Golden Square Garden
The 'modell' or plan (Plate 9) which formed
part of the royal licence to build in Gelding Close
did not include any design for a garden enclosure
in the middle of the intended square. It is clear,
however, that as the houses were being erected,
provision was made for such an enclosure, for in
the assignment of 1684 from Andrew Laurence
to Richard Bings of the newly completed No. 22
Golden Square there was a covenant binding the
latter 'to pay his share towards railing in the said
Quadrangle … when thereunto requested'. The
rails and posts were to be of good oak 'as large as
the rail of the Quadrangle in Leicester fields'.
Bings also had to pay to keep the railings in repair. (ref. 23) A year later a similar covenant was inserted in the building leases made by Isaac Symball
to William Pye of the then vacant sites of Nos. 32,
33 and 34. Here the lessee bound himself 'to pay
the rates and proportions with others interested in
any other building fronting the place, for all
charges in posts, rayles and other ornaments or
materials fixed or employed … for dividing,
distinguishing and adorning the same'. (ref. 33)
In 1688 Mathew Capell, the mortgagee in possession of No. 25, paid one pound 'towards
Gravelling the Square', (ref. 41) which implies that a
contribution was levied on all the householders.
This impost was perhaps collected by Symball and
the Axtells' representatives who, as joint freeholders, may have been responsible for the enclosure and adornment of the garden. Their
intention was evidently to emulate the gardens laid
out a few years previously in Leicester Fields. A
comparison of the view of Golden Square reproduced on Plate 120a and a contemporaneous view
by Sutton Nicholls of Leicester Fields shows that
both squares were geometrically laid out with four
square grass plots around a smaller central plot;
both were divided by gravelled walks regularly
set with trees and the garden gates and
wooden palings in each case were of identical
design.
No provision for the regular maintenance of the
enclosure is known to have been made until 1750,
when the residents obtained an Act of Parliament
similar to that already passed for the upkeep of St.
James's Square in 1726. The Act rehearsed that
the existing garden had 'so greatly gone to Ruin
and Decay that it will require a considerable Sum
of Money to be raised to new fence and inclose the
same'. It authorized the proprietors and inhabitants of the houses in the square to elect from
amongst themselves thirteen self-perpetuating
trustees, who were given power to 'inclose, pave,
repair, enlighten, adorn, and beautify' (but not
watch) the square, and to raise an annual rate not
exceeding four shillings for every foot of frontage
of each house. (ref. 42) This rate did not exempt the
inhabitants from payment of any of the parish
rates, as had the Act of 1726 for the upkeep of St.
James's Square.
It has unfortunately been impossible to examine
the surviving minute books of the trustees, and the
later history of the square can therefore only be
described from other sources. Sutton Nicholls's
second engraving of Golden Square, dated 1754
(Plate 120b) shows that the formal layout of square
plots and straight paths had been swept away in
favour of a more fashionable design, but what had
once been a leafy oasis had now become a bare and
arid enclosure. The trees had been uprooted and
a large circular lawn put down, with a gravel
surround. The enclosure itself had been given an
octangular shape and set within an iron railing
with lamp standards at the corners.
The most noticeable feature of this new garden
layout was the stone statue, which was set up in
the middle of the grass plot on 14 March 1753.
This statue has since been attributed to John Van
Nost and said to represent the then reigning
sovereign, George II. It came supposedly from
the Duke of Chandos's seat at Cannons when the
contents of that house were auctioned in 1747–8,
and was erected in Golden Square by an anonymous bidder. There seems, however, to be no
proof for any of these statements. Some confusion
also exists between this figure and the equestrian
statue of George I by Van Nost, also from Cannons and subsequently until 1872 in Leicester
Square. Although it is clear from the Cannons
inventories that a lead equestrian George I was
numbered amongst the Chandos collection, there
is no indication of a Portland stone standing figure
of George II. There were, however, twenty-four statues of allegorical male and female figures
in lead or stone, which stood on the roof balustrade
at Cannons; they were the work of Van Nost and
erected about 1723. In scale and costume there
is little to distinguish the surviving illustrations of
some of these figures from the statue in Golden
Square. (ref. 43) It is therefore possible that 'the anonymous bidder' bought one of these figures from
Cannons when the house was demolished in
1747–8 and that it was this hitherto allegorical
statue, carved in the early 1720's, that was loyally
erected in Golden Square as 'George II' in 1753.
Despite the provisions of the Act of 1750, the
newly laid out garden had become by 1783 'more
neglected than is usual in these places of ornament', (ref. 44) and by the 1820's more money was
needed for its further improvement. A second Act
was therefore passed in 1827, by which the
trustees acquired additional powers for such
matters as watering and macadamizing the roadways. (ref. 45) It was presumably at this time that the
layout of the centre of Golden Square was again
altered to form a square enclosure with gravelled
paths, trees and shrubs. It was evidently not a
great improvement, for ten years later Dickens, in
the passage already quoted, described it as 'a little
wilderness of shrubs' watched over by a 'mournful
statue'. (ref. 39)
During the war of 1939–45 an air-raid shelter
was dug under the garden and the enclosing
iron fence taken for salvage. In this unfenced and
derelict state the garden was taken over by the
Westminster City Council on lease from the
trustees of the square. Some £5500 were
spent on restoration work and in the creation of
the present layout. The garden was re-opened to
the public in November 1952. (ref. 46) The reconstruction (Plate 121) has subsequently been criticized as barren and desolate, with 'simpering'
flower beds and clumsy teak flower chests. (ref. 47)