No. 1 Greek Street: The House of St. Barnabas-in-Soho (fn. a)
In March 1678/9 Richard Frith and William
Pym leased the house on this site to Cadogan
Thomas of Lambeth, timber merchant. The
house was described as 'All that messuage or
Tenement being A greate Corner house abutting
North upon A new Square called Fryths Square'.
The site included ground laid out as a garden
behind the house and other land set aside for the
erection of coach-houses and stables, together with
the free use of 'A certaine Pond or receptacle for
Water' near the house. The lease to Cadogan
Thomas was for fifty-one years at a peppercorn
rent for the first year (evidently to allow him time
to complete the house) and at £20 per annum rent
thereafter. There was an additional rent of ten
shillings a year to be paid towards the upkeep of
the pales, fountain and garden in the middle of
Soho Square. (ref. 3)
The names of the first occupants are unknown
until 1689, when in an agreement of that year
for the tenancy of the adjoining No. 26 Soho
Square, a 'Roome next ye Lord Crews Garden'
is mentioned. It is clear from the parish ratebooks for 1691 that Thomas Crew, second Baron
Crew, was then the occupant of the house at the
eastern corner of Greek Street and the square. (ref. 198)
Lady Cavendish lived here from at least 1703
to 1717; other inhabitants include the Countess of
Fingall, widow of the fourth Earl, 1718, and
William Archer, of Coopersale, Essex, M.P.,
1719–38. (ref. 33)
The house which Frith and Cadogan Thomas
had built is shown in the anonymous engraving
reproduced on Plate 68b. It then appears as three
storeys high, five windows wide to the square,
with the entrance in the second bay from the
east, and with three dormer windows in the
steeply pitched roof.
In April 1740 William Archer's widow,
Susannah, sold the lease of the house to John
Smither(s) of St. Marylebone, bricklayer, for
£550. (ref. 199) By May 1742 he had demolished the
house, (ref. 200) which he had already mortgaged for
£330, (ref. 201) but by October 1743 he had been
declared bankrupt. (ref. 202) His chief creditors were
William Baker of St. George's, Hanover Square,
and Thomas Scott of Fulham, both brickmakers,
and Thomas Woodward of St. Marylebone,
timber merchant. (ref. 203)
The erection of the new house was undertaken by Joseph Pearce of St. James's, bricklayer,
with the assistance of George Pearce of St.
Martin's, plumber, who evidently supplied the
capital. In the summer of 1744 George Pearce,
with the consent of Smither's creditors, lent
£2,000 to Joseph Pearce on the security of the
property, (ref. 204) and in May 1745 he advanced
another £1,000. (ref. 205) By December 1746 the
Pearces had evidently purchased the lease from
Smither's creditors, for in that month they surrendered it to the ground landlord, the Duke of
Portland, who granted a new lease to Joseph
Pearce. This lease, which was for eighty-seven
years from Michaelmas 1746, was granted in
consideration of a fine of £110 and of Joseph
Pearce's expense in building the carcase of the
new house; the ground rent was £21 10s. per
annum plus a garden rent of £1. The ground
plan of the house as built by Pearce is drawn in
the margin of the lease, and a comparison with
the present-day plan shows that no significant
alterations have been made. (ref. 206)
At this period Joseph Pearce was also concerned
in the erection of two small houses fronting Greek
Street (Nos. 2 and 3) on the southern part of the
original site of No. 1. They were probably
built in carcase in 1744 and first occupied in
1748 (see page 172). In December 1747 he
mortgaged the mansion at No. 1 to George
Pearce for £3,400. (ref. 207) It remained empty and in
July 1753 Joseph Pearce conveyed his interest
in it to the executors of the now-deceased
George. (ref. 208) The house was still unoccupied, but
in October 1754 the executors sold the lease to
Richard Beckford, (ref. 209) a member of a prominent
and wealthy family of West Indian planters, and
a brother of Alderman William Beckford, who
then lived at No. 22 Soho Square.
Richard Beckford had previously lived on his
plantations in Jamaica. He had been a member
and acting Speaker of the island's House of Assembly but in November 1753 he retired from
office and 'acquainted the house that he soon
intends to leave the island for the establishment of
his health'. (ref. 210) He was still in Jamaica during the
general election of April-May 1754 when he was
chosen as a member for Bristol (his campaign
being conducted for him by his brother William) (ref. 211) but he must have arrived in England
shortly afterwards. By June 1754 he had evidently begun to negotiate for a lease of No. 1
Greek Street, (ref. 212) which he finally acquired in the
following October for £2,500. (ref. 206)
At Christmas 1754 Beckford moved into the
house, (ref. 213) the rateable value of which had been
doubled from £120 to £240 during the second
half of this year. It seems likely from the structural
evidence (discussed below) that the present elaborate interior was not the work of the two Pearces,
who may indeed have left the building unfinished.
The probability, therefore, is that Beckford was
responsible for these finishings, although the
documentary evidence is not absolutely conclusive.
Neither Beckford's own papers, nor those of his
agent, Captain Thomas Collett, who negotiated
the purchase of the house and paid the parish rates,
appear to have survived.
Towards the end of 1755 Beckford departed
for the Continent, probably for the sake of his
health. He made his will in France on 22 December 1755 and died at Lyons on 24 January
1756. (ref. 214) In April 1756 Thomas Collett, now one
of Beckford's trustees, sold the house and its
furnishings to (Sir) James Colebrooke for £6,300. (fn. b)
The conveyance recited that the previous owner
had 'laid out and expended several sums in rebuilding, altering and improving the said messuage
and with furnishing the same with useful and
ornamental furnishings'. (ref. 215) Colebrooke lived
here until his death in 1761, when his executors
sold the house for £4,000. (ref. 216)
The purchaser was George Cruickshanks of
Hitchin, esquire, who lived here until 1765. (ref. 217)
The next occupant was William Mowbray,
esquire, from 1766 to 1808. (ref. 33) There were then
a number of intermediate owners until No. 1
Greek Street was taken by the Westminster
Commissioners of Sewers in 1811. (ref. 218) The
house was used by them and later by the Metropolitan Board of Works (their successors after
1855) as offices, and during this period a number
of additions were made to the back premises to
provide more accommodation. (ref. 219)
In August 1861 the Metropolitan Board of
Works, in anticipation of its move to new
offices in Spring Gardens, sold the house to the
representatives of the House of Charity for
£6,400. (ref. 220)
The House of Charity, now known as the
House of St. Barnabas-in-Soho, was established
in 1846 for the relief of the destitute and the
houseless poor in London. Its two principal
objects were 'to afford temporary relief to as
many destitute cases as possible, and to have a
Christian effect on the poor population'. The
first honorary secretaries were Dr. Henry Monro,
physician to Bethlehem Hospital, and Roundell
Palmer, later first Earl of Selborne and Lord
Chancellor; the first list of 164 associated
members of the charity included W. E. Gladstone
and Frederick Denison Maurice, who later
inaugurated the Working Men's College in
Red Lion Square. The charity's first house was
at No. 9 Rose (now Manette) Street, which
was opened on 11 January 1847. It remained
here until its removal to No. 1 Greek Street in
1862. (ref. 221)
Little alteration was made to the existing
building, but ambitious plans were drawn up by
Joseph Clarke, an architect associated with the
work of the charity, for the erection of a chapel,
refectory, dormitories and cloisters, to be built
behind the house and backing on to Rose Street.
Of this scheme, only that for the chapel was ever
realized. (ref. 222) The builder employed was Edward
Conder and work on the chapel began in June
1862. The nave was completed early in the following year and the builder then estimated that it
would cost another £1,013 to finish the sacristy
and the four circular apses. This sum did not
include the cost of the glass and carving nor the
decoration and completion of the interior. For
these items another scheme was elaborated by
Clarke in July 1863. This envisaged an interior
incorporating shafts of serpentine and green
Irish and Devon marbles, mosaics, frescoes of the
Passion 'in the new water glass process', rich
hangings, painted memorial windows and arcades
decorated with inscriptions mixed with foliage in
wrought metal. Externally the new building was
to be crowned by a flèche, to be erected by Mr.
Skidmore at a cost of £380. (ref. 223) The chapel was
ready for use in 1864, although its embellishment
may not have been completed by that date. It was
possibly to meet some of the building and decorating costs that three chimneypieces from the house
were sold for £350. (ref. 224)
Restoration of the interior of the house was
commenced in 1958, the main stair hall and the
principal room on the ground and first floor being
completed in 1960. Further work was undertaken in 1964 with the restoration of the east
front room on the ground and first floors, the
ground-floor lobby and the first-floor south back
room. (ref. 225)
Architectural Description
The house has a plain and, for its period,
curiously old-fashioned exterior (Plate 78a, fig.
16), the design of which seems hardly to have felt
the influence of the Palladian ideas which were
well established by the 1740's and are evident in
the internal finishings. A conceivable explanation
is that the builder was trying to match his front to
those already existing in the square, for Sutton
Nicholls's view of c. 1727 (Plate 68a) suggests that
at that date house-fronts of a similar pattern were
still predominant.
The house contains a basement, three storeys
and a garret, with fronts of purple-red brick to
Soho Square and Greek Street, four and five
windows wide respectively. The windows have
flat gauged arches of the same colour and contain
barred double-hung sashes in frames of which
only the margins are exposed, these being set
within plastered reveals. The sashes are mostly
nineteenth-century replacements, and probably
the only original ones are those in the basement
with broad flat glazing-bars. Above the basement, ground and second storeys are raised bandcourses, the first in stone and the other two in
brick, while in the second storey the sills are continued, in a rather unhappy attempt at a pedestalcourse. The doorway, set in the second bay from
the south in the Greek Street front, has a stone
doorcase of far more sophisticated design than the
rest of the exterior, suggesting that it may have
been inserted when the interior was finished
(Plate 78b). It consists of a moulded architrave
with a plain pulvinated frieze and a moulded
cornice above, the latter supported on carved
consoles. The door itself has six raised-and-fielded
panels in ovolo-moulded frames, and over it is a
plain fanlight. Flanking the foot of the steps is a
pair of blunted stone obelisks on moulded pedestals
but these probably lack their original iron lampholders and torch-extinguishers. The arearailing, almost certainly renewed, is of plain design
with urn-finials to the standards.
Some other alterations have been made to the
exterior of the house, probably in the nineteenth
century. The upper part of the walls, starting from
the bandcourse above the second storey, has been
rebuilt in yellow brick, though incorporating
some of the original material. At the same time,
perhaps, the third-storey windows towards the
square were lengthened and given plain guardrails, while the roof was rebuilt as a steeply
pitched mansard covered with blue slates. Finally,
a band of glazed tiles was introduced above the
second-storey bandcourse, this having until
recently borne the inscription House of Charity
on each front. (ref. 226)
Figure 16:
No. 1 Greek Street, elevations
The development of the site since 1744–6 is
recorded in some detail by a series of plans made
for the Westminster Commissioners of Sewers in
the early nineteenth century. (ref. 227) The first of
these, a copy of a ground-floor plan attached to the
Portland lease of 1746, confirms that the layout of
the house has been little altered, apart from some
minor additions at the back. It is arranged on an
almost square plan, a small piece being taken out of
the north-east corner where it interlocks with
No. 26 Soho Square (figs. 17, 18). The principal
apartments are on the Greek Street frontage, the
entrance and staircase hall at the southern end,
and the principal room, with two windows on to
the square, immediately north of it. The eastern
part of the house is reached through an L-shaped
lobby opening out of the north-east corner of the
hall. On the north side of this is the small east
front room with two windows on to the square,
and on the south, beside the hall, is the secondary
staircase. The third room, which lies to the
east of this staircase and the lobby, is equal in
size to the principal room, and, until the back wall
was altered in the nineteenth century, had four
windows overlooking the courtyard. On the
first floor, however, this room is subdivided to
make a narrow closet at the north end, and the
plan of 1746 shows that originally the ground-floor
room also was divided. At its north-east corner is
a small projecting closet, now barely recognizable.
The plan of 1746 shows a yard, or perhaps a
garden, lying behind the house on the east side,
to the south of which was a stable-yard with its
entrance in Rose (now Manette) Street. The
stable buildings occupied the north and east sides
of the yard, the east range apparently designed for
eight horses and three carriages, while the north
range contained three rooms of uncertain purpose
divided by a passage leading into the yard. The
north front of this latter range had a projecting
centre and a regular series of blind windows,
suggesting that it had been designed as a façade
to screen the stables from the house. It is not
known when these buildings were demolished,
but there is a drawing of 1847 which appears to
be a design for the Commissioners of Sewers'
additional offices as built, and for this the site
would certainly have had to be cleared. The
offices consist of a small rectangular building of
two storeys, now much altered, attached to the
south-east corner of the house and linked to it
by a corridor adjoining the back room on the east.
A further corridor now links this building to the
chapel, which occupies the Manette Street
frontage.
Figure 17:
No. 1 Greek Street, ground-floor plan
Figure 18:
No. 1 Greek Street, first-floor plan
Figure 19:
No. 1 Greek Street, section north to south
Figure 20:
No. 1 Greek Street, section east to west
The interior of No. 1 Greek Street, finished in
carved wood and moulded plasterwork, is one of
the best examples of the mid eighteenth-century
English Rococo style now surviving in London
(figs. 19, 20). The contrast between Pearce's
clumsy exterior and the splendid embellishments
of the interior suggests that the latter were
undertaken by one of the early occupants. As
has been seen, the documentary evidence points
to Beckford as the probable instigator of the work,
but the name of the designer is quite unknown,
and identification on stylistic grounds is particularly difficult because of the scarcity of major
estate developments in London at this time, from
which well-documented parallels might have been
drawn. Flitcroft and Isaac Ware have both been
suggested, (ref. 228) but the distinctive features of their
style are lacking. Possibly one should look for a
highly skilled craftsman rather than an architect,
particularly since the house is noted more for its
detail than for overall quality of design. In this
connexion the names of George Fawkes and
Humphrey Willmott, the plasterers employed at
the Mansion House at about the same date, have
been suggested, (ref. 224) but their work does not seem
markedly closer in style than that in a dozen
houses up and down the country. Plasterwork of
similar character was formerly to be seen at No. 71
Dean Street, a house of the late 1750's, although
the designer of this, too, is unknown.
Perhaps the nearest parallel is provided by the
plasterwork at Nos. 15, 45 and 46 Lincoln's
Inn Fields, houses that were being rebuilt at
about the same period. Two other houses there,
Nos. 35 and 36, also contemporary with No. 1
Greek Street, were by (Sir) Robert Taylor, (ref. 229)
and it is perhaps worth recalling not only Taylor's
later work for Sir James Colebrooke's younger
brother, Sir George, but also that he designed the
Colebrooke family mausoleum, erected at Chilham Church, Kent, in 1755. (ref. 230)
The finest decoration, as in so many eighteenth-century houses, was reserved for the staircase hall and the first-floor rooms, the ground
floor rooms, though elaborately finished, being
only paler versions of those above.
Figure 21:
No. 1 Greek Street, staircase balustrade
The hall occupies two storeys, having a fine
cantilevered stone staircase rising in three flights
against the east, south and west walls to a gallery
along the north wall (Plate 80b, fig. 21). The
steps have moulded nosings, each one carrying an
ornate wrought-iron baluster made up of Cscrolls supporting lyre-scrolls. Completing the
balustrade is a mahogany handrail which is ramped
up at each turn of the stair over a slender octagonal
newel with a square pedestal, and at the bottom
forms a half-volute above a curtail step. The two
uppermost flights have flat soffits, carved to match
the wooden raised-and-fielded panels with ovolomoulded frames on the underside of the gallery.
The compartment is very simply finished at
ground-storey level, the attention of the visitor
being purposely drawn to the richly decorated
upper stage. At the lower level the walls are lined
with three-quarter-height panelling, the dado of
which is plain with a moulded rail and skirting,
and the upper panels sunk with ovolo-moulded
frames, the whole being finished with a small
moulded cornice. The rest of the wall face is
plain, except for an enriched cornice, probably of
wood, below the gallery. The doorway to the
principal room has six ovolo-moulded panels, and
is framed by a plain moulded architrave, while
the tall round-arched opening to the lobby has
moulded imposts and an archivolt. In the south
wall, below the stairs, is a stone chimneypiece
with an ovolo-moulded architrave, plain frieze
and moulded cornice.
The elaboration of the upper level begins with
a plaster band of intertwined C-scrolls, flowers
and scallop-shells at first-floor level, this being
continued across the front of the gallery. Above is
a series of rectangular panels of moulded plasterwork, mostly of standard Palladian form but
loaded with profuse Rococo ornament (Plates
79a, 80a). In the centre of the south wall is a
wide blank panel enclosed by an enriched
shouldered architrave, this being surmounted by a
female mask set amid scrolls and foliage and with a
halo-like scallop-shell behind it; pendants of
flowers hang from the shoulders at the top of the
architrave, and at the foot of it is a twisted cartouche flanked by foliage. At either side of this
panel is a narrow one enclosed by a straight border
but filled with scallop-shells, C-scrolls and flowers,
and by foliage which appears to twist under the
frame. The east wall has a similar arrangement,
with an identical centre panel and, beside it on the
south, a narrow panel differing from its counterpart
only in having a garland of leaves as the principal
motif. The place of the northern panel is taken
by the opening to the first-floor lobby, a repetition of that on the ground floor but with enriched
mouldings on the imposts and archivolt, the soffit
of the arch and the inner faces of the piers being
lined with sunk ovolo-moulded panels. The
opening is now fitted with a low iron gate, added
in the early or mid nineteenth century. Above
the arch is a plaster lion-head holding in its mouth
two richly moulded swags, the outer ends of which
are suspended from scallop-shells.
The north wall, at the back of the gallery,
has a plain wooden dado with enriched rail and
skirting, broken off-centre by the doorway to the
principal room. This is framed by an enriched
architrave surmounted by a pulvinated frieze
carved with a scallop-shell and foliage, and by an
enriched triangular pediment. The reveals are
lined with raised-and-fielded panels in ovolomoulded frames, and there are six similar panels
to the door itself. Above the doorway is a lionhead with swags, matching that over the lobbyentrance. Immediately west of the doorway is
one of the charming Rococo devices that help
mitigate the formal Palladianism of the panels.
It is a partly draped female bust with head and body
half-turned in opposing directions, this being set
in a medallion of C-scrolls which is itself the
centrepiece of a mass of intertwined foliage and
C-scrolls (fig. 22a). At each end of the wall is
a narrow panel matching, in a shortened version, its counterpart on the opposite wall (fig. 22c).
The dado is continued along the west wall, and
here the principal feature is the pair of windows,
these having architraves with bold egg-and-dart
mouldings and shutters with panel frames similarly carved. Between them is a medallion like
that on the north wall, but here confined by a
rectangular frame, while at the north end of the
wall is a delightful pendant of fruit, flowers and
acanthus leaves suspended from a rocaille shell
(fig. 22b).
Round the top of the hall is a full entablature
composed of an enriched architrave, a plain
frieze and a heavily enriched modillion cornice.
The ceiling is designed as an oval enclosed
within a rectangle, the intervening spaces being
filled with four spandrel panels. Within the oval is
a chandelier-boss composed of acanthus leaves,
and this is surrounded by a continuous chain of
intertwined C-scrolls adorned with flowers and
foliage. The spandrel panels are filled with
scrolled foliage, and dividing them are four cartouches made up of C-scrolls (Plate 79b).
Figure 22:
No. 1 Greek Street, staircase compartment, plaster decoration
The decorations of the principal first-floor
room adhere much more closely to the standard
Palladian formula and work in the Rococo manner
is limited almost entirely to the opulent plaster
ceiling. Use is made of motifs similar to those in
the hall, but they give the impression of being
the work of a more skilled hand. The walls of
the room are lined with wood panelling, the dado
being plain with heavily enriched rail and
skirting, while the upper part has sunk panels with
prominent carved frames similar in design to the
plaster ones in the hall (Plates 84, 85b). In the
centre of the east wall, balancing the chimneypiece opposite, is a wide rectangular panel framed
by a small enriched moulding, this in turn being
enclosed within an architrave carved with eggand-dart and lugged at all four corners. The
architrave is broken at the top to form a swanneck pediment and this is loaded with ornament,
most of it probably papier-mâché. Between the
volutes is a female mask haloed with a scallopshell, below which is a chain of swags suspended
from the mouths of a pair of splendid writhing
dragons with wings unfurled; it is commonly
supposed that these dragons allude to the City
connexions of the owner of the house (Plate 85a).
At either side of the centre panel is a narrow oblong
one with an enriched frame, and beyond that
another similar but slightly wider panel which is
stopped short above a doorway, while at the very
end is a single vertical strip of carved wood like
that used in the panel-frames. The two doorways
have enriched architraves finished with pulvinated
friezes and enriched dentilled cornices, the former
carved with large flowers on a trellised background
of ribbons and flowers; the doors themselves are
six-panelled with plain ovolo-moulded panelframes.
In the west wall the central feature is the
monumental continued chimneypiece of carved
wood emphasized by a strongly projecting chimney-breast. The chimneypiece itself dates only
from 1960, when it replaced a white marble one
of the mid-to-late nineteenth century, but the
overmantel is original. This has at either side a
fluted Composite column attached to a wide
pilaster, these supporting an enriched entablature
which breaks forward above them and is crowned
by a wide swan-neck pediment; originally, no
doubt, there was some piece of ornament between
the volutes, but this has been removed, probably
when a modern air-vent was inserted. In the
centre of the overmantel is a raised panel with an
enriched frame, probably intended for a picture,
and this is enclosed within a shouldered architrave. Flanking the chimney-breast are two narrow
panels, and beyond them the two windows, each
with an enriched architrave lugged at the foot,
the dado breaking forward to form a pedestal
below them; the shutters have sunk panels, their
frames carved with flower-and-dart.
The north wall has two similar windows having narrow panels with enriched frames between
and at either side. Opposite, in the south wall, is
the doorway to the hall, centrally placed between
two wide panels. This is an elaborated version
of the two in the east wall, the architrave flanked
by narrow pilasters and the frieze carved with oak
leaves bound with foliage, while above it is a
broken triangular pediment on enriched consoles (fig. 25a). On the wall over the pediment is a
large plaster cartouche, suspended from a pair of
richly modelled swags.
The wall scheme is completed by an entablature
composed of a wooden architrave carved with
egg-and-dart, a plaster frieze moulded with a
series of rolling, foliated scrolls, and an ornate
dentilled and modillioned cornice. The ceiling is
the finest feature of the room and is fairly close in
style to the ceilings in the first-floor rooms of the
former No. 15 Lincoln's Inn Fields. The design
consists of a large rectangle enclosing a slightly
smaller rectangle with incurved angles, the frame
broken to form an ellipse on each of the long sides
and a semicircle on the short sides. In the centre
of the ceiling is an oval plaque and this has chandeliers (not original) hanging from inconspicuous
bosses at either end. The outer rectangle is linked
to the semicircles and ellipses of the inner one by
scallop-shells and cartouches adorned with scrolls
of foliage and each corner contains a large medallion made up of C-scrolls surrounded with foliage
and more C-scrolls, having in the centre the
profile-head of a classical figure; it has been suggested that these may represent the four seasons,
but no such precise identification seems possible.
Within the inner rectangle is an exuberant but
ordered mass of foliage and C-scrolls, among
which, corresponding to the semicircles and
ellipses, are shell-like motifs hung with swags.
The centre plaque contains the sort of scene commonly found in ceilings from the 1730's onwards,
four rather stolid putti romping amid stylized
clouds and bearing in their hands emblems
symbolic of the elements (Plate 86).
Figure 23:
No. 1 Greek Street, first-floor back room, chimneypiece
The lobby on the first floor is simply treated
with a plain wooden dado heavily moulded on
rail and skirting, the upper walls being plain
except tor a small plaster cornice. The four
doorways have moulded architraves and contain
doors with six ovolo-moulded panels, those
opening into the principal room and the south
back room having raised-and-fielded panels. The
latter also has an overdoor composed of an
ogee-profiled frieze and a dentilled cornice, a
feature which may have been removed from the
other doors when fanlights were inserted in the
nineteenth century.
The east front room comes much closer in
style to the French Rococo, despite some solidly
Palladian features. Round the lower part of the
walls is a plain wooden dado with a heavily enriched rail and skirting, the plain upper part having
been intended, perhaps, for silk hangings similar
to those installed during the recent restoration.
The walls are finished with an enriched cornice,
the lower part of which is coved and decorated with
scallop-shells and scrolls of foliage. The chimneypiece, very much in the Louis Quinze manner, is
of carved wood, except for the actual fireplacesurround which is of marble; possibly the woodwork originally had marbled paint to match, but
the whole is now painted cream (fig. 26). The
surround has a curvilinear head, and the panel
above is covered with trellis-work having fourpetalled flowers at the intersections. Imposed on
the centre of this is a great scallop-shell with
acanthus leaves springing from it, and at either side
is a sunflower. The angles of the chimneypiece
are splayed and treated with buttresses which
form into scrolls top and bottom, the upper scroll
having a pendant of flowers below it. Upon this
scroll rests a C-scroll forming a bracket to the
shaped mantel-shelf. The two windows are
almost identical to those in the principal room,
except that the panels of the shutters are carved
with egg-and-dart.
One original doorcase remains complete, in
the west wall, this having an enriched architrave,
a pulvinated frieze carved with foliage and a
scallop-shell motif, and an enriched cornice; the
door has six raised-and-fielded panels in ovolomoulded frames and is set within similarly panelled
reveals (fig. 25c). Until recently there were two
doorways in the south wall, as shown in fig. 18.
The eastern one, of nineteenth-century date, has
now been removed and the opening built up. The
other doorway is original, though it has probably
lost its overdoor. It has a Rococo catch of chased
and gilded metal, said to be the surviving original
from which others in the building were copied.
The design of the ceiling, much lighter than
that of the principal room and closer in manner
to the French Rococo, is based on two rectangles,
one inside the other, having an oval in the middle.
The outer rectangle has splayed angles composed
of a pair of curvilinear scrolls centred on a shell
motif, from which sprout flowers and foliage in
every direction. Other rocaille motifs decorate
the short sides and incurved angles of the inner
rectangle, twisting under and over the frame to
link up with the outer rectangle, while the long
sides are broken by a projection made up of two
foliated parabolic scrolls, its centre occupied by a
basket of flowers. A chain of shell-like C-scrolls
surrounds the centre oval, these facing alternately
inward and outward, with sprays of flowers
scattered between. Opposite each of the four
sides of the rectangle another piece of rocaille is
looped through the frame, and in the centre of
the oval is a chandelier-boss of acanthus leaves
(Plate 87).
The south back room is notable for its rich
wood-carving, and although this has been subjected to some indignities, little seems to have been
destroyed. The north wall, however, has been
canted forward in the middle, the panelling,
but not the plasterwork, having been replaced;
the earliest first-floor plan, that of 1812, shows a
straight wall in this position. The walls have a
plain wooden dado with a carved rail and skirting,
the wall face above now being plain except for the
entablature of moulded plaster at the top. This
has an enriched architrave, a frieze of scallopshells and scrolls of foliage, and a cornice with
dentils and modillions.
In the centre of the south wall is a wooden
chimneypiece richly carved in the Rococo
manner (Plate 83b, fig. 23). The fireplacesurround is of white marble carved with Vitruvian scroll and egg-and-dart, this being flanked by
shaped buttresses formed into great S-scrolls at
the top, and casually draped with long pendants of
fruit and flowers. Above is a frieze with shaped
ends, carved with swags and ribbons and finished
with an enriched cornice. The overmantel consists of a large square panel, probably intended
for a picture, enclosed by an enriched shouldered
architrave with a flourish of foliage in the
shoulders and a shell motif at the foot. The panel
stands on a low pedestal which breaks forward
beneath it and is there decorated with a band of
flattened guilloche. Flanking the top of the panel
is a pair of cherubs' heads with wings folded below
them, together with another long pendant of fruit
and flowers; to the pendant on the east side is
attached a bow and a flaming torch, and to that
on the west side a sheaf and arrows. The head of
the panel has the appearance of being imposed on
an entablature with enriched architrave, fluted
frieze, and wide swan-neck pediment.
Figure 24:
No. 1 Greek Street, first-floor back room,
window joinery
The doorway at the north end of the west wall
is balanced by a dummy at the south end (Plates
82b, 83a, fig. 25d). Each doorway has an enriched
shouldered architrave with single acanthus buds
carved on the shoulders, having above it a
pulvinated frieze identical with its counterpart in
the principal room, and a dentilled and modillioned
cornice; the door is six-panelled, the panelframes carved with scallop-and-dart and flower-and-dart. The windows have shouldered architraves of the same pattern as the doors, except
that the outer moulding turns outward at the
bottom to form an arris, and then twists into a
scroll; the shutters have sunk panels like those on
the door (Plate 83c, fig. 24). The southernmost window has been converted into a door to an
added wing. The north back room and the closet
are now entirely plain.
On the ground floor the decoration of the
principal room is a simplified version of that used
on the floor above. The walls are lined with wood
panelling, but the dado has less elaborate mouldings and the frames of the upper panels, except
for that of the middle panel on the east wall, are
not raised, having a single cyma-moulding enriched with a leaf pattern; the centres of the panels
appear to be of plaster, as do the frames. On the
east wall the head of the middle panel has no
dragons, and the swags are replaced by a couple of
sprays of flowers, but from the shoulders of the
panel hang pendants of flowers and foliage, the
tops of which take the form of dragons' heads.
Above the doorways there are only short panels,
and at the ends of the wall full, but very narrow
ones; the doorcases differ from those in the room
above in having friezes with a kind of guilloche
pattern in flowers and foliage (Plate 81a).
The lower part of the chimneypiece is a plain
stone surround of the middle or late nineteenth
century, but the wooden overmantel is original
(Plate 81b). It consists of a large panel, now
blank, with an enriched shouldered frame, this
being set on a low pedestal which breaks back at
the sides to support scroll-buttresses freely adorned
with fruit, flowers and foliage, and with a bearded
male mask balanced on top. Above is a frieze of
acanthus buds with a plaque in the centre bearing
a garland and two festoons. The plaque is
finished with a broken triangular pediment having
a basket of flowers in the middle, the straight cornice being continued across the overmantel and
chimney-breast.
Figure 25:
No. 1 Greek Street, internal doorways
The doorway in the south wall is similar to its
first-floor counterpart, but without flanking
pilasters; the frieze is also different, being like the
others in the room, and the pediment is complete,
its brackets decorated with short pendants of
flowers hanging from scallop-shells. The swags
over the pediment are repeated, but with the
central cartouche omitted (Plate 81c, fig. 25b).
The windows all have straight architraves and
the shutters have panels with enriched cymamoulded frames. In the plan of 1746 the two
windows in the west wall are shown blind and a
plan of 1810 still shows only one of them glazed;
this must imply that some of the window-boxings
are imitations of the earlier work, although the
difference is not apparent. Round the top of the
room runs a modillion cornice, a little plainer than
that in the room above, and with no architrave or
frieze, the ceiling being plain, apart from a
chandelier-boss of acanthus leaves.
Figure 26:
No. 1 Greek Street, first-floor east front room, chimneypiece
The east front room (Plate 82a) has a plain wood
dado with an enriched rail and skirting, but above
is a series of panels formed by raised plaster mouldings, the authenticity of winch is highly questionable. One curious feature is that in the upper part
of the chimney-breast the chimneypiece is flanked
by sunk wood panels with cyma-moulded frames.
The chimneypiece now has a stone fireplacesurround of the mid-to-late nineteenth century,
but the original overmantel remains—very similar
to that in the principal room, except that the
frieze over the panel-frame is cyma in profile and
carved with an uninterrupted pattern of acanthus
leaves, while the pediment contains only a low
pedestal, this having lost the ornament that must
originally have stood upon it. The three doorways
have enriched architraves, plain pulvinated
friezes and moulded cornices, and the windows
straight enriched architraves, the shutters having
sunk cyma-moulded panels carved with a leafpattern.
There is now only one back room on this
floor, the sparse decoration of which dates entirely from the middle or late nineteenth century,
but the plan of 1746 shows that it was formerly
divided into two rooms of equal size, one of them,
the southern room, being entered only through
the other. However, the plan of 1810 shows that
by the time the Commissioners of Sewers
acquired the house the division had been removed,
the north end of the room being divided off by a
screen of columns to form an alcove with a vaulted
ceiling. It is, of course, possible that this alteration was effected in the 1750's, but a late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century date seems
the more likely.
The passage to the hall is stone-paved, the walls
lined with a plain wood dado having a moulded
rail and skirting and the doorways fitted with simple moulded architraves. Its most interesting
feature is the plaster ceiling, which is designed as a
groined vault springing from moulded corbels.
The date of this is uncertain, but as a purely negative piece of evidence it may be noted that the
vaulting is not shown on the plan of 1746 but is
included in that of 1810. Its rather awkward
relationship to the walls suggests, however, that it
does not date from the 1750's, and it might
in fact be an addition of the late eighteenth or
early nineteenth century contemporary with the
alcove in the back room.
On similar grounds the secondary staircase
could be assigned to the same period, for the curious wedge-shaped steps used in the short flights
also appear first in the plan of 1810. The staircase is set in a narrow plain-walled compartment
which extends from basement to garret and is lit
from above. The cantilevered stone steps are
fixed into the long walls of the compartment, the
ends of the flights resting on stone landings
supported by great segmental arches, although
some of the intermediate landings are replaced by
the short flights previously mentioned. The thin
square balusters of iron, two to a step, curve
outwards at top and bottom, so that they project
into the well, while the oak handrail is ramped up
at each turn of the stair, features which serve to
temper the extreme severity of the design.
The second-floor rooms were completely altered in the nineteenth century to provide
dormitory accommodation for the House of
Charity.
The Chapel
The chapel is only part of Joseph Clarke's
original scheme for the site, which was to have
included a cloister surrounded by three ranges of
buildings containing dormitories and a refectory.
Plans and perspectives of the scheme, intended to
cover the whole area of the stable-yard, are displayed in the house, and an engraving of some of
these can be seen in The Builder, 7 June 1862, p.
407.
The chapel consists of a lofty but very narrow
nave, terminating in a round apse at the cast end
and flanked on each side by a pair of low semicircular side-chapels (Plate 20a, fig. 27). Clarke
must originally have had in mind a building of
the general shape of the Sainte Chapelle, an impression which is reinforced by the knowledge that
the side-chapels were an afterthought (ref. 231) and that
the roof was to have been surmounted by an ornate iron flèche. The detail, however, is entirely
in a robust early Gothic manner, reminiscent, if
anything, of the style of William Burges.
The external walls are in white stone with
horizontal bands of red sandstone, and stand on a
battered rusticated plinth. The roof also, now
re-covered, originally had tiles arranged in bands of
alternating colours. (ref. 226) Internally the walls are
treated with bands of red and white stone as on
the exterior but further embellished with coloured
marbles in accordance with the contemporary
taste for polychrome decoration (Plate 20b).
It is clear, moreover, from documents preserved
among the title-deeds, that yet more lavish effects
were intended, had funds been available.
Figure 27:
Chapel of The House of St. Barnabas-in-Soho,
plan
The nave walls are arranged in two bays
divided by shafts of grey marble, except at the
east end where the pair of shafts flanking the altar
is of reddish marble. From these shafts spring
the pointed iron ribs of the wooden vault. Within
the bays are the openings to the side-chapels,
formed by pointed arches springing from squat
columns of pinkish marble, and above each arch
is a pair of the round clerestory windows much
favoured at this period.
The wall of the eastern apse is lined with pink
marble, its four lancet windows flanked by slender
columns of dark grey marble which support a
continued impost band of acanthus leaves. Below
them is a series of brightly coloured mosaic panels
set in the arches of a blind arcade. The semi-dome
of the ceiling is now painted blue with golden stars,
but was originally intended to be covered with a
fresco of the Passion. A large rose window occupies the top of the west wall, most of which,
however, is taken up by the organ, said to have
been installed in 1872. All the stained glass was
blown out during the 1939–45 war and replaced
in 1957–8 with glass designed by John Hayward.
The original seating plan has also been altered,
Clarke's intended arrangement having been more
like that of a college chapel, with staff, council
members and choir facing each other in the nave,
while the inmates of the house sat behind them
in the side-chapels. Behind the altar, in early
Christian fashion, was a throne for the Visitor.