No. 1 Golden Square
This corner site was one of the last to be developed in Golden Square. (ref. 28) On the partition of
Gelding Close in 1675, it had formed part of the
moiety allotted to Isaac Symball (fig. 18) but was
still vacant at his death in 1695. In June 1697
the freehold of this site, of the adjoining sites of
Nos. 2–4 Golden Square and of all the land on the
east side of what is now Upper James Street, were
sold by Symball's widow and son to Stephen
Quynes of St. Martin's, tailor. (ref. 48) At some time in
or before 1705/6 the latter granted a sixty-oneyear lease of the site of No. 1, probably to either
Archibald Hutchinson or Thomas Jones, (ref. 49) the
latter being described as of Jermyn Street, bricklayer. (ref. 50)
The house was first rated in 1706. Lord
Mordaunt was then the occupant but could not
have spent much time in the new house. He was
with Marlborough's army in the Low Countries
until June 1706 and spent only a few months in
England before being sent to serve in Spain. In
1707 the house was taken by the fourth Lord
Byron, who had recently married. He moved out
within a few years, to be followed for another
short period by Lady Brownlow. (ref. 51)
(ref. a)
In October 1709 the land which Stephen
Quynes had bought in 1697, with No. 1 Golden
Square and seven other newly built houses (together worth £55 10s. per annum) were sold by
his widow and children for £1276 10s. to the
parish vestry of St. Sepulchre's, Holborn, to which
Richard Reeve had left a bequest for the education
of the poor. Since that date Nos. 1–4 Golden
Square and the adjoining houses on the east side of
Upper James Street have formed part of the estate
of Reeve's Foundation, which now provides
scholarships for the children of St. Sepulchre's
parish. (ref. 52)
Later occupants of No. 1 include William
Talbot, Bishop of Salisbury (1716–21), Sir
Francis St. John (1751–6) and his son-in-law Sir
John Barnard or Bernard (1757). (ref. 51)
There is little indication that the house erected
at the beginning of the eighteenth century was
ever radically altered or rebuilt until 1927. From
1794 to 1861 the house was occupied by the well
known firm of harpsichord and piano makers
founded by William Stoddart. In 1795 he patented
the upright piano and became one of Broad wood's
most substantial competitors, 'with a new mechanism which combined the utility of a bookcase
with the musical use of this odd piece of furniture'. (ref. 53)
After 1861 the house was used as a plate-glass
warehouse and by various commercial firms, who
in 1910 employed seventy-two persons there. In
October 1913 the building was badly damaged by
fire. (ref. 54) It was demolished in 1927 and the
present building erected to the designs of R. H.
Kerr and Son. (ref. 55)
No. 2 Golden Square
This site formed part of the parcel of vacant
land which was sold by Isaac Symball's widow and
son to Stephen Quynes in June 1697 and which
was acquired by Reeve's Foundation in 1709 (see
above). Between March 1699 (?/1700) and
September 1701 Quynes leased the then vacant
sites of Nos. 2–4 to Thomas Jones of Jermyn
Street, bricklayer, for sixty-one years. By January
1701/2 'three large handsome houses' had been
erected there and of these No. 2 was finished and
occupied by 1702. (ref. 56)
The first occupant was Charles May, followed
later by Lady Southcott (1705–7), Colonel
Montague (1711, 1731–7), General Sir Charles
Wills (1711–30) and Lady Fleming (1740). (ref. 57)
The house was occupied by a firm of army agents
from 1772 to 1823 and from 1824 to 1829 by
Charles Pettit, a builder, possibly the C. A. Pettit
who exhibited a 'Design for a Prison' at the Royal
Academy in 1814. (ref. 58) The house was later occupied by a jeweller and from 1846 to 1912 as an
hotel. (ref. 40)
The original house does not seem to have been
rebuilt until the early twentieth century, but the
ratebooks record a substantial increase in the
asssessment of the house in 1760–1. In 1913 the
house was demolished and on the vacant site of
this and of the adjoining No. 3 (where the house
had also been pulled down) the present building
was erected to the designs of R. H. Kerr. The
builders were C. F. Kearly Ltd., of Great Marlborough Street. (ref. 59) The building is now called
Grafton House, possibly through the delusion that
one of the earlier houses on this site had been the
residence of the second Duke of Grafton. The
Duke does not seem to have lived in Golden
Square, though he did take No. 7 for the use of his
grandmother in 1705.
No. 3 Golden Square
This site also formed part of the parcel of
vacant land which was sold by Isaac Symball's
heirs to Stephen Quynes in 1697 and which was
acquired by Reeve's Foundation in 1709 (see
above). Between March 1699 (?/1700) and
September 1701 Quynes leased it for sixty-one
years to Thomas Jones, the bricklayer who also
built the adjoining Nos. 2 and 4. (ref. 60) The house
was first occupied in 1702 by Colonel Leppell,
who lived here until 1711. Sir John Norris
(1732–40), Lady Jekyll (1742–4) and Sir Edward
Hulse (1745–56) were among the later inhabitants
of note. (ref. 61)
The ratebooks show that the original house was
rebuilt in 1762–3. Later occupants were less
distinguished, although General Lord Adam
Gordon, who had earlier occupied No. 27, lived
there for a year in 1788. The house was occupied
by a surgeon at the beginning of the nineteenth
century and from 1841 to 1861 was used as a
girls' school. It then became an 'Italian Hotel'
until 1867, and later served as offices for miscellaneous commercial firms and as an annexe to an
hotel at No. 2. (ref. 62)
The house was demolished in 1913. This and
the adjoining site of No. 2 were then amalgamated
for the erection of the present office building,
designed by R. H. Kerr. (ref. 63)
No. 4 Golden Square
This site was the most southerly of those on the
east side of Golden Square which were allotted to
Isaac Symball by the partition of 1675 (fig. 18).
It was sold by his heirs in June 1697 to Stephen
Quynes and was acquired by Reeve's Foundation
in 1709 (see above). Between March 1699
(?/1700) and September 1701 Quynes leased it for
sixty-one years to Thomas Jones, the lessee of
Nos. 2 and 3. (ref. 64) John Vernon (1700–2) was the
first occupant, and was succeeded by Lady Mallard
(1704–11). Later occupants include Lady Ayton
(or Eylton) (1716–24), Lieutenant-General
Mackay (1778–9) and Edward Ford, surgeon
(1791–1809). (ref. 28) The latter had an interest in the
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, which may account
for his son, Richard Ford, becoming the first
protector of the actress Mrs. Jordan, later the
mistress of the future William IV. The two
daughters born of this early connexion were
established by their mother in 1805 at No. 30, a
house immediately opposite that of their grandfather, Edward Ford. Meanwhile their father
Richard had been awarded a knighthood and appointed a chief magistrate at Bow Street. (ref. 65)
Thomas Copeland, Edward Ford's nephew and
successor in medical practice, continued to live at
No. 4 until 1842, when the house was divided
between various commercial tenants and lodgers. (ref. 66)
No rebuilding is known to have taken place until
1935, when the original house was demolished to
make way for the present shop and office block,
erected to the designs of Brian L. Sutcliffe. (ref. 67)
No. 5 Golden Square
This site was the most northerly of those on the
east side of Golden Square which were allotted to
James Axtell by the partition of 1675 (fig. 18).
As part of the agreement of February 1683/4 with
Martha Axtell, Francis Batten, citizen and
leatherseller, undertook the development of
(among others) the sites of Nos. 5–12. The first
house was built there by 1699, Isaac Tyrritt
(Terwhitt) being the builder (ref. 31) and John Pershall
the first occupant (1699–1700). Lady Lome was
living there in 1702 and from 1704 to 1743 the
house was occupied in turn by three generations of
one family—Colonel John Wyndham (1704–25),
his son-in-law Sir Edward Knatchbull, the politician (1726–30), and his grandson Sir Wyndham
Knatchbull-Wyndham (1731–43), who then
moved to No. 7 Golden Square. Lady Lequesne
lived there from 1743 to 1746. (ref. 68)
In the nineteenth century the house was occupied by solicitors and by 1855 by a firm of jewellers.
It was rebuilt in 1894 to the designs of A. J.
Bolton as a northern extension to the office and
warehouse block at No. 6. (ref. 69)
No. 6 Golden Square
In August 1684 Martha Axtell (acting for her
daughters and together with Francis Batten who
had undertaken the development of their property
on this side of Golden Square) leased this site to
Richard Naylor of St. Martin's, gentleman. The
lease was for fifty-one years at a peppercorn rent
for the first year and thereafter at a rent of
£4 7s. 6d. per annum. Although it is likely that
Naylor began erecting a house there in the first
year of his lease to secure the peppercorn advantage, he did not re-assign the premises until
1693 (to Richard Hutchinson of St. James's, gentleman), by which time a 'large messuage' had been
built. (ref. 70) The house was not occupied until 1698. (ref. 28)
The first resident was Lady Cartwright (1698–1711), followed by Colonel Armstrong (1716–21)
and Sir Thomas Hales (1723–31). From 1732 to
1737 the house was the Russian legation and the
residence of the Tsarina's minister Prince
Cantemir. (ref. 71) William Wyndham, the statesman,
is said to have been born in the house in May
1750, though according to the parish ratebooks
Miles Nightingale was then the occupant. (ref. 72)
The ratebooks state that in 1780 the house was
rebuilt. An old photograph in the possession of
Messrs. Pendle and Rivett of No. 19 Golden
Square shows that the front was in the urbane style
associated with such architects as Thomas Leverton and John Johnson (Plate 134c). Four storeys
high and three windows wide, it was a simple and
dignified design with the plain rectangular openings carefully proportioned to the storeys. Built
in stock bricks, ornament was restricted to the
Coade rustics and keystone of the round-arched
doorway, the plain first-floor bandcourse, the
continuous sill-bands below the windows, and the
fluted cornice below the attic.
In the nineteenth century the house was used
as an hotel or lodging house and later by a firm of
bagmakers. In 1881 the building was incorporated into a new office and warehouse block,
parts of the back premises and the ceiling of the
ground-floor front room (dating from the rebuilding of 1780) being retained. This work was
undertaken by the building firm of Caroline
Hatfield and Son of King (now Kingly) Street. (ref. 73)
The eighteenth-century ceiling is delicately
decorated in low relief, with a trophy of thyrsi and
an urn within an oval, set in the centre of a
concave-sided lozenge filled with scrolled branches
(Plate 146c). This lozenge impinges on a large
oval frame, forming vesica-shapes each containing
a motif of crossed shepherds' crooks with a wreath.
Scrolled branches extend centrally and diagonally
from the large oval frame.
No. 7 Golden Square
In September 1684 this site was leased by Martha
Axtell (acting for her daughters) to Francis Batten
for fifty-one years, at a peppercorn rent for the
first year and at £5 4s. per annum for the remainder of the lease. Batten was one of the four
'undertakers' interested in the development of the
Axtell family's moiety of Gelding Close and built
a house on the vacant plot. In January 1685/6 he
borrowed £200 from Elizabeth Carew on a
mortgage of the premises. Shortly afterwards he
was confined for debt in the King's Bench prison
where, so he claimed, the marshall, Thomas Cook,
of the Inner Temple, gentleman, obtained from
him the equity of redemption of this mortgage and
also forced from him a bond of £60, on pain of
being confined a close prisoner. (ref. 74) The house was
first occupied in 1694, by George Herlakenden of
Woodchurch, Kent, esquire. (ref. 75)
From 1705 to 1707 the house was hired by
Charles Fitzroy, second Duke of Grafton, and
occupied by his grandmother, Barbara Villiers,
Duchess of Cleveland. (ref. 76) Later occupants include Brigadier Gore (1717–31), Henry Worsley,
the former Governor of Barbados (1732–7), who
moved on to a newer and more fashionable house
in New Burlington Street, Sir Wyndham
Knatchbull-Wyndham (1743–9), who had lived
at No. 5, Miss Knatchbull (1750–5), Lady Mary
Scott (1763–78) and Sir Thomas Rich (1783–5).
A substantial increase in the rateable value of the
house in 1761–2 suggests that some rebuilding
may have taken place then. (ref. 77)
For most of the nineteenth century the house
was occupied by a succession of solicitors until
1903, when it was demolished and rebuilt in
the following year as an extension to No. 6
adjoining, (ref. 62) to the designs of L. V. Hunt of
Queen Street, E.C. (ref. 78)
The photograph of No. 6 mentioned above
(Plate 134c) also shows part of No. 7 before the rebuilding of 1903–4. Its front had previously been
rebuilt in the early 1760's to a simple late Palladian
design in brick, with bandcourses of stone or
stucco forming sills to the plain rectangular openings of the first- and second-floor windows, and a
block cornice below the attic storey.
No. 8 Golden Square
The erection of the first house on this site was
begun by Francis Batten, one of the four 'undertakers' interested in the development of the
Axtells' moiety of Gelding Close, and completed
by his mortgagee. The site was leased by Martha
Axtell (acting on behalf of her daughters) to
Batten in September 1684 for fifty-one years, at
a peppercorn rent for the first year and then £5 per
annum. Batten started building but in March
1685/6 he mortgaged the uncompleted house to
Arthur Johnson, of St. James's, brickmaker, who
had probably not been paid for his materials for
the house. He in turn assigned the mortgage to
William Sherwin of Gray's Inn, gentleman, who
with Thomas Cook, another mortgagee of Batten,
completed the house by 1691. (ref. 79)
Lord Kingston (1691–3) appears to have been
the first occupant. After his death his widow
retained the house and died there in 1698. Later
inhabitants include Edward Jones, Bishop of St.
Asaph (1702), John Evans, Bishop of Bangor
(1703–11), Lord Guernsey (1716–18), Captain
William Burrows (1723–35), Colonel Shute
(1736), the deist Henry Dodwell (1747–84), who
probably died there, and Andrew Plimmer (1794–
1805), the miniature painter who had previously
lived at No. 28. (ref. 80) In the nineteenth century the
house was occupied successively by a doctor, a
solicitor and by various firms of tailors. (ref. 62)
The late seventeenth-century house (which
does not seem to have been much altered) was
rebuilt in 1925, when two further storeys were
added and the back portion rebuilt. E. Keynes
Purchase and Roland Welch were the architects. (ref. 81)
No. 9 Golden Square
The site of this house was in that part of the
Axtells' moiety of Gelding Close which Francis
Batten undertook to develop, but it is not known
whether the lease, which was probably granted by
Martha Axtell in the autumn of 1684 for fifty-one
years, was to Batten or his nominee.
Corbett Henn (1689–94), and later his widow
Dame Mary Beckford (1695), were the first
occupants. (ref. 82) In November 1691 Henn made a
successful application to the Westminster Commissioners of Sewers to be reimbursed for the
money which he had laid out in making a sewer to
his house in Golden Square from the common
sewer in Lower James Street. Two of his neighbours had to pay him a total of £7 6s. 3d. for
joining their drains to his new sewer. (ref. 83) Lady
Stapleton was living here in 1702 and from 1704
to 1792 the house was successively occupied by
four generations of one family—Lady Read(e)
(1704–21), her sons Colonel George Read(e)
(1723–42) and Sir Thomas Read(e) (1743–52),
her grandson Sir John Read(e) (1763–73) and
great-grandson Sir John Read(e) (1774–7), as well
as the latter's mother Lady Read(e) (1778–92).
From 1806 to 1895 the house was used by Messrs.
Broadwood, the piano makers of Great Pulteney
Street, as a warehouse. (ref. 62)
In 1923 the house was rebuilt as an office and
warehouse block, some of the existing walls being
retained. The firm of Norton, Trist and Gilbert
of Cheapside, surveyors, may have been responsible
for the design. (ref. 84)
No. 10 Golden Square
As in the case of No. 9, the site of this house
was in that part of the Axtells' moiety of Gelding
Close which Francis Batten undertook to develop,
but it is not known whether the lease, which was
probably granted by Martha Axtell in the autumn
of 1684 for fifty-one years, was to Batten or his
nominee.
William (or Richard) Dawson was the first
occupant. In 1691 he was ordered to pay
£5 19s. 2d. to his neighbour Corbett Henn at No.
9 for the cost of making a sewer from Lower
James Street. (ref. 83) Lady Susanna Lort (1702–11),
(Sir) Gilbert Elliot (1751–6, 1759–67) the statesman, philosopher and poet who lived at No. 20 in
the intervening years, and Sir Hanson Barnard
(1757–8) were among later occupants. (fn. 72) In the
nineteenth century the house was occupied by a
surgeon, then by a solicitor and from 1846 to 1858
it was used as an hotel. Baptiste Bertrand, a celebrated fencing master of the day, used part of the
house as a school of arms from 1862 to 1869. The
school was then known as the Salle Bertrand and
became the premier fencing academy in England,
producing a remarkable revival of interest in the
art of the foil in late Victorian England. (ref. 85) From
1874 to 1879 the house was occupied by a French
Protestant school.
In 1906 No. 10 was severely damaged by fire
and in 1907–8 a new building was erected to the
designs of E. Keynes Purchase. (ref. 86) The builders
were H. and E. Lea of Warwick Street. (ref. 87)
No. 11 Golden Square
The site of this house was in that part of the
Axtells' moiety of Gelding Close which Francis
Batten undertook to develop, but the fifty-oneyear lease which Martha Axtell granted in August
1684 was to Batten's nominee, William Pye of
St. Martin's, carpenter, the rent being a peppercorn for the first year, and thereafter £5 8s. per
annum. A covenant was inserted in the lease
binding William Pye to build a dwelling house on
the site 'uniform in front and answerable in the
building thereof to a messuage of Andrew
Laurence fronting the Square'—i.e. to No. 23,
which was built in the same year. Pye started
building soon afterwards and in March 1684/5 he
borrowed £300 from Arthur Johnson of St.
James's, brickmaker, in order to finish the house.
Johnson had presumably supplied materials for the
house, as in the case of No. 8, where he had also
advanced money to the principal builder on
mortgage. The money secured on No. 11 was not
repaid and Johnson obtained possession of the new
house, which was said to be worth £800, but
which had not been sold although 'several chapmen' had made offers for it. In 1689 the house
was let to Lady Montjoy (Mountjoy) for £40 per
annum. (ref. 88)
Lady Montjoy's successor in the house, John
Dives or his landlord Arthur Johnson, was ordered
to pay £1 7s. 1d. to his neighbour Corbett Henn
at No. 9 for the cost of making a sewer from
Lower James Street. (ref. 83) A later occupant of note
was Viscount Blundell (1711–34).
In 1759 the ratebooks record 'a new backhouse
built', and in 1778 the whole house was 'pulled
down' and rebuilt. (ref. 28) From 1802 to 1812 it was
occupied by Rice Jones, a piano maker who advertised himself as 'Upright, Grand and Square
Piano-forte Maker to H.R.H. the Prince of
Wales'. (ref. 89) Rice Jones appears also to have traded
as a coal-merchant and it is under this calling that
he appears in the directories for these years.
Thereafter the house was chiefly in commercial
occupation, a firm of cleaners and dyers occupying
part from 1819 to 1927. (ref. 62) The whole house is
now occupied by a firm of solicitors.
In 1954 the front wall of the house was discovered to be in poor structural condition. It was
then rebuilt, with a stone cornice and decorated
stringcourse of the same pattern as those of the
former façade. Gordon Jeeves was the architect
for these alterations. (ref. 90)
The front rebuilt in 1954 is a reasonably faithful copy of the original (Plate 134a, figs. 19, 20).
Built in stock bricks, it is four storeys high and
three windows wide, the sashes being recessed in
plain openings proportioned to the storeys, with
flat arches of gauged bricks, stone sills, and
plastered reveals. The ground storey is finished
with a bandcourse decorated with oval paterae
between fluting, a plain sill underlines the firstfloor windows, and between the second- and thirdfloor windows is a frieze of circular paterae
between fluting, and a cornice of narrow girth.
These decorative features are of artificial stone,
probably Coade, as is the doorcase, on the left of
the two ground-floor windows. This doorcase is
an unusual design in the Adam-Wyatt manner.
The six-panelled door and plain fanlight are recessed in a tall straight-headed opening, flanked by
pilasters of the same height as the door, decorated
with guilloche ornament in the shaft panels and
having fluted capitals. Above each pilaster is an
attenuated frieze-block, decorated with a pedestal
and an urn from which sprouts an anthemion.
Flanking the pilasters are plain jambs, those inside wider than those outside, finished with an
architrave which is continued to form the transom
between the door and fanlight. Above each outer
jamb is part of a concave-profiled altar, dressed
with a ram's head and a curling leaf, and the frieze
over the fanlight is ornamented with a lyre between husk garlands, festooned below paterae. A
dentilled cornice, with the bed-mouldings returned
round the frieze-blocks, finishes this doorcase.
The interior of the house is planned on orthodox
lines (figs. 19, 20), with an entrance passage on
the north side of the front room, leading to the
staircase which is beside a back room with a canted
bay containing, between a window and a fireplace, a door to the wing room. The stair, which
rises and returns in equal flights separated by a
narrow well, is of wooden construction with cut
strings on which are planted the shaped bracket
returns of the risers. The railing, however, is of
wrought iron, with scrolled S-balusters between
paired vertical bars. The ground- and first-floor
rooms have dadoes with enriched rails, and delicately detailed cornices, some with narrow friezes,
surround the ceilings. In the ground-floor front
room the walls are decorated with raised mouldings, forming large panels, and on the chimneybreast is a plaster decoration composed of a
medallion modelled with a vestal virgin feeding
oil to a lamp on a pedestal, the medallion being
framed by an oval wreath of corn and poppies, and
placed between vertical branches that rise from
foliated scroll-work (Plate 147e). The plain but
elegant chimneypiece is of white and coloured
marbles. Between the front and back rooms is a
glazed screen with a door and a radial fanlight
above it, apparently made up of late eighteenthcentury material.
The first-floor front room has an ornamental
plaster ceiling, with a central medallion (of
Poseidon and Amphitryte?) ringed with fan
ornament and set in a circular panel (Plate 146d).
Around this are festoons and pendants of husks,
and in each corner of the ceiling is an oval
medallion modelled with a female figure, set in a
wreath of crossed olive branches from which
foliage scrolls extend. The two doorways in this
room are furnished with six-panelled doors of
mahogany, set in doorcases of architrave,
anthemion ornamented frieze, and enriched
dentilled cornice. The very fine chimneypiece,
imported from another house in the square, is of
wood and composition, and has a narrow enriched
architrave framing the marble slips, flanked by
half-pilasters with tapered shafts and fluted concave shoulders below the Ionic capitals (Plate 147d).
The fluted architrave and festooned frieze are
broken by a central tablet with griffins flanking
an urn on a pedestal, and the cornice-shelf has
dentils and a cavetto enriched with paterae and
fluting. There are good chimneypieces of wood
and composition in the first-floor back room and
the second-floor front room, the former having a
griffin-and-urn tablet.
No. 12 Golden Square
The site of this house was in that part of the
Axtells' moiety of Gelding Close which Francis
Batten undertook to develop, but the fifty-one-year lease of this site and of the ground on the
northern half of the east side of Lower James
Street which Martha Axtell granted in July 1684
was to John James and Abraham Bridle. (ref. 91)
Figure 19:
No. 11 Golden Square, section and elevation
Figure 20:
No. 11 Golden Square, doorcase, plans and staircase balustrade
The Widow Finch (1689–90) was probably
the first occupant. Dr. Sydenham, probably
William Sydenham the son of the more famous
Dr. Thomas Sydenham, also appears to have lived
here in 1694–5. He was later followed by the
fifth Earl of Salisbury from 1716 to 1723, and
Dr. (William) Hollings, the physician, from 1726
to 1728. The house was probably put to commercial use as early as 1777, when it was taken by
John Jack, tailor. This connexion with the cloth
trade, the earliest of any house in Golden Square,
persisted through the nineteenth century to the
present day, though parts of the house were let off
at various times to a surgeon and later to a
hairdresser. (ref. 62)
In 1925 the early eighteenth-century house,
which does not seem to have been greatly altered,
was demolished for the erection of the present
office and warehouse building, of which Gervase
Bailey was the architect. (ref. 92)