King Street
Until the formation of Shaftesbury Avenue in
1883–6 part of its course was occupied by King
Street, which extended from Wardour Street to
Moor Street. This part of Shaftesbury Avenue
was formed by setting back the line of frontage
of the south side of King Street, all the buildings
there being demolished, and by a minor re-alignment to the east of Greek Street (see fig. 73 on
page 298). The buildings on the north side of King
Street (except for those on the site now occupied
by the Palace Theatre, which were affected by
the re-alignment already mentioned) were not
demolished, and some of them survived for many
years after the opening of Shaftesbury Avenue.
King Street marked the course of an ancient
highway which is clearly shown on sixteenth-century maps. The 'Agas' map (fig. 97) marks
it, not very accurately, as a curved and tree-lined
road extending from the cross-roads on approximately the site of Cambridge Circus to Colman
Hedge Lane (now Wardour Street). The plan
of 1585 (Plate 1a) marks it, much more correctly,
with a gate on either side, leading into St. Giles's
Field on the north and St. Martin's Field on the
south, and shows how at its western end travellers
leaving London turned left down Colman Hedge
Lane and then right along the modern Coventry
Street to Piccadilly, at that time the principal
route to the west.
In the 1620's ground on the south side of the
highway was enclosed for the formation of the
Military Ground. Development began on this
site in 1677 (see below) and the highway, named
presumably as a conventional compliment to the
sovereign, first appears as King Street in 1678. (ref. 200)
Development of the north side followed shortly
afterwards on the Crown land which was later to
become part of the Portland estate (see page 205).
Ogilby and Morgan's map of 1681–2 (Plate 2)
shows the street half built. It was completed
in c. 1691–2 when the north side west of Dean
Street was built up on the rector's glebe land (see
page 206). In 1720 Strype described King Street
as 'a pretty good Street, but not so broad as most
in these Parts; yet well inhabited'. (ref. 201)
Most of the ground on the south side of King
Street was developed by Nicholas Barbon under
the lease of the Military Ground which Charles,
Lord Gerard, granted to him in 1677. Only one
reference has been found to an original building
lease of premises on the south side of the street.
In a lawsuit of 1689/90 Richard Poycke of St.
Anne's, bricklayer, related that some four years
earlier he had taken a piece of land on the southwest corner of King Street and Macclesfield
Street, where he had built a 'Large Double
house with Clossetts'. (ref. 202) Others who may have
built houses here were John Hooper, carpenter,
George Bishop, bricklayer, both of St. Anne's,
and John Stephens, gentleman, who were arbiters
in Poycke's dispute with a neighbour. (ref. 202) Bishop
paid rates for a house on the south side of King
Street (ref. 52) and Stephens had a building lease of a
house in Gerrard Street. (ref. 48)
Many of the original houses were demolished
at the time of the redevelopment of the estate in
the 1730's. Among the builders who erected
new houses were Joseph Buckoke and John
Meard. (ref. 203)
A watercolour drawing by J. P. Emslie, dated
1885 (Plate 67c), shows some of the houses on the
south side of King Street shortly before they were
pulled down for the formation of Shaftesbury
Avenue. With the exception of the third house
from the right-hand side, they were all built in
the 1730's, the group on the left-hand side
being part of Whetten's Buildings. They are
numbered 12–23 (from right to left) on Horwood's
map of 1792–9, the last house in King Street
and the corner house in Macclesfield Street being
amalgamated as No. 23. The first five houses
from the east end of the row (Nos. 13–17) had
uniform fronts, each three storeys high and two
windows wide, with plain pilaster-strips marking
the party walls, and a cornice surmounted by a
plain parapet at roof level. They were generally
similar to No. 2 Gerrard Place, which was also
part of Whetten's Buildings. Erected in 1731,
they were let on 18 August of that year, three to
John Whetten of St. Anne's, bricklayer, (ref. 204) and
two to Charles Carpenter of St. Margaret's,
Westminster, carpenter. (ref. 205) West of the uniform
group was a pair of houses (Nos. 18–19) sharing
a plain front, which were being demolished in
1885. They were built in 1737, (ref. 52) replacing a
house sold to Joseph Kendall of St. Anne's,
gentleman, in 1735. (ref. 206) Each house was presumably three storeys high and three windows wide.
One retained a doorway with a hood projecting
on horizontal consoles. Next to the pair was a
plain-fronted house of similar size (No. 20),
having a shallow hood extending above the ground
storey. It, too, was erected in 1737. (ref. 52) The
adjoining house (No. 21), although only three
storeys high and two windows wide, had a front of
considerable elaboration. It was let on 11 July
1730 to John Whetten (ref. 207) and had the appearance
of being the work of a master bricklayer. The
ground storey had been stuccoed, its only ornament being the doorway hood projecting on horizontal scroll-consoles, but giant Doric pilasters
with rusticated shafts flanked the upper face,
where the flush-framed windows had prominent
cornice-capped keyblocks, a bandcourse marked
the second-floor level, and a boldly moulded
cornice finished the front. Next was a fourstoreyed front of earlier character (No. 22), with
two flush-framed windows in each storey but the
top, where there was a single wide light. The
last house in the row (part of No. 23), three
storeys high and three windows wide, was built
in 1730, (ref. 52) having been let on 15 July 1729
to Edward Scarlett. (ref. 208) It formed a pair with the
house on the corner of Macclesfield Street, which
was also let to Scarlett (see No. 9 Macclesfield
Street, page 414).
On 10 May 1853 a young man attempted to
blackmail W. E. Gladstone in King Street.
Gladstone, who was then Chancellor of the
Exchequer, had been walking home from Covent
Garden Theatre when he had been accosted by a
young woman in Long Acre. Gladstone's
active work in the redemption of prostitutes
prompted him to accompany the girl to the
entrance of her lodgings in King Street, followed
by the blackmailer, who demanded money or a
post in the Inland Revenue. The youth was
subsequently sentenced to a year's hard labour,
but after he had served half his sentence Gladstone asked the Home Secretary to release him. (ref. 209)
Residents in King Street included J. F. Lampe,
musical composer, J. Parke, oboist, and John
Pine, engraver. (ref. 210) Sir Ambrose Heal mentions
twelve goldsmiths, jewellers or plateworkers here
in the eighteenth century. (ref. 211)
Some artists whose addresses are given as
being in King Street in exhibition catalogues are
listed below, with the years in which they
exhibited:
George Allen, architect, 1821–2; Jacob
Bonneau, intermittently from 1765 to 1784;
Robert Browne, architect, 1797–8; John Donaldson, miniature painter, 1775; J. C. Lochie
(Lochée), artist or sculptor, 1776; John Milton,
painter, 1770–1; Jacob More, painter, 1771;
F. M. Piper, architect, 1780; Henry Spicer,
enamel painter, 1777.