St. Anne's Court: eastern range
The western range of this court was built on the
Pulteney estate and is described on page 295. The
eastern part was originally built in c. 1690 opening
off Dean Street, under forty-year building leases
bearing date in October of that year, granted by
Edward Andrews of St. James's, esquire, and
Nicholas Burnell, citizen and haberdasher of
London, sometimes together and sometimes
individually. They had at an unknown period
possessed sites in the western range. Here in the
eastern part their lien on the property seems to
have derived from Nicholas Barbon. The leases
granted by them allowed peppercorn terms of one
and a quarter years. The names of some of the
lessees were Martin Heatley of St. Anne's, bricklayer, Henry Lidgbird of St. Martin in the
Fields, bricklayer, Thomas Stroud of the same,
mason, and Joseph Warden, carpenter: an early
assignee of a site was Peter Cottgreave of St.
Anne's, joiner. (ref. 127) It is uncertain whether this
part of the court communicated from the
beginning with the western part on the Pulteney
estate (see page 289n.).
In 1735–7 this eastern part (except, perhaps,
for the former No. 26) was rebuilt, and some
of the houses then erected still survive in
carcase.
Nos. 1–8 (consec.) St. Anne's Court
No. 8 demolished
These houses, and the public house at No. 85
Dean Street, rebuilt in 1799–1800 (see page 137),
which comprise all the south side of the eastern
range of the court, were built in 1735–6 (ref. 29) (Plate
117b, 117c). A sixty-five-year Portland building
lease of the whole range from Michaelmas 1734
had been granted in that year to Thomas Richmond of St. Anne's, carpenter. (ref. 128) In 1735
Richmond had granted subsidiary building leases
of some individual plots to three other builders,
John Devall of St. Marylebone, mason, (ref. 129) William Frith, carpenter, (ref. 130) and John Sanger of St.
James's, carpenter: (ref. 131) an early mortgagee of
Devall's was John Welbeloved of St. Anne's,
joiner. (ref. 132)
Nos. 27 and 28 St. Anne's Court and Nos. 86 and 87 Dean Street
These houses on the north side of the court
were built in 1735–6, (ref. 29) under a sixty-five-year
Portland building lease from Michaelmas 1734
granted in 1733 to William Bignell of St. Anne's,
glazier. (ref. 133) All but one of the other houses on
this side of the eastern range of the court (the
former Nos. 21–25 consec.) were rebuilt by
Bignell at about the same time.
Architectural Description, St. Anne's Court
St. Anne's Court is a pedestrian way of irregular plan extending from Wardour Street to Dean
Street. The buildings fronting to the narrow
western range have been rebuilt at various times,
but several original houses survive in the eastern
range, mostly on the south side (Plate 117b, 117c).
A plan of this south side is included in the
Portland estate plan, made in 1792–3. This
shows the public house at the Dean Street end, and
eight small houses having an average frontage of
seventeen feet and a depth of twenty-two feet,
the interior being simply divided by panelled
partitions to form a front room, a back room, and
a dog-legged staircase. There were no closet
wings, but each house had a small yard containing
a privy and sometimes a shed.
All the houses contain three storeys and a roof
garret, and the fronts, where original, are of the
simplest design and built of russet stock bricks.
The two windows of each upper storey have exposed frames set flush in openings with flat arches
of red rubbers. On the north side, Nos. 27 and
28 are original houses, similar in size and finish
to those on the south side, although the front of
No. 28 is three windows wide. Moulded architraves of stucco have been added to the windows
of both houses, and No. 28 has the remains of an
original wooden doorcase, consisting of a moulded
architrave and a single carved console-bracket.
Most of the houses have shop fronts, generally
nondescript and modern but sometimes incorporating earlier features such as the mutule cornice at
No. 7.
No. 86 Dean Street is a three-storeyed house
with frontages to St. Anne's Court and Dean
Street, both three windows wide. Above the
modern shop front is a restored face of stock brickwork where the side windows of each front are
set with flush frames in plain openings having
flat arches of gauged red bricks. The middle windows of the St. Anne's Court front are blind, but
those in Dean Street have concealed frames recessed in openings dressed with cement architraves,
friezes and steep pediments, suggesting that these
windows were also blind originally.