King Street, North side
King Street formerly occupied part of the present
line of Shaftesbury Avenue and ran from Wardour Street to Moor Street. Only its northern
side east of Dean Street lay within the area of the
Portland estate. West of Dean Street the north
side consisted of the glebe land, lying south of the
churchyard, granted to the rector of St. Anne's
by the Act of 1678 which established the boundaries of the parish and of the church site; in the
Act the glebe was said to measure 213 feet from
east to west and 45 feet from north to south. (ref. 66) The
greater part of the south side of the street originally
lay within the area of the Military Ground and the
general history of the street is described in
Chapter XVI.
Here is discussed only the north side, including,
for convenience, the glebe land.
East of Dean Street, a few buildings can probably be identified in the ratebooks for 1679 and
1681, and in 1683 this part of the north side
appears fully built although probably not fully
tenanted. The ratepayers' names included in
that year three known builders. Two at adjacent
sites were Augustine Beare, glazier, and Richard
Campion, carpenter, who were associated in the
building of the parish church. The third was
Nicholas Pollentine, a joiner, whose dealings
with Frith in respect of his site here have already
been mentioned (see page 33). The outcome was
a Chancery suit in 1685, from which it appears
that in October 1682 Frith agreed to remunerate
Pollentine for work done for him by the lease
of a house in this part of King Street, which Pollentine undertook to finish 'with all beautifull
and ornamentall accomodacion', including sash
windows, as Frith should order. The house
was valued at the rate of £38 per square. The
lease was made to Pollentine, for forty-four years,
in 1684, but it appears that the mortgages with
which Frith had already encumbered it made his
lawyer unwilling to surrender the title-deeds,
and from this arose the dispute. (ref. 67)
Apart from throwing light on Frith's business
procedure the records of the case show that in this
part of the street Frith's own tenure was by the
end of 1682 dependent on a lease or leases from
Thomas Crosse of Westminster, brewer (later
Sir Thomas Crosse, baronet). The lease of 1684.
to Pollentine was in fact made by Crosse with
Frith as an associated party. (ref. 67) A Michael
Cross(e) appears as ratepayer for a single site in
1679 and 1681 and a Nicholas Crosse for a single
site in 1683 and 1684.
Richard Davis, painter, is mentioned in Pollentine's suit as possessor of the adjacent house in
1682.
Considerable rebuilding took place in the
1730's, apparently all eastward of Frith Street.
At the easternmost end, beyond Greek Street,
Portland leases were granted severally to building
tradesmen, Henry Crosse of St. Anne's, joiner,
William Laurence of St. Anne's, carpenter, and
Owen Sainsbury of St. Marylebone, carpenter
(the last having a building lease). (ref. 27) Between
Greek Street and Dean Street the Portland lessees
were not building tradesmen, but some themselves
granted leases for building. One of these lessors
was Sir Thomas Crosse, whose lessees included
John Doley of St. George's, Hanover Square,
carpenter, and George Weston of St. James's,
plasterer, acting together. (ref. 68)
Something of the quality of the rebuilding
undertaken by a lessee of the Portlands independently of the requirements of any building lease
from them as ground landlords is indicated by a
building agreement referring to a site here, between Frith Street and Greek Street, in 1735.
The owner was Philip Elias Peltier or Pelletier,
gentleman, who then held a sixty-four-year term
from the Portlands. (ref. 27) The agreement is known
only in an unsigned draft but is endorsed 'settled',
and was evidently carried out. (ref. 21) The other party
was Edward Allen, carpenter (of Boyle Street,
St. James's), (ref. 69) who does not seem to have worked
extensively in St. Anne's. Allen undertook the
work for £325, to be paid in instalments as it
proceeded. For this he agreed to pull down the
existing house and erect a new one, eighteen feet
in front and twenty feet deep with a closet at the
back. Above a cellar and vaults there were to be
three storeys and a garret-storey. The height
of the ground-floor rooms was to be ten feet,
and of the first- and second-floor rooms (probably)
nine and seven feet respectively. The front of the
house was to be faced with 'grey' stock bricks,
and the windows (of Crown glass in the two
lower storeys and of 'Castle' glass above) were
to be set in to a depth of four inches. The street
door was to be given a wooden 'frontispiece'.
Within, a handsome staircase was to ascend from
cellars to garrets. On the ground floor there was
to be a marble chimneypiece in the front parlour
and ones of Portland stone in the back parlour
and closet; on the first floor all the chimneypieces
were to be of marble and on the second floor all of
Portland stone. All the rooms on the three main
floors were to be wainscoted. The doors on the
ground and first floors were to be painted
mahogany colour. The work was to be executed
according to a plan provided and signed by Allen. (ref. 70)
The first occupant rated in 1736 for the new
house, which had presumably been built to these
requirements, was a Major Mackenzie. (ref. 21)
None of the houses erected east of Dean Street
before the formation of Shaftesbury Avenue
now survives. (For the present Nos. 75 and 77,
and Nos. 93–107 (odd) Shaftesbury Avenue see
pages 300).
Westward of Dean Street, the commencement
of building on the rector's glebe land had had to
await the institution of the first rector in 1686.
The Act of 1678 had empowered the rector to
lease the glebe for a term not longer than fortyone years, at a ground rent of forty shillings per
foot frontage; subsequent leases could be granted
for forty years at an 'improved' rent. (ref. 66) In March
1687 the rector, John Hearne, was granting a
lease here to the Michael Cross mentioned above,
for the full permitted term. The house on the
site was said to be in building by the lessee and to
abut on either side on houses being built by a
John Webley, gentleman, and a William Robins,
mason. (ref. 71) Another builder here was the Richard
Poyck of St. Anne's, bricklayer, (ref. 72) who also built
a house on the south side of the street (see page
412). The houses on the glebe do not appear in
the 1691 ratebook but are all listed in a tax book
of 1693. (ref. 73) They were assessed for rates more
highly than those east of Dean Street, and the
early inhabitants included (in 1693) a Dr. Symson and a Colonel Coy, and (in 1697) a Colonel
Tiffany.
By 1889 the 'glebe houses' in Shaftesbury
Avenue were yielding £760 per annum in ground
rents. (ref. 74) In 1892 they were pulled down and
'new and important buildings' erected in their
place, under a long lease from the rector and with
the consent of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.
The passage to the south-west door of the church
between Nos. 65 and 67 Shaftesbury Avenue was
enlarged at the same time. (ref. 75)