Mall. (ref. 580) In September 1819
Robert Abraham, the Duke's surveyor, was certainly enquiring about the right of 'Ancient
Lights' claimed in respect of No. 32, then rebuilding. (ref. 581) The work at Norfolk House was presumably completed by November 1820 when
Creevey was shown over the house 'and a capital
magnificent shop it is'. (ref. 582)
On the next change of occupant, with the
succession of the thirteenth Duke in 1842, further
changes were made. The most important was
probably the addition of the stone porch and continuous balcony, said to have been erected by
Robert Abraham. (ref. 583) An interior renovation,
probably extensive, was carried out, and the house
was not re-opened to society until July 1845,
when its 'splendid & showy' appearance caused
comment. (ref. 584)
In March 1928 abortive negotiations for the
sale of the house were in progress, (ref. 585) and in July
1930 it was offered for sale by Hampton and Sons,
who advertised it as 'eminently suitable for a
Nobleman's Town House . . . or for a Club,
Embassy or Colonial Office'. (ref. 586) The house was
withdrawn, reputedly 'at an inadequate final bid
of £250,000'. (ref. 587)
In November 1937 the Duke of Norfolk came
to an agreement to sell the house. (ref. 588) The purchasers were Rudolph Palumbo of Culross Street,
Park Lane, engineer, and P. M. Rossdale, of
South Audley Street, company director, who in
February 1938 formed a private company, Norfolk
House (St. James's Square), Ltd., of Newcastleon-Tyne. (ref. 589) In the same month of November
1937 Messrs. Gunton and Gunton submitted
plans on behalf of the purchasers for the rebuilding of the site. (ref. 590) Conditional consent to the
rebuilding was given by the London County Council, which regarded the house as containing little
work of architectural merit, although the musicroom was subsequently re-erected in the Victoria
and Albert Museum. The furnishings of the
house were sold in February 1938, (ref. 591) and the
conveyance of the house itself made by the Duke
to the company on 17 May. (ref. 592)
Requests by the architects of the proposed new
building for permission to dispense with a garage
on the site and to build higher than the eighty-foot vertical limit imposed by the London Building Act (1930) were strongly contested by the
Council, in the face of the argument that the importance of the site and the character of the
neighbourhood made the provision of a garage undesirable and that only an elevation higher than
eighty feet would add to the beauty of the square.
On an appeal to the Minister of Health in
October 1938 the Council's case, which put some
weight on the value of height-limitation as a
means of diffusing 'development' over the whole
county, was successfully argued. It was pointed
out that the limitations were less restrictive than
those tentatively suggested in a Ministry of
Health report of 1937–8, which would in certain
areas have made relationship to the height of
existing buildings the determining factor rather
than the angular measurements specified in the
London Building Act of 1930.
On the dismissal of the appeal in November,
Messrs. Gunton and Gunton submitted plans for
an elevation to the square of eighty-three feet in
height. This was approved by the Council in
January 1939, and the existing building, 'of no
merit', (ref. 593) was raised upon the site. The northern
wing of the building forms No. 30 Charles II
Street and replaces the nineteenth-century stable
yard. The contractor was Sir Frederick Minter.
A plaque on the front of the building records
that here General Eisenhower formed the first
Allied Force Headquarters, and planned and
launched the North Africa campaign of 1942 and
the invasion of north-west Europe in 1944.
Architectural description
The house erected between 1748 and 1752
was the largest and finest of the three, or possibly
four, noblemen's town houses that were designed
by Matthew Brettingham, senior, and built in
fairly close proximity within St. James's parish. It
is not surprising to find that most of the Palladian
detail of Norfolk House was derived from Hoikham Hall, since Brettingham's architectural taste
was formed there. It is also possible that the
simple and effective plans of his London houses
might have been inspired by the 'family' and
'strangers' wings at Holkham. Whether or not
this is so, Norfolk House had much in common
with the contemporaneous No. 5 St. James's
Square, and was certainly the prototype of the
later Cumberland House in Pall Mall.
Figure 37:
Norfolk House, St. James's Square plans
Figure 38:
Norfolk House, St. James's Square, elevation and section A-A. Re-drawn from survey of 1937
Brettingham designed an oblong building,
fronting about 107 feet to the square and having a
depth of about 73 feet, but broken in on the northeast to form an area giving light and air to rooms
on the north side (figs. 37–8). (fn. i) The house contained a basement and three storeys—ground,
principal, and chamber. On the ground storey,
fronting west to the square, were three oblong
rooms of similar size—the hall in the middle, the
library or Duke's study on the north, and the
morning-room on the south. An arched doorway
opposite the front door led from the hall into the
oblong top-lit compartment where the great
staircase ascended to the principal storey. North
of the great staircase was a square ante-room,
serving the library and a bedroom, and south was
the service stair, its compartment forming a lobby
to the morning-room and the dining-room, a deep
oblong room on the south side. There were two
rooms on the east (garden) front, a square dressingroom and an oblong bed-chamber, and at the north
end were two closets. These, and the adjacent
ante-room, were lit by windows in the north wall,
set back from the site boundary east of the library.
The ground-storey layout was repeated on the
principal storey, with the music-room and two
drawing-rooms on the west front, the saloon or
ball-room over the dining-room on the south, and
the state bed-chamber and dressing-room on the
east front.
The long front towards the square (Plate 153,
fig. 38) was a simple Palladian design, built in
'white' bricks and dressed with stone, the ground
storey serving as a base for an upper face containing
two tiers of nine windows, widely and evenly
spaced. A plain stone plinth underlined the ground
storey, where the centrally placed doorway contained a door of two leaves, each with eight panels,
framed in a stone doorcase composed of a moulded
architrave flanked by plain jambs, with scrollconsoles supporting a cornice above a narrow
pulvino-frieze. On each side of the doorway were
four windows, each with barred sashes framed in a
moulded stone architrave, rising from a plain sill
and finished with a cornice. The two-storeyed
upper face was underlined by a pedestal, with blind
balustrades of waisted balusters below the principalstorey windows, each of them dressed with a
moulded architrave, narrow pulvino-frieze, and a
pediment—triangular and segmental alternately—the middle window emphasized by its slightly
larger pediment resting on scroll-consoles rising
from plain jambs. The original barred sashes of
these windows were replaced by tall casements
when the aprons were removed and the long balcony added. The chamber-storey windows were
square, with barred sashes framed in moulded
stone architraves. Long-and-short quoins, with
chamfered arrises, marked each end of the front,
which was finished with a modillioned cornice
and a balustrade divided into nine bays by pedestals.
The front area was protected by a very fine iron
railing, divided into long and short panels by
columnar standards crowned with coronets, each
panel being composed of upright bars, linked at the
foot with a spiked rail and at the head by an
ornamental band, and having foliated finials. A
short length of this railing survives against the
north wall of No. 31a.
The Ionic porch, an addition attributed to
Robert Abraham, projected from the three middle
bays of the ground storey. Four widely spaced
columns, that at each end paired with a squareshafted column, resting on low plinths and having
moulded bases, plain shafts and diagonally voluted
capitals, supported an entablature with a moulded
architrave, plain pulvino-frieze, and a dentilled
cornice. The balustrade, with waisted balusters
between panelled dies, was returned and continued
across the front, resting on shaped cantileverbrackets.
The interior was remarkable, along with that of
Chesterfield House, for containing the first extensive display of French-inspired Rococo decoration
in London. Here, however, Rococo exuberance
was largely controlled by the strait-jacket of
Brettingham's Palladianism; the frills were
French but the underlying forms were unmistakably English.
Apart from a ring of delicate Rococo ornament
around the lantern-boss, the entrance hall (Plate
154a) was rigidly Palladian, and its sober decoration was dominated by the elaborate chequer
pattern of the marble floor. The wall surfaces
were plain, but had been marbled, between the
simply moulded skirting and the Doric entablature,
where the metopes were modelled with the Norfolk badges—the white lion, the white horse, and
the talbot hound. The west wall contained the
front door between two windows, and the side
walls were plain and unbroken except for the
fireplace in the north wall. The chimneypiece
was of dark marble, the opening being framed by a
simple architrave between narrow pilasters capped
with shell and husk-festoon motifs, and each splayed
angle jamb was carved with a satyr mask, forming
a corbel below the cornice-shelf. In the east wall
were three doorways, that at each end having a
mahogany six-panelled door framed by a moulded
architrave, with a plain pulvino-frieze and cornice.
The central doorway led to the great staircase and
had a mahogany door of two leaves, each folding
back into the door-lining. Above was a radial
fanlight, and the opening was framed by plain
pilasters with cornice-imposts, the arch having a
moulded archivolt and a soffit of square coffers
containing flowers.
The great staircase (Plate 154b) rose against the
south, east and north sides of the oblong compartment, to a gallery landing on the west side. The
stone stairs rested on a wall that finished with a
moulded curb below the iron railing, formed by
panels and standards of Rococo design and capped
with a moulded mahogany handrail. The lower
stage of the compartment was decorated in a rather
overblown Rococo manner, probably mid nineteenth-century, the plastered walls being formed
into panels with raised mouldings and roughtextured borders, and the stair retaining-wall being
divided into bays by panelled pilasters, each
capped with an elaborate acanthus ornament and
pendant. Similar acanthus ornaments decorated
the moulded fascia of the gallery landing, which
was supported by two large and richly ornamented
scroll-brackets, each resting on the keyblock of an
arch. One of these arches framed the doorway
from the entrance hall and the other was a sham
doorway introduced to give symmetry. The spandrel between the scroll-brackets was filled with a
great scallop-shell ornament, its curve followed by
a rich festoon of fruits and flowers which appeared
to pass through the brackets and fall in pendants,
trailing on to the archivolts of the twin arches.
Each wall of the lofty upper stage was divided
into three bays by plain-shafted Corinthian
pilasters, rising from plain pedestals to support an
unbroken entablature, having an anthemionornamented frieze and an enriched modillioned
cornice. The middle bay of each wall contained a
moulded panel enclosing a great trophy formed of
arms and armour, modelled in high relief and
hanging from a ribbon-bow. In the side bays were
doorcases, each with its architrave moulding
broken in and around an oblong panel containing
a festoon, below a triangular pediment ornamented
with neo-Greek acroteria. The doorcases on the
gallery landing contained mahogany six-panelled
doors, but the others framed large plate mirrors.
Above each doorcase was a shaped panel below a
scallop-shell. In this stage, the trophies, the
Corinthian capitals, and the entablature may have
survived from the eighteenth century, but the rest
of the decoration probably dated from the 1840's.
Above the entablature of the second stage was a
low attic (Plate 154c), where each face was
divided by concave-curving trusses into three
panels, each decorated with a female mask above
a festooned garland. The trusses supported the
panelled soffit surrounding the lantern-light,
which had glazed sides and a flat ceiling where a
wide border of ornament, within a pattern of interlaced circles, surrounded a central panel containing
a large lantern-boss of curling acanthus leaves.
The decoration of the lantern-light might well
have been introduced when the twelfth Duke
entered into occupation in 1818.
The Duke's study, or library (Plate 155a), was
an oblong in plan, with three windows in the west
wall, a central doorway in the east wall, the fireplace in the north wall and doorways to cupboards
at each end of the south wall. The decorations
were simple, the walls having a wooden pedestal
with enriched mouldings to the skirting and
cornice-rail, and the plain face above was finished
with an enriched modillioned cornice of plaster.
The doorway and cupboards were furnished alike
with fine mahogany doors, having three raisedand-fielded panels on each side of an astragal, and
the doorcases of painted wood were composed of
an enriched architrave, a pulvino-frieze of banded
laurel-garland, and enriched dentilled cornice.
Rococo plasterwork in low relief decorated the
ceiling with a delicately fashioned border of C-scrolls and foliage, linking motifs of shells,
rocaille-work and foliage with husk pendants
pointing towards the central ornament of a
chandelier-boss surrounded by C-scrolls, foliage
and husk pendants.
The morning-room (Plate 155b) was very
similar to the Duke's study, but had two doorways
flanking the chimneypiece in the east wall. The
mahogany doors were framed by architraves only,
and the Rococo plasterwork of the ceiling was
simpler and more natural in style, with treillagepanels introduced into the corner motifs. The
chimneypiece of light-veined dark marble was
very similar to that in the entrance hall, but had
cherub heads at the angles below the corniceshelf. Above it was a chimney-glass with a frame
designed as a vine-covered trellis, its segmental
head rising into a large painting of poultry, in the
style of Hondecoeter. The chimney-glass and its
frame of gilded vines was echoed by the great
pier-glasses between the windows, surmounting
gilt wood console tables with white marble tops.
The dining-room (Plate 156a, 156c), a deep oblong
in plan, had two windows in the east end wall, a
door at each end of the west wall, and a door at
each end of the long north wall where the fireplace was centred in a slightly projecting chimneybreast. Again, the decorations were in the same
simple Palladian style, with Rococo touches, as in
the other ground-storey rooms already described,
but the pulvino-frieze of each doorcase was ornamented with a central flower flanked by a repeating motif of wave-scrolls emerging from shells.
The white marble chimneypiece had tapering
jambs rising to female masks, and a garlanded cartouche against the cornice-shelf. The flat ceiling
was decorated with a border of C-scrolls fringed
with rocaille-work and twined with foliage sprays
and flowers, and the chandelier-boss formed the
centre of an elaborate composition of C-scrolls,
fruit and flower garlands, shell ornaments and
delicate foliage sprays.
The bedroom and dressing-room on the east
side were decorated in the same manner as the
adjacent rooms, although their ceilings appear to
have had more ornament, being smaller. The
chimneypiece in the dressing-room was of heavily
figured marble, with scroll-topped returns against
the wall, tapering jambs festooned at the top with
drapery, and a cornice-shelf decorated with a
mask-cartouche.
On the principal storey were three front rooms,
corresponding in size and general arrangement
with those below, the music-room being to the
north of two drawing-rooms which were united
later by removing the transverse wall between
them. Both drawing-rooms (Plate 157b) were
decorated in a rich Palladian style recalling some
of Kent's interiors at Holkham. In each room the
walls were furnished with a wooden pedestal, its
plain die painted white and the enriched mouldings
of the skirting and cornice-rail gilded. The walls
above were hung with figured crimson silkdamask and finished with a rich entablature of
plasterwork, its frieze ornamented with foliated
scrolls, to a different design to each room, and its
cornice having dentils, enriched mouldings and
bracket modillions, and flowers on the corona
soffit. The south-room ceiling was modelled with
a geometrical pattern of coffers, octagons and small
diagonal squares, the octagons being formed with
enriched architrave-like sinkings framing flowerbosses, and the squares having foliated bosses
within enriched borders. In the middle room was
a ceiling copied from that designed by Kent, after
the antique, for the chapel at Holkham, with
guilloche-decorated ribs intersecting to form a
pattern of lozenge-shaped coffers, each sunk with
an enriched border and containing a foliated boss.
There was a chimneypiece of white marble in
each room, that in the south room apparently of
mid nineteenth-century date, but that in the middle
room was very similar to the Rococo example in
the music-room. Over each was a tall chimneyglass of elaborate design, its gilded framework of
C-scrolls, palm-branches, garlands and trophies
incorporating in the upper stage a landscape
painting, attributed to Zuccarelli. These glasses
were matched by the great pier-glasses placed
above marble-topped console tables, between the
windows of the west wall, the gilded wood frames
of the glasses having elaborately decorated heads
formed of C-scrolls arching to meet a pendent
trophy. In each room the fireplace was centred in
the long east wall, at each end of which was a
doorway furnished, like the single doorway in the
north end wall, with a mahogany six-panelled
door framed in an enriched architrave, its head
broken round an oblong frieze-panel and overlaid
by a mask-cartouche flanked by festooned garlands.
Above the doorcases were superportes formed of
tall oblong paintings, landscapes in the south room
and family portraits in the middle room, all
uniformly framed.
The saloon, or ball-room, above the diningroom, was a deep oblong in plan with two windows
in its east end wall, and doors at each end of the
north and west walls (Plates 156b, 157a). Only
its form and such minor details as the simple
pedestal of the walls and the mahogany sixpanelled doors were of the eighteenth century, for
the room had been sumptuously decorated in the
'Louis Quinze' style, perhaps about the time of the
renovation in 1845, much of the enrichment being
modelled or cast in papier mâché and carton
pierre. Enriched raised mouldings divided each
wall face into panels, wide and narrow alternately,
the latter being decorated with foliated ornaments top and bottom, and above and below
circular bosses placed centrally. Each wide panel
was filled with mirror-glass, overlaid by an
elaborate gilt frame to form a central glass, serpentine-headed, with narrow borders and spandrelshaped glasses. The mahogany six-panelled doors,
probably Brettingham's, were framed with elaborate doorcases, each with an architrave having its
outer mouldings broken at the head and returned
in serpentine curves above a tympanum-panel of
treillage, forming a scrolled pediment on which
grimacing monkeys stood holding heavy garlands
of fruits and flowers, festooned from a spirally
fluted gilt ewer placed on a mask-fronted bracket
between the pediment scrolls. In the panel over
each door was a ducal coronet and a monogram
composed in C-scrolls from the initials H and C
over an N. The walls were finished with an
entablature, its frieze divided by foliated brackets
into square panels containing flowers, similar
flowered panels decorating the soffit of the reduced cornice. The all-over geometrical pattern
of the ceiling suggested an Adam derivation, with
its regular arrangement of small circles sunk within larger circles, the latter being bordered and
divided into quadrants by slightly raised ribs which
also enclosed concave-sided lozenges and smaller
circles which overlapped the large circles where
they impinged. The sunk circular panels, the
quadrant panels, and the ribs were decorated with
delicate arabesques and meandering borders of
foliage; the concave-sided lozenges and the smaller
circles contained formal foliage-bosses.
The state bedroom (Plate 162c) and dressingroom were uniformly decorated, their walls
having a golden-yellow figured silk-damask hung
above the painted wooden pedestal, its die plain
but the mouldings of its skirting and rail enriched
and gilt. Each room was finished with a plaster
cornice, delicately enriched with Rococo ornamentation, below a slightly coved ceiling where an
elaborate display of C-scrolls, rocaille-work, shells
and foliage work was composed to form a border
and a centrepiece.
In the ante-room, north of the staircase, the
decoration was Palladian except for the elaborate
plaster panelling of the walls, which was in the
Rococo taste of the 1840's. The wooden pedestal
had a plain die and enriched mouldings to the
skirting and cornice-rail, and the mahogany sixpanelled doors were framed in enriched architraves. The walls were finished with a plaster
entablature, having an enriched architrave, a
pulvino-frieze of banded laurel-garland, and an
enriched cornice with plain modillions. Raised
ribs, their soffits decorated with flowers in the
squares of a simple fret, divided the flat ceiling into
a geometrical pattern composed of a large oval
enclosed by an octagon, this last being divided by
four diagonal ribs and bordered on each cardinal
face by an oblong flanked by semi-hexagons, with
a square in each corner. The later wall decoration
was dominated by the large panels placed centrally
in each wall, where an oval or circular landscape
painting was set in a rich plaster frame, with a
ribbon-bow above and a festooned garland below,
the last being linked by serpentine-scrolls to the
inner panel-moulding. This framed a tall oblong
with its corners incurved to allow foliage-bosses to
be placed in the angles of the margin. Above each
door was a panel having eared corners and serpentine-curved sides, with acanthus-bud pendants
above and below a central foliage-boss.
The music-room, west of the ante-room and
north of the drawing-rooms, was the finest and
most remarkable interior feature of Norfolk
House (Plates 158, 159, 160, 161, 162a, 162b), and it has fortunately been preserved and re-erected, without
its windowed west side, among the period rooms
at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The walls
are lined with woodwork, painted a parchment
colour with gilt ornaments, in a scheme of tall
panels, wide flanked by narrow, above a pedestal
having its die similarly panelled and the mouldings
of its skirting and cornice-rail carved and gilt.
Each angle of the oblong room contains the conjoined halves of a pilaster with a panelled shaft,
and on the north wall is the chimney-breast, projecting very slightly, with one large rectangular
panel serving as a plain ground for the elaborately
framed glass above the chimneypiece. The face on
each side of the chimney-breast contains a single
panel.
The white marble chimneypiece (Plate 159a)
has slightly canted pilaster-jambs, the panelled
shafts containing floral pendants below acanthus
leaves, and the frieze-blocks carved with small
trophies of musical instruments. The corniceshelf curves gently forwards in a serpentine line
above a fluted cove-frieze, broken by the uprising
curves of architraves that end in scrolls against an
elaborate Aurora mask, flanked with foliage
branches. The chimney-glass consists of a large
and almost square plate surrounded by shaped
plates, put together with flat fillets enriched with
flower and leaf sprays, and enclosed by an enriched
architrave frame, the straight sides stopped by the
scrolled ends of the head, which first curves
inwards, then breaks horizontally to rest on acanthus-brackets, before arching upwards to terminate in scrolls against a mask-cartouche. From this
last is suspended, by a ribbon-bow, an elaborate
trophy of musical instruments (Plate 160a). The
lower part of the glass is treated in the same
Rococo fashion, with the sides of the frame breaking out squarely, then curving in, and after another
square break at the base rising in scroll-pedimental
form to a great fan-shaped sprout of acanthus-like
leaves.
The panel on each side of the chimney-breast is
recessed within an enriched moulding; the sides
are straight and unbroken but at the top and bottom the moulding breaks into the panel with
reversed curves, the inner curves crossing to merge
into foliated scrolls, from which a floral pendant
hangs and a foliage sprout rises.
The south end wall responds to the north, but
as there is no chimneypiece the great glass extends
to the base of the large panel, and two doorways
framed in enriched architraves shorten the side
panels. The pattern of the north wall is also repeated on the long east wall (Plates 159b, 160b),
even to the elaborate frame and trophy of the
glass, in the three panels—narrow, wide and
narrow—on each side of the principal doorway.
This, framed in an enriched architrave, is
nearly central in the wall, below a square panel
enclosing a circle containing a ducal coronet and a
monogram of C-scrolls formed by the initials of
the ninth Duke of Norfolk and his Duchess.
The pedestal projected slightly from the piers
between the three windows in the west wall, to
support great pier-glasses of similar design to those
on the two end walls, but having slender garlanded
columns at the sides instead of enriched architraves.
The walls are uniformly finished with an unbroken entablature consisting of an enriched
architrave, a frieze delicately ornamented with
foliated scrolls extending between Rococo cartouches, and a highly enriched modillioned cornice.
Intersecting ribs divide the flat ceiling (Plate
161) into a simple arrangement of compartments
—a long oblong on each side, a short oblong in
each corner, and in the centre a large oval and
four spandrels. The rib-soffit is ornamented with
a double-guilloche of circles containing flowers,
heavy foliage-bosses cover the intersections, and
the compartments are slightly sunk within borders
of a formal foliage moulding. This purely Palladian framework, based on the ceiling of Inigo
Jones's Banqueting House, provides the setting
for some enchanting Rococo decorations. On the
white ground of each compartment is a trophy of
gilded plasterwork, composed of symbolic objects
linked by C-scrolls, shells, rocaille-scrolls, palmbranches and foliage sprays. Within the central
oval is a martial trophy, with a Roman cuirass and
helmet, a spear, bow and quiver, and fasces,
gathered around a Medusa-headed shield. In the
long compartment on the east side is Painting,
symbolized by the picture of Britannia on an easel,
and a palette with brushes and a mahl-stick. The
west side motif probably represents Surveying,
with a globe, a flag, dividers and a rule. Sculpture
is represented in the north end oblong (Plate
162a), by a bust with a mallet and chisels, and a
square, while at the south end is Architecture or
Building (Plate 162b), conveyed by a plan of Norfolk House, with dividers, compasses, square, rod
and plumb-bob. (fn. j) The motif of the north-east
corner compartment is Music, with a lyre, an
oboe and an open score, while the globe, circlet of
stars and eagle in the north-west corner probably
symbolizes Astronomy. The compass, sphere,
dividers and board with diagram, in the south-east
corner, must represent Geometry, and the strapped
bundle of books in the south-west is surely
Literature.
Garden block
On the east side of the garden court, facing
Brettingham's building, was the long and narrow
range doubtless built by Lord Portland soon after
1710 (Plate 163, fig. 39). Its west front, probably
rebuilt when the new house was erected, was a
simple composition in brick sparingly dressed with
stone. There were three tiers of nine windows,
the doorway in the middle ground-storey opening
being dressed with a moulded architrave and a
triangular pediment resting on consoles. All the
windows were widely spaced, but the middle three
were slightly closer than the others, and all were
furnished with barred sashes recessed in plain
openings with flat arches of gauged brickwork.
There was a simple pedestal below the groundstorey windows, a continued sill below those of the
principal storey, and the front was finished with a
moulded cornice of wood, perhaps re-used, and a
plain stone coping.
Figure 39:
Norfolk House, St. James's Square, garden block, elevation and plans. Re-drawn from survey of 1937
The staircase, placed just north of the centre,
divided the ground and principal storeys each into
two rooms, although these had been subdivided
later. The south ground-storey room appears to
have been a kitchen, with a great fireplace formed
by a segmental arch resting on plain-imposted
piers. Above it was Lord Portland's 'great room'
which must have resembled, in its heyday, the
salone of a great Venetian palazzo. In its later,
degraded state, the walls had been stripped of their
coverings and the north end had disappeared
behind a partition, but something of the old magnificence survived in the enriched dentilled cornice
and the ceiling (Plate 163a), which was coved and
decorated with Baroque plasterwork to form an
architectural framework for the illusionist paintings. There was, in effect, a round arch at each
end, an elliptical arch on each long side, and a
shaped panel in the centre. The arches, which had
false soffits modelled with widely spaced coffers,
square and containing flowers, were linked by
pendentives adorned with great scallop-shells below cartouches containing small grisaille paintings,
and over the crown of each arch was a scrolled
cartouche. These overlapped the surround of the
central panel, a heavily moulded frame without
enrichment, bordered with a frieze-like band
modelled with scroll-consoles linked by garlands.
The paintings, which seem stylistically to be more
probably by Sebastiano Ricci than by Pellegrini,
depicted scenes from the life of Hercules. His
apotheosis on Olympus filled the shaped oblong
central panel; the south lunette represented his
struggle with Death for the body of Alcestis; and
each side lunette pictured three of his labours, including the capture of the Cretan bull and the
fight with the Nemean lion. The medallion
in the south-east cartouche showed the infant
Hercules strangling the serpents, but that in the
south-west was defaced. The north end lunette
and two grisailles were destroyed when that
end of the room was remodelled and a floor
inserted.