No. 79 Pall Mall: Nell Gwynne's house
The site of the house now numbered 79 Pall
Mall is the only ground on the south side of Pall
Mall which does not belong to the Crown; the
freehold has been in private hands since 1676. (ref. 242)
The first house on this site was built in or
shortly before 1665. On 1 April of that year this
house, and that which adjoined it to the west, were
assigned by the Earl of St. Albans's trustees (who
then held the Crown lease) to Sir Thomas Clarges.
They were then described as 'Two Faire bricke
messuages' and together they had a frontage to Pall
Mall of 67 feet. (ref. 243)
In 1667 Clarges sold the easterly of these two
leasehold houses to Sir William Coventry (ref. 243)
(? 1628–86) the politician, (ref. 18) whom Evelyn described as 'a wise and witty Gentleman'. (ref. 244) Henry
Savile, in a letter to his brother, reported that
Coventry had paid £1400 for the house, which he
described as 'one of those four pretty handsome
ones in Pall Mall by my Lady Ranelagh's'. (ref. 245)
(fn. a) In
October 1667 Coventry was visited there by
Pepys, who wrote that the house 'is fitting up for
him' and was being made 'very fine'. (ref. 246)
In February 1670 Coventry sold his lease to the
Earl of Scarsdale who in turn on 21 July 1671
conveyed it to George Krevett (or Knevett) in
trust for Ellen (Nell) Gwynne. (ref. 243)
(fn. b)
Nell Gwynne had been living since at least
1670 in another house on the south side of Pall
Mall, that previously occupied by Dr. Thomas
Sydenham; she moved into her new house in
1671. (ref. 34) She may have been angry at not being
immediately granted the freehold, for two years
later Sir Joseph Williamson was told that 'Madam
Gwinn complains she has no house yett.' (ref. 248) There
is also the story, repeated by Dr. Heberden who
occupied a house on this site in the late eighteenth
century, that the house 'was given by a long lease
by Charles II to Nell Gwynn, and upon her discovering it to be only a lease under the Crown, she
returned him (the King) the lease and conveyances
saying she had always conveyed free under the
Crown, and always would; and would not accept
it till it was conveyed free to her by an Act of
Parliament'. (ref. 249)
Whatever the truth of this story may be, it is an
indubitable fact that on 1 December 1676 Charles
II granted the freehold of the house to William
Chiffinch, one of his confidential servants, and
Martin Folkes, a trustee of the Earl of St. Albans's
estate, (ref. 242) and they in turn conveyed it to Nell
Gwynne's trustees on the following 6 April. By
the deed of conveyance the property was settled on
Nell Gwynne for life, then upon her younger son,
James, Lord Beaclaire (Beauclerk), and his heirs,
with remainder to her eldest son Charles, Earl of
Burford. (ref. 250) On the previous day the Earl of St.
Albans had released to Nell Gwynne's trustees all
his leasehold rights over her house, (ref. 243) and in compensation he received from the Crown a grant of
the freehold of three and a half acres of ground on
the west side of Hedge Lane (now Whitcomb
Street). (ref. 242)
Nell Gwynne continued to live in this house
until her death in 1687. (ref. 34) Her elder son Charles,
now Duke of St. Albans, (fn. c) succeeded to the
property, her younger son James having died in
1680. (ref. 132) The Duke lived there until 1694; (ref. 34) in
1693 he had been forced to assign the house to his
creditors. (ref. 251)
From 1696 to 1698 the house was occupied by
Meinhard, third Duke of Schomberg, whilst
Schomberg House was being rebuilt; amongst
later occupants were Robert, first Earl Ferrers
(1700–16), and Maria, Dowager Countess
Waldegrave (1766–9), who secretly married
George III's younger brother, the Duke of
Gloucester, on 6 September 1766 in the drawingroom of her house in Pall Mall. (ref. 192)
In March 1769 the house was purchased by
Dr. William Heberden for £5105, (ref. 252) and shortly
afterwards (probably in 1770) (ref. 34) a new house was
erected from designs of James Paine. (ref. 253) The
occupation of the house by the two Doctor William Heberdens, father and son, who were both
noted physicians, lasted from 1771 to 1814. The
house was subsequently occupied for many years by
Sir Thomas Acland, politician and philanthropist. (ref. 71)
Paine's plans and elevation (Plate 222) show
that Dr. Heberden's house belonged to his early,
Palladian manner. The plan was well arranged
but quite simple in layout, with large rectangular
rooms placed north and east of the two staircases,
and a dressing-room with a closet on the south.
The principal stairs wound round an oval well in a
top-lit compartment of the same form, with
niches recessed into the spandrel spaces. At the
end of the garden was a concave-fronted feature,
containing a two-bay loggia flanked by a stair
leading to a loft, and a water-closet or bog-house.
The front, which was four storeys high and had
three windows widely spaced in each upper storey,
was most austere in expression, only the doorcase,
west of the centre, being dressed with a moulded
architrave, plain frieze, and a cornice-hood on
consoles. A pedestal underlined the second-storey
windows, a narrow band enriched with fluting and
paterae formed a sill to the third-storey windows,
and a plain sill continued beneath the attic, where
each side light was a squat oblong and the middle
one was arched, rising into the open triangular
pediment which finished the front.
The house was demolished in 1866 and the
present building, whose history is described on
page 417, was erected shortly afterwards.