CHAPTER III
The Portland Estate in Soho Fields
In 1698 the first Earl of Portland was granted
by the King the freehold of most of Soho
Fields and of a smaller piece of ground in St.
James's parish, in reversion from 1734. The
Portland family owned the estate until a period of
sales commencing in the 1790's. Under Portland
ownership most of the area was rebuilt, particularly during the 1720's and 1730's. The original
layout was not altered, and the rebuilding, although extensive, did not amount to a comprehensive, controlled redevelopment of the estate.
The grant of the reversionary freehold to
William III's favourite, William Bentinck,
first Earl of Portland, was in preparation in
December 1697, shortly before the Earl's
departure for France as ambassador extraordinary
to Louis XIV. In the previous year Portland had
bought for £24,511 a large number of fee farm
rents belonging to the Crown. (ref. 1) This purchase
proved to be invalid, and in December 1697 it
was decided to grant him in recompense the
reversionary freehold of most of Soho Fields and of
a detached piece of ground, Brown's or Doghouse
Close, on the west side of Wardour Street in the
parish of St. James, Westminster. (fn. a) Five pieces of
ground in Soho Fields were excepted out of the
grant (see figs. 1 and 2 on pages 21 and 28).
These were the site of St. Anne's Church,
churchyard and glebe (which had been made over
in perpetuity to the parish of St. Martin in the
Fields and the rector of St. Anne's by an Act of
Parliament of 1678), the site of the Greek Church
and St. Martin's almshouses (granted as freehold
by the Crown in 1684 to a trustee for the parish
of St. Martin), the site of Monmouth House
(leased by the Crown in 1688 to the Duchess of
Monmouth from 1734 to 1786), and the two
pieces of ground in Dean Street which had
recently, in 1697, been leased by the Crown to
Thomas Pitt from 1734 to 1833. The reversion
of the Portland estate was to become effectual at
Michaelmas 1734, when the Earl of St. Albans's
leasehold interest in Soho Fields expired. A rent
charge of £3 6s. 8d. per annum was reserved.
This reversionary freehold was valued at £25,068
10s. (ref. 2) The grant was attacked in the House of
Commons, (ref. 3) but was effected by letters patent
dated 13 May 1698. (ref. 4)
The greater part of the estate, lying in the parish
of St. Anne, then consisted of a more or less complete development of mostly residential streets,
containing perhaps some five hundred houses
built within the previous twenty years or so.
In 1704 a settlement made on the marriage of
the Earl's son, Henry, Lord Woodstock, gave the
Earl power to grant reversionary leases for twenty-one years, and gave the Earl and Lord Woodstock
jointly, and the latter alone after the Earl's
death, power to grant leases for sixty-one years. (ref. 5)
In 1709 the first Earl died and was succeeded by
his son Henry, then aged about twenty-seven,
who in 1716 was created Duke of Portland. He
was, of course, not yet in actual possession of the
estate, but (unlike the family's policy in Doghouse
Close, St. James's), the granting of reversionary
leases of plots in Soho Fields began long before the
realization of the freehold in 1734. The first
lease was granted in 1712, and by the time of the
Duke's death in 1726 about 170 leases had been
granted. All were for thirty-five years from 1734. (ref. 6)
In 1722 the Duke had granted his younger son,
Lord George Bentinck, a five hundred-year term
in the estate from the date of his own death, to
raise by mortgages or the sale of leases a sum of
£30,000 payable when Lord George became
twenty-one in 1736. The estate was to revert
to the Duke's heir when the £30,000 was paid to
Lord George. In 1728 the Duke's widow, Elizabeth, Duchess of Portland, obtained a private
Act of Parliament allowing her and others as
guardians of Lord George to grant reversionary
leases for a maximum term of seventy years. (ref. 7)
From 1728, when the granting of leases recommenced, they were, therefore, granted not by the
second Duke but by his mother, the Duchess,
as guardian of her younger son. In 1734 the
freehold possession of the estate became an actuality, in 1736 Lord George attained his majority,
and in January 1736/7 William, the second
Duke, paid his younger brother £30,000 and
resumed possession of the property. (ref. 5) From 1728
to 1736 a further 166 leases running from
Michaelmas 1734 had been granted, the great
majority for sixty-five years. (In addition, the
granting of reversionary leases from the expiry
in 1769 of the first Duke's thirty-five-year leases,
for further terms of thirty years, had begun, and
23 such leases had been granted between 1728
and 1736.) In the next four years, to 1741,
the second Duke granted another 43 leases
running from 1734 or the years immediately
following (and four from 1769).
The Portlands' disposal of the individual plots
on their estate in Soho Fields from the realization
of the freehold in 1734 was thus spread over a
period of thirty years. The single years in which
the largest numbers of leases from 1734 were
granted were 1729 (40), 1734 (33), 1733 (31),
1717 (29) and 1715 (21).
This gradual utilization of the potentialities of
the estate seems to show no clear policy of overall
redevelopment. The earlier, comparatively short
leases were first granted mostly in Soho Square, and
plots in Greek Street also figure especially in the
early leases, before 1728. These leases do not
exhibit the characteristics of leases intended to
secure the rebuilding of the premises. The longer
leases granted after 1728 include many intended
to secure rebuilding, and these were especially
frequent in the less imposing streets and courts on
the periphery of Soho Fields: in the north-west
corner one new, short street was made, named
Titchfield (now Fareham) Street. In the three
main north-to-south streets, leases for rebuilding
were most frequent in Dean Street, perhaps under
the influence of the general rebuilding carried out
about 1734 on the Pitt estate. On the whole,
leases for rebuilding seem, not surprisingly, to
have been least frequent where the original
building was presumably most substantial, in the
main residential areas.
The leases running from 1734 or the years
immediately following numbered some 372.
Of these, 108 were made to building tradesmen
and also exhibited the characteristics of building
leases; that is, the first year was granted at a
peppercorn rent and no fine or only a very small
one was exacted for the grant of the lease. Another
eight had the characteristics of building leases
but were not granted to building tradesmen, and
41 were granted to building tradesmen but did
not have the characteristics of building leases.
Altogether these leases totalled 157, while 215
had no known features suggestive of the rebuilding
of the premises.
The proportion of leases granted to 'sitting
tenants' (that is, to lessees who were already
ratepayers for the premises) is known only for the
principal streets and Soho Square. In the principal
streets (Dean, Frith, Greek, Old Compton and
Romilly Streets) these constituted about a fifth
of the whole and in Soho Square a third. The
lesser streets and courts where relatively more
leases were granted to building tradesmen would
reduce these proportions for the area as a whole.
The total number of individual lessees was
some 207. Of these about a quarter were building
tradesmen, numbering 54, of whom 25 were
carpenters, 13 bricklayers, 5 glaziers, 4 joiners,
3 painters, 2 plasterers, one a paviour and one a
timber merchant: none was a mason. About half
were of St. Anne's parish. (fn. b) Few of the builders
who were lessees here also figure as lessees on
the Portland estate in St. James's.
Of the other lessees, 59 were tradesmen, 46
'gentlemen' or 'esquires', 11 bore titles, 3 were
spinsters, 29 were widows, and 5 were undesignated.
Thus well under half the leases from 1734 (perhaps less than a third) seem to have been intended
to secure a rebuilding of the premises. On some
parts of the estate building leases of a number of
sites were granted at one time to a building
tradesman or small group of tradesmen and the
rebuilding that followed represented a deliberate
reconstruction of an entire street or range of
buildings. Such was the case, for example, in
St. Anne's Court, Diadem Court, Fareham Street
(newly built), much of Great Chapel Street,
Moor Street and Soho Street, and part of Old
Compton Street. In the main residential streets,
however, the building leases to building tradesmen
were more scattered and less comprehensive. It
seems certain that no one building tradesman was
associated with the Portlands as general contractor. The glazier, William Bignell, occurs frequently as lessee, in various streets, and the carpenter, Thomas Richmond, also took leases in
various parts of the estate. But both seem to have
been acting on their own account, and both took
some of their sites on ordinary leases and redeveloped them in apparent independence of any
requirement of the ground landlords.
The total amount of rebuilding around the
period 1734 was, in fact, considerably greater than
the character of the leases granted by the Portlands would suggest, and was spread over a longer
period than if it had been directly activated by the
realization of the Portland freehold in that year.
At a number of sites the Portlands' lessees seem
themselves to have undertaken rebuilding that was
not required by the lease: Sir Thomas Crosse, a
brewer of Westminster, and Edmund Strudwick
of St. Giles in the Fields, esquire, were two such
lessees. In these cases the lessee may be supposed
to have had an existing lien prior to the Portland
lease from 1734, and some rebuilding was being
taken in hand in the 1720's at sites where the
extension of the lessees' tenure beyond 1734 had
been secured from the Portlands. (fn. c)
Compared with the smaller Portland estate in
St. James's, the rebuilding of the Soho estate was
thus less comprehensive, less concentrated in its
time span, and less directly the expression of the
ground landlords' building policy.
The capital value of the Soho Fields estate to
the Portlands in 1734 cannot be estimated with
any certainty. Since all of it was granted away
in leases, the Portlands' revenue from the estate
was limited to the annual ground rents, and the
fines or premiums charged for the leases. These
were often remitted wholly or partially in consideration of the building or rebuilding of the
premises. The power of the representatives of
the Portland family in possession of the estate to
profit at the expense of their successors by exacting
very large fines for leases granted at very low
ground rents was limited by the private Act of
1728. This required the ground rent to be at
least a fifth of the full 'improved' rent, that is, the
rent for which the site and buildings on it could be
leased to an occupant. (ref. 7) The ground rents which
the Portlands received from the leases commencing in 1734 amounted to some £3,000 per
annum (of which about £634 was for sites in
Soho Square). (fn. d) For these leases they received in
fines or premiums, over the period of some thirty
years during which they were granting them,
lump sums amounting to about £24,600 (of
which about £5,840 was for the leases of sites in
Soho Square). (fn. e)
The granting of reversionary leases from 1769,
when the first Duke's thirty-five-year leases expired, had begun by 1728, and the receipt of fines
for these overlapped that of the fines for the
leases from 1734. In 1739 the second Duke
obtained another private Act of Parliament to
authorize him to grant leases for ninety-nine
years. This was said to be necessary in order to
give lessees an inducement to rebuild dilapidated
houses. (ref. 14) In Soho Fields, however, almost all the
estate was, of course, already out on lease until
1769 or 1799, and the further granting of leases
for additional terms proceeded only gradually.
The first lease for more than sixty-six years in
Soho Fields was not granted until 1751. Altogether, between 1728 and 1768 some 195 leases
were granted for terms commencing in 1769.
The total amount received in fines over this period
was some £22,000. The total of ground rents is
uncertain. The Act repeated the earlier requirement that they should be not less than a fifth of the
improved rents.
Despite the Act of 1739, more than a third of
the leases from 1769 were for less than sixty-six
years, and comparatively few seem to have required early rebuilding of the premises. In only
eight or nine was it required immediately and in
perhaps another ten or a dozen by or before 1800.
Thirty-six leases (almost all for terms upward of
eighty-two years) required rebuilding merely
before the expiry of the term, and 140 contained
no features characteristic of a building or rebuilding lease. Nearly a third of this last category,
however, was made to building tradesmen, and
rebuilding sometimes took place even when not
required by the Portland lease. Altogether,
eighteen building tradesmen took leases from
1769, of whom two (William Bignell and Henry
Crosse) also held leases from 1734. The other
sixteen (who mostly obtained their leases in the
1760's) included six carpenters, three bricklayers,
two 'builders', two masons, a glazier, a painter and
a timber merchant. (fn. f)
The second Duke died in 1762 and the later
history of the estate in Soho Fields was determined
largely by the financial difficulties in which his
successor, the eminent statesman, became involved. In 1777 the estate was mortgaged to
raise £80,000, (ref. 5) and by 1790 it was decided to have
it valued with a view to its sale. In 1792 the
Portlands' agent, John Heaton, wrote to the
architect, John Carr of York, that the sale of the
estate in Soho and St. James's would enable the
Duke to build additional rooms at Welbeck for
which Carr had provided designs. In 1792–3 a
series of extremely detailed plans of the houses on
the estate was made, principally by S. P. Cockerell
in association with Carr, and perhaps on the basis
of a survey begun by the Portlands' surveyor,
John White, in 1790. (ref. 15)
(fn. g) In 1795 the Duke
and his son, the Marquis of Titchfield, were
debating whether to sell the 'Soho' estate or Bulstrode. The Marquis urged the sale of the latter
as it would yield a larger immediate sum than
an estate of houses which would have to be sold
piecemeal. Bulstrode was in fact sold in 1810, (ref. 17)
but the disposal of the 'Soho' estate had then
already begun, and by 1798 about a third of the
estate in Soho Fields had been sold. At that date
the total value of the estate in St. James's and St.
Anne's, including both the parts already sold
(presumably valued at the amount actually received)
and those still in hand (presumably valued at their
estimated yield) was £259,656. Of this about
£192,000 was the value of the Soho Fields part,
where the unsold property was valued at about
£124,500. (ref. 18) By the 1820's probably little of the
estate remained in possession. Except for the
centre of Soho Square, all had certainly been
sold by the 1880's. (ref. 19) In the 1890's the former
Portland estate was in many separate ownerships.
From what has been said above it will be seen
that the estate in Soho Fields as it is portrayed in
the surviving sheets of the 1792–3 survey was
the outcome of no single building period. Chiefly
it represented a rebuilding, by various hands and
with varying completeness, carried out in the
1720's and 1730's on an original fabric which
itself represented some twenty years of building
in the last quarter of the seventeenth century.
Some later eighteenth-century rebuilding is also
delineated, and the pleasing variety of protruding
shop fronts which appears in the more southerly
and busier parts of the estate is probably of that
later period.
The survey gives a remarkably detailed and
fully dimensioned plan of the houses with their
back premises, falling short in one respect only
by not showing the front and back basement areas.
The majority of the house-plots were about
eighteen to twenty feet in front and seventy to
eighty feet deep, the two-rooms-deep buildings
being about thirty to thirty-five feet in depth,
exclusive of the closet wings. Many of the houses
were regularly planned in mirrored pairs, but
irregularities show in the party walls, sometimes
set out of square with the frontages and running
parallel with the cross streets, for example in
Frith and Greek Streets north of Old Compton
Street. A few houses near Soho Square and in
Greek Street were larger than average, and in
Milk Alley (Bourchier Street) there were some
minute houses having a front room only nine
feet square, a back room even smaller, a newel
stair, and a narrow back yard with a privy.
Other small houses at the south end of Greek
Street had very irregular sites and windowless
back rooms. Almost every house had a privy
in its back yard, but only a few appear with
wash-houses equipped with coppers. Many of
the back yards contained small cottages or workshops, often of more than one storey, generally
let on a separate tenancy.
Most of the shops were still located in and
around Old Compton Street, but single shops had
already appeared in the originally residential
streets, where many houses were being used
partly for professional and trading purposes, or
for small manufactories. The plans show how the
shop fronts generally projected from the original
building lines, in a variety of forms such as the
wide segmental bow embracing the central doorway, smaller semi-circular bows flanking the
doorway, and straight or splay-sided bays.
One sheet of the plans, showing the block of
houses bounded by (Old) Compton Street on the
north, Church (now Romilly) Street on the south,
Frith Street on the west and Greek Street on the
east, is reproduced on Plate 9 (and see fig. 50 on
page 197). Here the houses were probably rebuildings, of varying degrees of completeness,
dating from the 1730's: Nos. 13–21 (odd) Old
Compton Street had, however, been rebuilt
again, partly or wholly, in 1786. The intricate
adjustment of the rearward site-boundaries is
noticeable.