CHAPTER VI
The Haymarket, West Side
THE boundary between the parishes of St.
James, Westminster, and St. Martin in
the Fields runs down the centre of the Haymarket; the history of the eastern side of the street
and of the market from which the street takes its
name, have been described in Survey of London,
vol. XX, The Parish of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields,
Part III, 1940, pp. 95–100.
The street is marked on a plan of c. 1585 (ref. 1) as
'the waye to Charinge Crose from Colb[rooke]'.
Faithorne and Newcourt's map, published in 1658
but surveyed in 1643–7, shows the road with only
two or three houses on the west side, clustered at
the south end. The name Haymarket was first
applied to the street in the ratebooks of St. Martin's
in the Fields parish for 1657, and building
appears to have begun shortly after the Restoration. (ref. 2) Ogilby and Morgan's map of 1681–2
shows houses standing along the full length of
both sides of the street.
The freehold of all the ground on the west side
of the street still belongs to the Crown; it formed
part of the land leased in 1661 by Henrietta
Maria's trustees to the Earl of St. Albans's trustees for thirty years; subsequent grants extended
their term to 1740.
Strype described the Haymarket in 1720 as 'a
spacious Street of great Resort, full of Inns, and
Houses of Entertainment; especially on the West
Side. . . . The Market for Hay and Straw, here
kept every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday,
makes it to be of good Account. The Inns, or
Yards, on this Side, beginning next towards
Pickadilly, are, Black Horse Yard; David's Yard,
both for Stablings. Nag's Head Inn, indifferent
large. Cock Yard, for Stablings. White Horse
Inn, a Place of Good Resort. Phenix [sic] Yard,
and Unicorn Yard, both for Stablings, and
Coach-houses, much resorted unto.' (ref. 3) The establishment of the Opera House, with its continental
connexions, at the south-west end of the Haymarket was probably the reason for the large number of inhabitants of foreign extraction in the
street. In 1749 Paul De Lamerie, probably the
goldsmith of that name, (ref. 4) held the lease of two
houses on the west side, (ref. 5) and in 1764 the Haymarket was described as 'greatly frequented by
foreign tradesmen, especially Italians, who have
perfume shops in many parts of this great street'. (ref. 6)
On the east side was the Orange coffee house,
which was 'chiefly used by opera dancers, and
castratas'. (ref. 7)
In the 1780's the street was noted for curious
exhibitions. George Baily advertised a monster
'brought from Mount Tibet' which was considered 'to approach the human species nearer
than any other hitherto exhibited, and is supposed
to be the long lost link between the human and
brute creation'. In an adjoining house there was
also a cow with three horns from Berkeley in
Gloucestershire, and a calf with two heads and
two necks; they had been exhibited to the University of Oxford and to the King at Windsor, 'who
allowed them to be the greatest curiosity in the
Kingdom'. (ref. 8)
In 1783 it was stated in the second edition of
James Ralph's A Critical Review . . ., that 'the
length and breadth of the Haymarket, and the
pleasing declivity of the ground, give it a degree of
consequence, which the insignificance of its buildings cannot entirely destroy'; even the Opera
House then presented 'an execrable front to the
street'. (ref. 9) The indifferent quality of the buildings
may be attributed largely to the existence of the
market, which in the month of February 1774
was attended by over thirteen hundred hay and
straw carts. (ref. 10)
John Nash's plan for the formation of the New
Street from Carlton House to Marylebone Park
provided also for the widening of the east end of
Pall Mall by the demolition of a number of
houses on the north side, and for the extension
eastward of Jermyn Street and Charles Street (now
Charles II Street) into the Haymarket. This improvement, which also included the refronting of
the Opera House, was completed by 1819, (ref. 11) and
provided the Haymarket with direct access to the
aristocratic neighbourhood of St. James's Square.
The continued existence of the market nevertheless caused increasing obstruction in the street—
between Lady Day 1827 and Lady Day 1828
over 26,000 loads of hay and straw were registered
by the toll collectors (ref. 10) —and an Act of 1830
provided for its removal to a new site on the
Crown estates in St. Pancras. (ref. 12)
Apart from the impressive 'Grecian' recasing
of the Opera House by Nash and Repton, Tallis
shows that by 1839 nothing had been done to
remove the stigma cast on the Haymarket's buildings in 1783. He shows a succession of house
fronts, some wide, some narrow, three or four
storeys high and all with shop-fronts except No.
68. Some houses, such as No. 45 and Nos. 55–56,
might well have dated from around 1700, while
Nos. 64–69 looked like a uniformly fronted range
dating from the late eighteenth century, but none
calls for special notice.
Piccadilly Circus Tube Station
In 1903 the Underground Electric Railways
Company of London, in association with the
Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway Company and the Baker Street and Waterloo
Railway Company, agreed with the Office of
Woods and Forests to lease Nos. 224–225 Piccadilly, 40–45 (consec.) Haymarket and 1–5 (consec.) Jermyn Street for the construction of a tube
railway station. (ref. 13)
(fn. a) The construction of a joint
station for the two lines now known as the
Piccadilly and Bakerloo began in the same year,
from plans which appear to have been prepared by
Leslie W. Green, architect to the Underground
Electric Railways Company. The buildings above
ground were designed by Delissa Joseph but when
the station was opened in 1906 these were completed only to mezzanine level. (ref. 13) On the ground
floor and mezzanine the arcades built in purplybrown glazed terra-cotta conformed with the
standard pattern adopted by the Underground
Electric Railways Company for all its stations. It
was hoped that this design would make the stations
quickly recognizable to the travelling public. (ref. 15)
The station had separate entrances, booking offices
and lifts for the two lines. (ref. 16) The platforms were
finished with a trimming of blue and green tiles,
part of an elaborate plan to assign each station a
distinctive colour for ease of identification. (ref. 17)
The upper floors of the buildings above ground
were completed in 1910 to the designs of Delissa
Joseph, (ref. 18) who carried out similar work at a number of other tube stations. They were intended for
use as flats, but appear to have housed a hotel for
a number of years; they are now used as offices. (ref. 19)
Below ground the approaches to the platforms
were largely rebuilt between 1925 and 1928,
when the escalators and circular concourse beneath Piccadilly Circus were constructed. (ref. 20) The
architects were Adams, Holden and Pearson and
the contractors John Mowlem and Company. (ref. 21)
Between 1929 and 1931 the space at ground level
which had formerly been occupied by booking
offices and the tops of lift shafts was converted into
an arcade of shops. (ref. 22)
The Piccadilly entrance to the station is
contained in the two-storeyed stage faced with
purply-brown faience, this serving as a base for the
four-storeyed upper face of stone designed by Delissa
Joseph. The ground storey is divided into three bays
by pilasters supporting an entablature from which,
over the wide centre bay, springs a round arch
framing a window in the second storey. At either
side of the arch is a lunette with a segmental
pediment-hood, and at second-floor level runs a
modillion cornice stopped by big brackets. The
upper and later part of the front is divided into
three bays by Ionic pilasters rising through three
storeys, with two-light stone-mullioned windows
in each of the bays. The sixth storey continues
this arrangement with short Doric pilasters, and
above the entablature is a balustrade broken centrally by an ornately fronted dormer window set in
a stone cupola.
The buildings over the Jermyn Street and Haymarket entrances have similar fronts, the former
being five bays wide and the latter three, but here
the bays in the upper storeys are wider and contain three-light windows, while the arches below
form a continuous arcade, the spandrel of each
arch being decorated with a small cartouche.
The six-storeyed block on the corner-site between the Jermyn Street and Haymarket entrances, though also by Delissa Joseph and of the
same date, is not related by design to its neighbours. The stone front is rusticated in all but the
two lowest storeys, and there are cornices at
second- and fifth-floor levels. Display windows
fill the ground storey towards Haymarket, and in
the second storey are four windows, the middle two
paired and all having keystones. Above, each
storey contains two three-light windows, those at
third- and fourth-floor levels having iron-railed
balconies. Towards Jermyn Street each storey has
two pairs of windows and the splayed angle has one
window at each level. There is a pedimented
doorway in the ground storey and a large cupola
raised above the top cornice.
The Gaumont Cinema
Formerly the Capitol
This building stands on the site of the market
built in 1817–18 (see page 218). It is described
on page 220.
Nos. 59–60 Haymarket
The building known as Nos. 59–60 Haymarket
was built in 1876–7 from the designs of John
Wimble, surveyor, of Queen Victoria Street. The
builders were Messrs. Newman and Mann, whose
tender was for £10,426. (ref. 23) The new block
replaced three old houses latterly occupied by the
Blue Posts public house and the Hotel de
Cologne. (ref. 24)
The present building has been much altered in
the ground storey and its interest centres on the
three upper storeys and the dormer windows.
These are stone-fronted with three windows to
each storey, the centre windows forming part of a
raised, rusticated feature. The outer windows
have two lights and the centre ones three, all of
them divided by richly carved mullions. Fluted
Corinthian pilasters flank each window and support an entablature, the second-storey windows
being the most ornamental, with paterae on the
friezes and a pediment over the centre window.
There are stringcourses at sill and cornice levels,
and between them, beneath each window, is an
enriched panel. Above the modillion cornice
stand three dormer windows with ornate fronts,
the centre one having a panelled frame crowned by
an urn finial and two reclining female figures.
The Carlton Theatre
The Carlton Theatre stands on the ground
formerly occupied by Nos. 62–65 (consec.) Haymarket, Nos. 5–9 (consec.) St. Alban's Place, and
the whole of Anglesea Yard (formerly Carlton
Stables). (ref. 25) Clearance of the site was begun in the
summer of 1924, (ref. 26) and the completed theatre was
opened on 27 April 1927. (ref. 27) The design was prepared by Frank T. Verity, assisted by Samuel
Beverley. (ref. 28) Messrs. Arthur Vigor Ltd. were the
general contractors and Major C. H. Bell was the
consulting engineer. The fibrous-plaster decorations were carried out by G. Jackson and Sons,
Ltd., (ref. 28) the decorative painting by Marc-Henri
and Laverdet. (ref. 29)
During its first year the theatre was used for
stage productions, but in the spring of 1928 it
became a cinema. In 1957 a new canopy was designed for the Haymarket frontage by the firm of
Verity and Beverley. (ref. 30)
Although the Carlton is now used exclusively
as a long-run cinema, the building was designed
for use as a cinema and a playhouse, having ample
dressing-room accommodation and a deep stage
fully equipped with a cyclorama and an elaborate
lighting system including Schwabe-Hasait cloud
projectors. The plan, which more or less repeats
the successful arrangement followed in the Plaza
Theatre by the same architects, has a shallow
lobby opening from the Haymarket to a long foyer
with a staircase at each end. One flight descends
to the stalls, which extend almost to the front
building line, and another flight ascends to the
narrow foyer serving the upper tier, which extends
back above the foyers. On the same level as the
entrance foyer is a shallow tier of 'de luxe' seating,
the total number of seats in the theatre being some
1200.
The front, which is faced with Portland stone,
is now half-hidden by posters and electric signs. It
is a symmetrical composition in the late Italian
Renaissance style, and is insulated from the
adjoining buildings by plain recessed pylons. The
ground storey contains a central group of six
entrance doors, divided into pairs by marble piers,
and at each end is a bronze-framed poster panel.
The upper part of the front contains three tiers of
windows, widely varying in size, shape and treatment. In the first tier are five with openings of
similar rectangular form, all having corniced
architraves rising from projecting aprons, but the
middle three have balustrades and are framed in
round-arched recesses, the tympana being carved
with putti and foliage. Each end window has a
panelled apron and the cornice is surmounted by a
swan-necked pediment broken by a large cartouche. In the second tier the three middle windows are reduced to small recessed oblongs and
overshadowed by the carved stone balcony of the
top tier, but each side window has an almost square
opening, protected by a wrought-iron grille and
framed in an eared-and-shouldered architrave.
The top tier has a central group of three large
square openings, each divided into two lights, with
flat voussoired arches and carved mask keystones,
and at either end is an oval window framed in a
serpentine-sided architrave. The front is finished
with a bold modillioned cornice and a high
pedestal-parapet.
The interior is also Italian in style, although
much of the decorative plasterwork is derived
from Adam sources, such as the segmental ceiling
of the entrance foyer. In the auditorium, the
stalls are lined with imitation walnut panelling
which is continued as a dado across each of the
splayed concave walls flanking the proscenium,
below a large box designed in the form of a
Venetian window, with a screen of Corinthian
columns and a fan-lunette of panels enclosed by
the plain outer architraves. The walls are finished
with a deep entablature, having a frieze of anthemion ornament, and the ceiling is beamed in the
style of an Italian wooden ceiling.
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre stands upon part of the
site of the former King's Theatre or Opera House,
whose history is described in Chapter VIII (see
page 245 for the present Her Majesty's Theatre).