CHAPTER XVI
Gerrard Street Area: The Military Ground
This chapter deals with the area south of
Shaftesbury Avenue which at the time of
its development in the 1670's and 1680's
was called the Military Ground, or sometimes the
Military Garden or Yard (fig. 86). It owed this
name to its use by the Military Company, one of
the many bands of volunteer soldiers which were
formed in several parts of the country during the
reign of James I and which received direct encouragement from the King through the Privy
Council. During the reign of Charles II possession of the Military Ground was obtained by
Charles, Lord Gerard, (fn. a) and its development for
building undertaken by Dr. Nicholas Barbon.
The Military Company in Westminster was
founded in 1615 and modelled on the Artillery
Company which exercised in Spitalfields. (ref. 1) Both
were praised by Richard Elton in The Compleat
Body of the Art Military, first published in 1650:
'The great delight in handling of Arms in Military Exercises, makes the City of London and the
Suburbs thereof famous through the whole world,
by reason ... of those two great Nurseries or
Academies of Military Discipline, the Artillery
and Military Gardens, from whom . . . all other
our Private Meetings (as of Townsditch, and
Cripplegate, etc.) are derived. The Artillery
Garden deserves the first place . . . The Military
Garden is famous likewise for the great improvement of diverse worthy persons of quality daily
thither resorting'. (ref. 2)
The two companies were sometimes confused. (fn. b) This confusion may account for the false
tradition that Prince Henry, the eldest son of
James I, founded the Military Company. An old
member of the company affirmed in 1669 that he
had heard that Prince Henry was 'in his life time
Captaine of ye said military Company' and
Prince Charles (Charles I) after him. (ref. 5) John
Bagford (fl. 1650–1716) repeated the tradition—'Prince Henry caused a piece of Ground near
Leicester fields to be walled in, for ye Exercise
of Arms, wch. he much delighted in.' (ref. 6)
However, the Westminster company was
founded in 1615, some two years after Prince
Henry's death. In December 1615 certain
inhabitants of the City of Westminster, St.
Martin in the Fields, St. Clement Danes, the
Savoy, Holborn and St. Giles in the Fields
petitioned the Privy Council that 'such as are inrolled upon the trayned baundes, as others whoe
beinge furnished with good armes, are fitt to bee
exercised in the use and practize thereof', should be
allowed to train and exercise 'at their owne charge'.
The Privy Council approved the company's
formation and gave permission for it to exercise 'in
anie place neere the suburbes of the cittie' under
the direction of the Commissioners of Musters
for Middlesex. The Council also appointed a
professional soldier, Thomas Holcrofte, to be
captain. (ref. 7)
The land acquired by the company for its exercises lay in the north-west part of St. Martin's
Field (Plate 1). It consisted of two parcels, one
held by lease, consisting of two acres, and the other
freehold, consisting of one and a half acres.
The two acres, which made up the western
parcel, had come into the possession of Henry
VIII in 1536 by exchange with the Master
of the Hospital of Burton Saint Lazar, who was
custodian of the Hospital of St. Giles in the
Fields. (ref. 8) The freehold remained in the hands of
the Crown until 1676, being leased to successive
tenants (fn. c) as meadow land within St. Martin's
Field. In 1610 these two acres, described as
being part of the Bailiwick of St. James, were
leased with many other properties for security to a
group of London financiers who had lent £67,000
to James I. (ref. 11) This group included William Angell
of London, esquire, who in 1616 sub-leased the
two acres to the Military Company, but for
what term is not known. Even the parliamentary
surveyors of Crown lands reported in 1652 that
'wee cannott learne what lives or yeares are now
in being in the premisses'. (ref. 12)
The one and a half acres which made up the
eastern portion of the Military Ground were
in the possession of the Company by 1616 and the
freehold was purchased in 1619 from Susan
Lamb, widow, and Thomas and Elizabeth
Garland. (ref. 13)
(fn. d)
The company's exercise ground was enclosed
with a brick wall nearly nine feet high; (ref. 19)
(fn. e)
it followed the existing field boundary on the west
and north sides and the boundary of what was later
the Leicester estate on the south (Plate 8a). On
the east it abutted on a piece of waste ground, the
origin of which is uncertain (see page 383).
The accounts of the Military Company for
1616 record payments to bricklayers amounting
in all to £294. (ref. 20) This sum probably included the
cost of building the armoury house (Plate 8a),
which stood on the eastern (freehold) parcel of
land. (ref. 21) There are two descriptions of the house,
one dated 1652 (ref. 12) and the other 1661. (ref. 19) It was a
two-storeyed brick building with two wings and a
tiled roof. The measurements given in the surveys differ slightly, the earlier one stating that the
house was 120 feet long and 36 feet wide, the
later one stating that it was 104 feet long and
30 or 33 feet wide. A conflation of both sources
shows that the centre part of the building was
occupied by the hall or armoury; one wing
accommodated a library or parlour with a
dining-room or meeting-room over it, and in the
other wing was a kitchen with two small rooms
over it.
An inventory of the contents of the house mentions four dozen leather chairs, four tables, a long
table, a large press, two chimneypieces, a great
trunk, the King's arms, carved and gilded, a
chained bible, a large 'Table' painted with the
names of benefactors, a large iron grate 'to Runn
on wheeles', painted and gilded branches for
candles, several 'Statues of Emperors heads' and
'Painted Glass'. (ref. 5) (A Mr. Leigh had been paid
£2 1s. 6d. for a window in the armoury in
1618). (ref. 20) Among the military equipment were
colours, ensigns, banners, drums, halberds,
'Spanish Javelyns', suits of armour, 'Granado'
shells, 'clothes for Pyoneeres', war saddles and
'two Brass pieces of ordinance called drakes'
allegedly given by Charles I. (ref. 5) The company
also possessed a sundial and a well, and employed a
mole-catcher. As in the case of the Artillery
Company in Spitalfields, there was evidently an
annual feast, at which musicians played. Treasurers were appointed to manage the company's
income, which was apparently made up of entrance
fees of ten shillings per head, augmented by occasional gifts. In the first year receipts totalled
nearly £400 but had dropped to £50 in 1621 and
1622. (ref. 20)
When the company was first formed it had been
placed under the direction of the Commissioners
of Musters but in 1617 the Privy Council gave
orders for its continuance under the newly
appointed Lieutenants for Middlesex. Later in
the same year the Council gave the company
permission to choose its own captain, provided he
was presented to the Council for approval. (ref. 22)
Hardly anything has come to light of the company's military activities. Occasionally it appears
to have been called on as a 'policing' force on
Shrove Tuesday, 'the day of liberty' for apprentices, (ref. 23) but its activities as a company during the
Civil War are unknown.
In 1656 the company was in debt, and the
Military Ground was let for eleven years to Edward
Haines or Haynes, a cook, who re-leased a part
of it back to the company for an exercise ground. (ref. 5)
Haines apparently occupied the armoury house,
or part of it, and his name appears in the ratebooks
from 1658 to 1661. He sub-let part of the ground
to a gardener, Thomas Browne, (ref. 24) who also appears
in the ratebooks from 1659 to 1662.
Figure 86:
The Military Ground, plan. Based on the Ordnance Survey, 1869–74, and a plan of 1660/1 in the Public Record Office (LRRO1/1830)
In 1661 Haines and certain members of the
company were paid £500 for their interest in the
Military Ground (fn. f) by Charles, Baron Gerard of
Brandon in Suffolk. (ref. 5) Gerard had trained as a
soldier in the United Provinces and had served in
the royal army during the Civil War. (ref. 26) After the
Restoration he was given a pension of £1,000
for life and several grants of lands. (ref. 27) He was at
this time a gentleman of the bedchamber and
Colonel of the 1st Life Guards. (ref. 26)
Gerard's attempts to gain full possession of the
Military Ground were frustrated for many years.
Shortly after he had made the purchase, he
petitioned the King, unsuccessfully, for a lease of
the two acres of Crown land. (ref. 3) Browne, the
gardener, still had some years of his lease to run
in 1661, but Gerard ordered him to quit, (ref. 24) and
threatened that 'hee would Cutt the Members of
the said Millitary Company in peeces if ever they
came on the said Ground.' (ref. 5) He used troopers
under his command to force an entry into a house
in Tothill Street where he thought some title
deeds were hidden, pulled down part of the
armoury house, and had the library violently
dismantled, carrying the most valuable books
and other objects away to his houses in the
country and Covent Garden. (ref. 5)
Gerard's name first appears in the ratebooks in
1662. In 1665 he offered to sell the whole of the
Military Ground to the King, but although
Charles agreed to consider this proposal, the offer
was not accepted. (ref. 28) Gerard's title was still
insecure and in 1668 he sought to establish it in
the Court of Chancery. (ref. 5) In the following year he
again petitioned the King to accept the whole
ground or to give him a lease of the Crown's
part, alleging that he had been acting on the
King's behalf from the beginning. (ref. 29) Eventually,
in 1676, having evidently established his title,
Gerard obtained not a lease, but a grant of the
freehold of the two acres of Crown land. (ref. 30)
The grant also included three roods of waste
land between the Military Ground and the garden
wall of Newport House. The exact extent of this
waste land is not known and it is marked by broken
lines on fig. 86. A clause in the Crown grant to
Gerard—'Notwithstanding the not reciting or
misreciting of any demise Guift or grant made of
the premisses or any of them by us or any of our
predecessors'—suggests that even then there
was some doubt about the origin of this ground. (ref. 30)
The westward growth of London at this time
was causing concern and many restrictions on
building were being imposed, (ref. 31) but Gerard's grant
included a permissive clause giving 'full power and
authority att any tyme or tymes hereafter to erect
and build . . . in or upon all or any part or parts of
the said . . . military Ground . . . any houses or
buildings whatsoever . . . leaveing a convenient
way and passage for Coaches and Carriages'. (ref. 30)
On 5 July 1677 Lord Gerard leased the whole
of the Military Ground, with the three roods
of waste land, to Dr. Nicholas Barbon (fn. g) and to
John Rowley (the latter variously described as a
timber merchant, of Bridewell precinct, and as a
citizen and skinner of London) for sixty-one years
from Lady Day 1677. (ref. 33)
Two years later Gerard was created Earl of
Macclesfield and both his family name and his
title are commemorated in the streets laid out over
his estate. He himself took a lease of one of
Barbon's houses in 1682 (see page 396).
Barbon's development of the Military Ground
was partly determined by the fact that it already
had existing road frontages on the north and
west, to King Street and Colman Hedge Lane.
On these two sides the boundary wall which had
enclosed the ground was demolished and houses
built along both frontages. On the south side the
wall was left standing to mark the limits of the
curtilages of the houses on the south side of
Gerrard Street (ref. 34) —a continuous range between
Colman Hedge Lane and the piece of waste
ground on the east of the boundary wall. On its
north side Gerrard Street was given direct communication via Dean Street with the Tyburn road
by means of a short link—Macclesfield Street—
connecting it with King Street. On either side of
Macclesfield Street two stable-yards called the
East and West Military Mews were built. The
Earl of Devonshire's house, Hayes Court, and the
south side of King Street between Moor Street
and Litchfield Street were laid out on part of
the waste ground between the Military Ground
and Newport House, the rest of the waste ground
being left open as a 'square' which still exists as
part of Newport Place.
Barbon's method in developing the Military
Ground is illustrated by a Chancery lawsuit of
1682/3 which is described on page 386. From
the evidence of this case it appears that Barbon
sometimes let houses in part payment to workmen
whom he employed, but the granting of a lease
to a workman did not necessarily mean that the
workman had been engaged on that particular
house.
Lord Macclesfield's estates, including the
Military Ground, became forfeit in 1685 when
he was outlawed for his part in the plots which
revolved around the Duke of Monmouth. He
escaped before he could be arrested and fled the
country. His son Charles, Lord Brandon, had
been implicated in the Rye House plot, convicted
of treason and attainted. (ref. 26) In 1687 his attainder
was reversed and his father's estates granted to
him. (ref. 35)
Lord Macclesfield returned to England in the
bodyguard of the Prince of Orange. With the
accession of William and Mary both father and
son rose again in royal favour. Macclesfield died
in 1694 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
After the death of the second Lord Macclesfield
in 1701 a series of complicated lawsuits ensued,
and ultimately the estates descended to one who had
no blood relationship with the Gerards at all.
The second Lord Macclesfield's heir, named
in his will, was Charles Mohun, fourth Baron
Mohun, whose first wife was a niece of Lord
Macclesfield. In 1712 Mohun quarrelled with
another claimant, the Duke of Hamilton, who
had also married a niece of Lord Macclesfield.
They fought a duel and were both fatally
wounded. Mohun had meanwhile remarried
since Macclesfield's death and in 1715 his widow,
Elizabeth, obtained possession of his estates, now
heavily encumbered with debts. (ref. 26)
In 1721 the Military Ground (but not Gerard
House, which Lady Mohun still occupied) was
sold to Robert Knight, (ref. 36) the cashier of the South
Sea Company. When the company collapsed
Knight fled abroad (ref. 37) and in 1728 the freehold of
the Military Ground was purchased by John
Jeffreys of West Sheen. (ref. 38) Jeffreys already owned
the leasehold interest which had been granted to
Barbon and Rowley, having inherited it from his
father. (ref. 39) At some time before 1687 John
Jeffreys, senior, a well-to-do merchant of St.
Mary Axe and a member of the Jeffreys family
of Brecknockshire, (ref. 40) had lent £5,000 on the
security of the leasehold interest of the Military
Ground. (ref. 41) The mortgage was evidently never
redeemed, and the senior Jeffreys received a confirmation of his leasehold interest in the property
from Lady Mohun shortly before his death in
1715. (ref. 42) As the leases granted by Barbon expired,
John Jeffreys junior renewed them or granted
new building leases. Many of the houses on the
estate were rebuilt at this time and some were
demolished for the formation of a new street,
called Nassau Street.
Having granted the new leases, Jeffreys sold all
the estate piecemeal between 1735 and 1738.
The Earl of Leicester took sixty-two properties, (ref. 43)
and John Cooke and Elizabeth Gramer, both of
Leytonstone, took twenty-two jointly. (ref. 44)
Occasional rebuilding took place in the area
during the early nineteenth century but the biggest
single alteration was occasioned in 1883–6 by
the formation of Shaftesbury Avenue, which
entailed the removal of all the houses on the south
side of King Street (see fig. 73 on page 298). Most
of the buildings now standing on the site of the
Military Ground are of late nineteenth-century
date, but a few remnants of the original fabric and
some eighteenth-century rebuildings remain.
With the exception of Gerrard and Macclesfield Streets, the names of all the streets on the
Military Ground site were subsequently changed;
King Street disappeared in Shaftesbury Avenue,
Princes Street became part of Wardour Street,
Nassau Street became Gerrard Place, Hayes
Court is now part of Newport Place and the two
stable-yards are now called Dansey Place
(formerly George Yard) and Horse and Dolphin
Yard.