Nos. 27–28 Soho Square:
Nascreno House
This office block (fig. 6) was erected in 1937–8
to the designs of the architects Douglas and J. D.
Wood. (ref. 232) It is a straightforward brick-faced
building of five main storeys with three more
stepped back above. The windows are of horizontal proportions with plain artificial stone
surrounds.
Nascreno House occupies the site of two former
houses, Nos. 27 and 28 Soho Square. The latter
had been erected in 1773–5 on the eastern part of
the site of Monmouth House and is described
on page 113.
No. 27
In June 1684 Cadogan Thomas, to whom
Frith and Pym had evidently leased this site, sublet the house, still unfinished, to Gerrard Wayman
or Weyman, a Dutch merchant trading in London. (fn. 233) In 1691 he in turn sub-let it for three
years to Charles, Viscount Granville of Lansdown,
later Earl of Bath, at a rent of £170 per annum.
Granville was not satisfied with the house as he
found it and spent £125 of his own money there,
which his landlord refused to refund. He then left
at Lady Day 1692 without paying half a year's
rent. Wayman sued him in the Court of Common Pleas, but in June 1694 Granville brought
a counter-suit in the Court of Chancery in which
he complained 'That One Gerrard Wayman
haveing a New built house within the Parish
of Saint Anns in the County of Middlesex and
wanting a Tenant for the same takeing notice
that your Orator was newly Married Recommended the said House to your Orator as fit for
his Habitation, that your Orator upon Veiwe
thereof found many defects therein and alsoe the
Roomes and parts of the house and Garden very
disadvantageously contrived insomuch that your
Orator disliked the same, but the said Gerrard
Wayman being a Dutchman and your Orators
then wife a lady of that Country, hee the said
Gerrard Wayman pretending great Honour for
her, declared that if your Orator would become
his Tenant hee would submit to what Alteracons,
Repaires, Beautifyings or Embellishings your
Orator and his wife should thinke fitt to make and
that hee would allow for the same out of your
Orators Rent'. (fn. 234)
Charles Howard, third Earl of Carlisle, was
living here in 1693. (ref. 33) Some time before 1700
the staircase ceiling in this house was painted by
the decorative artist Henry Cooke and his
partner, a house painter. According to George
Vertue 'this Ceiling Sir Godfrey Copley saw by
Mr. Luttrells recommendation which pleased
him so well that he Engag'd Mr. Cook to paint
for him at his house in Yorkshire which he was
then Building and agreed with Mr. Cook for
150 pounds and then paid him down five guineas
as earnest because the place was not yet ready for
him to work'. (ref. 235)
Other inhabitants include Henry Yelverton,
Viscount de Longueville, who was living here
in 1703; Other Windsor, second Earl of Plymouth, who later lived at No. 34, 1710–11;
Paul Docminique of Gatton, Surrey, esquire,
1712–14; Charles Bennet, first Earl of Tankerville, who had previously lived at No. 30, 1715;
John Cochrane, fourth Earl of Dundonald, one
of the Scottish representative peers, 1716–20,
and Lord Fitzwilliam (i.e., either Richard,
fifth Viscount Fitzwilliam, or John, second Earl
Fitzwilliam), 1721. (ref. 33)
In 1723 the house was taken by another decorative artist, Herman Vander Mijn, a Dutchman
said by Vertue to be 'a very Laborious neat
painter' of portraits and life-size historical studies;
but who according to Bryan's Dictionary of
Painters carried 'minuteness to excess'. He lived
at No. 27 for five years but 'his affairs did not
answer and put him under difficulties to support
the character and a great house in Soho Square'
and in 1728 he gave up the house. (fn. 236)
Later occupants of the house include William
Bradshaw, the prominent upholsterer and tapestry
maker, 1732–47; Arthur St. Leger, third Viscount Doneraile, 1748–50; John Howe, second
Baron Chedworth, 1752–5; Sir Francis Knollys,
first baronet, M.P., 1757–72, and Lady Knollys,
his widow, 1772–91. (ref. 33)
By 1790 the house had been subdivided into
two separate dwellings which in 1791 or more
probably 1794 appear to have been rebuilt by
Richard Pace, builder and architect of Lechlade in
Gloucestershire, for Robert Hervey Gage or
Gedge, linen draper. (ref. 237)
In 1803 the house 'at the north-west corner of
Greek Street, being the house on that side the
street nearest Soho Square' (i.e., part of the rebuilt No. 27 Soho Square) provided a temporary
refuge for Thomas De Ouincey. Although the
house appears to have been rebuilt some ten years
previously, De Quincey described it as having
'an unhappy countenance of gloom and un-social
fretfulness, due in reality to the long neglect of
painting, cleansing, and in some instances of
repairing'. In 1821, when he was again passing
the house, he saw that it was cleaner and less
gloomy and 'in the occupation of some family,
apparently respectable'. (ref. 238) According to the
ratebooks, Joseph Gandy, the architect, lived in
this portion of No. 27 fronting on to Greek
Street from 1812 to 1824.