Davies Street: East Side
Bourdon House:
No. 2 (formerly No. 33) consists of two
quite distinct parts. On the west, with a return front to
Davies Street, is a much-extended and enlarged earlyGeorgian house built in the 1720's (Plate 18a), and to the
east and south-east is a substantial Edwardian wing built in
a matching style, with fronts to both Bourdon Street and
Grosvenor Hill. The principal south-facing front of the old
house, and the west front of the wing building enclose two
sides of a small paved garden. Alterations and additions
have rendered the appearance of the old house a rather
imperfect guide to its building history, obscured as that is
by the scarcity of documentary evidence especially for the
eighteenth century. Particularly regrettable is the absence
of any internal plan earlier than 1909.
The name Bourdon House appears to have been
adopted only in the 1860's, (ref. 21) Bourdon being the surname
of the original lessee and first occupier of the house, about
whom little is known. In contemporary sources he is often
described as Captain William Bourdon, but no captain of
that name is recorded in either the Army or Navy Lists,
though a Lieutenant William Bourdon, commissioned into
one of the regiments of foot guards in 1708, was still
drawing half pay in 1722. (ref. 22) Bourdon was clearly a man of
some standing, being both a Justice of the Peace for
Middlesex, and one of the Vestrymen of the new parish of
St. George's, Hanover Square. (ref. 23)
The house was originally erected under a sub-lease to
Bourdon, then of St. Margaret's, Westminster, from the
estate surveyor Thomas Barlow, dated 7 November 1723. (ref. 24)
It must have been finished, or nearly so, by December
1724, when Edward Shepherd and others were required to
make a survey of it on behalf of the Westminster Fire
Office, (ref. 25) and was first occupied in 1725. (ref. 18) Whether, as
seems likely, Barlow himself, a carpenter by trade, was the
builder, is not known for certain, nor whether an architect
was involved.
Bourdon's house was a detached brick building of five
bays by two (plus a small wing at the rear), with strong
brick quoins, and a slightly projecting pedimented centre
of three bays on the south side, also defined by quoins.
This much is still recognizable in the present house, but
originally there were only two storeys under a hipped
mansard roof with dormer windows. The earliest known
illustration (a drawing of 1841 by John Buckler reproduced
as Plate 12a in volume XXXIX and here reproduced in
outline as fig. 20) shows the two dormers in the south front
to have had a markedly Baroque form, their oval windows
contrasting with the staid Englishness of the body of the
house: nevertheless they were probably original. A
pedimented doorcase in the centre of the south front
dresses what was originally the front entrance, now
supplanted by a later doorway in Davies Street made when
the house was extended northwards after 1737.
Figure 20:
Bourdon House and (far left) No. 4 Davies Street (demolished) in 1841. Sketch based on a drawing by John Buckler
Figure 21 indicates the presumed extent of the house as
first built. The original internal planning is, however,
uncertain. Between the front door in the centre of the
south front and the staircase compartment there was
presumably a passage, one side of which may be
represented by the east wall of the ante-dining-room. (fn. a) The
lowest flight of the main staircase has evidently been
moved and was no doubt originally ascended from the
south. In the absence of any plausible site for a secondary
staircase within the limits of the original house it may be
conjectured that the stairs, now terminating at the first
floor, rose higher, round an open well.
The house originally occupied the north-west corner of
a large plot of ground, just over a hundred feet square,
bounded on the west by Davies Street, on the east by
Grosvenor Mews (now Hill), and on the south by a narrow
passage into the mews some forty feet to the south of the
present Bourdon Street. (ref. 26) Although on this side the site
has been curtailed, a part survives as the present front
garden which is entered from Davies Street by the squat
gateway set in a brick wall shown in Buckler's drawing, and
doubtless original. The style is again Baroque but here of a
Vanbrughian rather than a Continental character. On the
north side Bourdon's plot abutted on ground sub-leased in
1728 to the plasterer, William Mantle, (ref. 27) who built the next
house northwards in Davies Street (latterly No. 4),
leaving, however, a narrow twelve-foot strip of vacant land
on the south side of that house. (ref. 28) Most of the ground subleased to Bourdon was probably laid out as his garden, but
along the east side, next to Grosvenor Mews, there was a
range of stabling for more than thirty horses, and a small
house, both, however, separately tenanted. (ref. 29)
Bourdon occupied his house only until 1727 (ref. 18) when it
was taken by Bacon Morris, Governor of the Landguard
Fort in Suffolk and previously the occupant of No. 23
Grosvenor Street, who lived here until his death in 1744. (ref. 30)
Sometime between 1737 and 1779 the house was
extended northwards. (ref. 31) This was made possible by
Morris's purchase from Mantle, in 1737, of a lease of the
twelve-foot-wide strip of vacant ground between the
northern boundary of his own plot and No. 4 Davies
Street, (ref. 32) and it seems likely, therefore, that the work was
carried out for Morris himself. But whether this extension
was intended as such from the first is open to question.
Visually it was quite unrelated to the original house, as can
be seen in the Buckler drawing, and to the passer-by in
Davies Street its simple brick elevation of three storeys and
two bays, with a heavy, pedimented doorcase, could quite
easily have been mistaken for that of a small independent
house, nothing being done to harmonise the two disparate
halves of the Davies Street façade until at least 1864. It is,
however, clear that the extension never was independently
occupied. (ref. 18)
With the building of this extension the front door was
presumably moved from its original position in the centre
of the south front to its present position in Davies Street,
where it opens into a small entrance hall formed in the
angle between two of the original outer walls. On the south
side of the hall the extraordinarily thick former outer wall
has been cut through to make a doorway into the antedining-room, and on the east side an arched opening leads
into the main staircase compartment (Plate 18d). It seems
reasonable to assume that the rearrangement of the original
stairs is contemporary with the extension. On the ground
floor the first flight, which clearly once stood against a wall,
was moved to its present, rather awkward position in the
centre of the staircase compartment, opposite the opening
into the hall, allowing a door to be made into the northern
end of the dining-room. This has a handsome, open
pedimented doorcase which rather draws attention to its
very cramped position. Above the first floor the rest of the
(putative) original staircase was removed, its function
being taken over by a new staircase in the extension.
Figure 21:
Bourdon House, south elevation and plans of main block in 1975. On the floor plans the black represents what is thought to be the original house and the hatching later work. The room names are those in use in 1909. The block plan illustrates the growth of the house and the broken line indicates the northern boundary of the original plot
After Bacon Morris's death (ref. 33) Edward Bayntun Rolt,
M.P. for Chippenham and groom of the bedchamber to
the Prince of Wales, occupied the house from 1744 until
1746. (ref. 34) The succeeding occupants were Henry Tillson in
1747, James Tillson esquire, 1747–50, and John Tillson
esquire, 1750–64. (ref. 18) The house then passed into the hands
of Timothy Caswall, M.P. and later a Commissioner of
Excise, who lived here from 1764 to 1767 and again from
1772 until his death in 1802, the Dowager Countess of
Berkeley, widow of the 4th Earl, having been the occupant
between 1767 and 1772. (ref. 18) Caswall's wife, through whom
he had acquired an estate at Sacombe Park in Hertfordshire, was a niece of Edward Bayntun Rolt. (ref. 35)
Though they had not previously lived in the house the
Caswall family had been the leasehold owners of it since
1737, when Timothy's grandfather, the banker Sir George
Caswall, had bought up the leases from Bacon Morris's
mortgagees. (ref. 36) Some of the present internal features
probably date from Timothy Caswall's occupation, but
although he claimed to have 'completely repaired' the
house in c. 1799, (ref. 37) there is no conclusive evidence. Caswall
certainly employed Henry Holland as his surveyor, (ref. 38) and
in the mid 1780's there are payments to both Holland and
his father recorded in Caswall's bank account, though
whether for work at this house is unknown. (ref. 39) One
evidently late eighteenth-century feature which was not
there in Caswall's day is the fine doorcase in Davies Street,
inserted after 1841.
Caswall bequeathed Bourdon House to his unmarried
daughter Diana (ref. 40) who lived here from 1802 until her death
in 1830. (ref. 18) During that time the curtilage of the property
was substantially reduced. Under the terms of a new fiftyfour-year lease negotiated in 1810–11, but not effective
until the expiry of the old one in 1820, Miss Caswall lost
the southernmost forty feet of the property for a new road
(now part of Bourdon Street) between Davies Street and
Grosvenor Mews, and also gave up the separately tenanted
stabling on the east side of the reduced site. (ref. 41) When the
new street was laid out in 1820 the south side of the
shortened garden was enclosed by a brick wall. (ref. 42)
In 1825 extensive but evidently rather routine repairs
were begun under the direction of Miss Caswall's
surveyor, Mr. Rhodes (perhaps Henry Rhodes), and
continued until 1827. Miss Caswall remained in the house
and her diaries record the daily activities of the workmen,
who usually arrived at six o'clock in the morning. (fn. b) During
the rebuilding of the main cornice in September 1825 part
of the scaffolding collapsed with 'a tremendous noise', and
three workmen were hurt. On the Davies Street front the
brickwork was repointed and the outside of the house
repainted. Inside all the plaster ceilings were pulled down
and refloated. (ref. 43)
Under the terms of Miss Caswall's will the house passed
to her niece Susan, wife of John Round of Danbury Park,
Essex, M.P. (and grandmother of the historian J. H.
Round), and apart from a few years in the 1830's when it
was sub-let the Rounds occupied the house as their
London home from 1830 until 1845. (ref. 44) John Round's diary
for January 1837 mentions unspecified alterations in the
drawing-room and dining-room, but costing only £140. (ref. 45)
In 1845 the Rounds sold the house for £1100 to Dr.
John W. Woodfall, a physician, who lived here until
1853. (ref. 46) He was succeeded by another physician, Dr.
Edmund S. Symes, and yet another physician, Dr. John
Elliotson, shared the house with Symes for a few years in
the 1860's. (ref. 47) Elliotson, who had pioneered the use of the
stethoscope in the diagnosis of heart and lung diseases,
died here in 1868. (ref. 48)
In 1864 Dr. Symes submitted a design for an 'improved
Elevation' which he proposed to undertake on being
granted a new lease by the Estate. But this application was
turned down by the second Marquess of Westminster and
his surveyor, Thomas Cundy II, who planned to have the
house completely rebuilt when the old lease expired in ten
years' time. Symes, nevertheless, said he would go ahead
with his intention to add an extra storey, and that this was,
in fact, carried out seems to be confirmed by a rise in the
rateable value between 1864 and 1865. (ref. 49) No more is heard
of the proposed rebuilding, however, and in 1871 the third
Marquess agreed to grant a lease to Miss Julia Leslie, a
sister of Sir John Leslie of Glasslough, County Monaghan,
who wished to 'make considerable outlays and particularly
to improve the Servants' offices'. (ref. 50) She also undertook to
'wash, colour and draw' the brickwork of the whole of the
exterior, and to repoint it. (ref. 51) These works were carried out
in 1872 by Humphrey and Cairns, builders, of Charles
Street, Berkeley Square, and were followed by a substantial rise in the rateable value. (ref. 52)
The various alterations made in the 1860's and '70's can
be seen by comparing the Buckler drawing of 1841 with a
watercolour of 1882, preserved in the Grosvenor Office, in
which the house appears looking more or less as it does
today. But which of the changes were due to Miss Leslie
and which to Dr. Symes it is impossible to say. The most
important were the replacement of the quaintly dormered
mansard roof by the present third and fourth storeys, and
the harmonization of the two disparate parts of the Davies
Street front. Quoins were added to the north-west corner,
next to No. 4, the main cornice was extended across the
two northern bays, and the whole building was capped
with a unifying balustrade of half tiles. Most of the visual
evidence of the two separate eighteenth-century building
periods was, of course, largely obliterated, though the
survival of the old quoins, most inappropriately, in the
centre of the Davies Street façade, remains an important
clue (Plate 18a). By 1882 the first-floor windows in the
south front had been lengthened and fitted with iron
balconettes, plate glass substituted for small panes in the
Davies Street windows, and the doorcase in Davies Street
replaced by the present one. It also appears that the plane
tree in the front garden, which is today such a prominent
feature of this part of Davies Street, was planted in the mid
nineteenth century.
Julia Leslie, who lived here from 1873, (ref. 18) shared the
house with her youngest sister, Emily, but according to
their great-nephew, Sir Shane Leslie, they had few friends
or interests in common and seldom even met. When they
gave simultaneous parties 'their guests passed each other
on the stairs without speaking and were received in
different rooms'. Having been 'disappointed or disappointing' in love the sisters never married, and to the
young Shane it seemed that Bourdon House ('that greenumbraged omphalos of Mayfair') was 'consecrated to
virginity'. (ref. 53) After Julia died in 1891 Emily continued to
live there until her own death in 1909. (ref. 54)
At that time the house still lacked bathrooms and
electric lighting, but this seems not to have deterred the
many would-be occupants who applied for the lease after
Miss Leslie died. (ref. 55) Nor was it just prospective lessees who
showed an interest. During 1909 the house was photographed by the London County Council, visited by the
Princess of Wales (later Queen Mary), and surveyed for The
Architectural Review, which published an illustrated
article parading the name of Isaac Ware as its probable
architect. (ref. 56) The Council's photographs show that in the
principal rooms the woodwork and panelling was stained
and varnished rather than painted. (ref. 57) They also show one or
two features which do not survive. In the drawing-room,
for example, a pair of fluted Ionic columns marked the
division between the northern and southern sections, and
the flat-arched opening between the eastern and western
compartment was ornamented with large wooden cartouches and swags.
At the Grosvenor Office it was not so much the
architecture as the quite mistaken belief that 'the house
had always been associated with the owners of the Estate'
which weighed with the second Duke of Westminster's
advisers, and persuaded them to seek his 'personal
instructions' before dealing with any applications for
reletting. (ref. 58) After visiting the house, where he admired the
inset decorative panels of the ante-dining-room chimneypiece, the Duke ordered general repairs and the
building of extra accommodation, to comprise five
bedrooms, a garage and chauffeur's quarters. (ref. 59)
This work was carried out at the Estate's expense in
1909–10 under the direction, and to the designs, of the
estate surveyor, Eustace Balfour. In order to save time it
was decided not to invite tenders but to place the building
contract in the hands of Vare Brothers of Spring Street,
Paddington, who had executed minor alterations to
Balfour's design at No. 22 Upper Grosvenor Street in
1902. (ref. 60) The remnants of the old stables were demolished
and a new three-storey wing in a self-effacing neoGeorgian style, carefully matched to that of the old house,
was erected at the corner of Bourdon Street and Grosvenor
Hill to provide the extra accommodation required. At the
same time extensive repairs were made to the old house,
where 'the plastering of most of the ceilings had to be
entirely renewed on new laths', (ref. 61) and Balfour took this
opportunity to have the Victorian plate-glass windows in
Davies Street replaced by small panes of the correct
'period' size. (ref. 62) Two 'nice' chimneypieces were brought
here from No. 56 Grosvenor Street in 1910, probably to be
installed in the new wing. (ref. 63)
The Duke had apparently envisaged Bourdon House as
a town residence for a member of the Grosvenor family, (ref. 64)
but even as the works which he initiated were getting
under way, he agreed to let the house to the seventh Earl of
Essex, whose American-born second wife, Adela, was a
great friend of the Duke's mother. (ref. 65) According to The
Lady the Earl and Countess would occupy the house
during the Season, 'but it is nonsense to talk about their
giving receptions and entertaining there, for the house,
delightful as it is, is quite a small one, and they are going to
use it simply as a London "pied de terre", leaving their
children at Cassiobury Park'. (ref. 66) Lady Essex nevertheless
required alterations to the works already in hand (the firstfloor windows in the west front of the new wing being cut
down at her request 'to correspond with those in the old
house' (ref. 67) ), and parts of the interior were redecorated,
perhaps under the superintendence of a Mr. Foster whom
she had instructed 'to attend to the decorations'. (ref. 68) In the
hall and staircase compartment black and white marble
squares were laid over the old wooden floor, and the walls
painted in grisaille, probably by Marcel Boulanger of
Paris, with panels of arms and other trophies in the hall,
and with architectural scenes on the staircase. (ref. 69)
In 1911 the house became fully detached again when a
strip of land on the north side, then being cleared for
redevelopment, was taken into the curtilage of Bourdon
House. (ref. 70) John Garlick, the builder, was called in to
underpin and tidy up the newly exposed north wall to a
design by Balfour's partner, Thackeray Turner. (ref. 71)
Lord and Lady Essex occupied the house from
November 1911 under a yearly agreement. In the minutes
of the Estate Board they figure as rather unco-operative
tenants. Though generously treated by the Duke, who had
acceded to and paid for most of Lady Essex's requirements, and had allowed them a rent well below the market
value, (ref. 72) they refused to pay for laying out a garden on the
newly acquired north side, and the design which Balfour
and Turner had prepared for this was abandoned. (ref. 73) Lord
Essex said he 'would rather give up the space than spend
money on it'. (ref. 74) Its neglected state soon drew angry
complaints from nearby residents ('little better than a
rubbish heap'), and the situation was not improved when
Lord Essex took to keeping chickens there in 1916. (ref. 75) In
September of that year, however, he died, and his widow
decided, or was persuaded, to leave Bourdon House, which
was then retained by the Duke for his own occupation,
Grosvenor House having been let to the Government for
war work. The Duke began to live here in 1917, (ref. 76) and he so
liked it that when Grosvenor House was released by the
Government in 1920 he decided not to return there.
Bourdon House remained his London home for the rest of
his life.
After the Duke's death in 1953 the Duchess stayed on
until 1957, (ref. 77) but the house subsequently passed into
commercial use as an antique shop and has undergone
many small though often telling changes. In 1974–5 a small
single-storey office was added to the north side of the old
house, and a two-storey store-room was built at the back
adjacent to the Edwardian wing with a two-bay front to
Grosvenor Hill. (ref. 78) In the principal rooms of the old house
all the woodwork, including the mahogany doors on the
first floor, has been painted with light colours, mostly
creamy-yellow or grey-green. New doorways have been
opened and others closed. The arched opening between
the east and west halves of the former drawing-room has
been filled in. The grisaille paintings have gone. Fireplaces
have been blocked, and in the former dining-room a
handsome stone chimneypiece with a vigorously carved
wooden overmantel which the second Duke had altered to
hold Hoppner's portrait of Colonel Thomas Grosvenor,
has been replaced by a plain marble chimneypiece in the
neo-classical style. Recently (1975) two showrooms have
been opened on the first floor of the wing building which
are entered from the south-east corner of the old drawingroom by way of a small shell-studded vestibule (by Gordon
Davies). (ref. 79)
Bourdon House is a delightful survival in an otherwise
rather uninteresting part of Davies Street, but for all its
charm the interior is a little disappointing, particularly in
comparison with the finest surviving early-Georgian
houses on the estate. Of the panelled rooms in the old
house by far the best is the former ante-dining-room where
the north wall has a fairly elaborate treatment with fluted
Ionic pilasters supporting a deep entablature with a
pulvinated frieze of carved oak leaves (Plate 10b in vol.
XXXIX). In the two end bays of this three-bay composition
are arched recesses with double doors, one pair of which is
false. On the other walls the panelling is more simply
treated, but the open-pedimented doorcase leading into
the former dining-room repeats the oak-leaf motif in its
frieze (Plate 18c).
The chimneypiece, which dates from the second half of
the eighteenth century, has two fluted Composite columns
at the sides and three small panels let into the frieze which
are painted with figures in the style of the 1780's. It was
these panels which attracted the attention of the second
Duke in 1909. (ref. 80) In The Architectural Review they were,
perhaps inevitably, attributed to Angelica Kauffmann. The
chimneypiece itself is made of 'compo'. (ref. 81)
Though rearranged the main stair is doubtless original
and has simple turned wooden balusters, three per tread,
and carved step-ends. It is now toplit but may not have
been so originally. On the second and third floors the
staircase well has been filled in except for two circular
openings directly under the skylight. The identical
wrought-iron balustrades which protect these openings are
in a late eighteenth-century style. On the third floor there
is a crane dating from the second half of the nineteenth
century which operated through these openings, allowing
heavy objects to be lifted from the ground floor to the top
of the house.
In the former library on the first floor the panelling is
very plain but there are two unusual doorcases evidently of
the late eighteenth century, each of which rises up to frame
a round-headed niche above the door (Plate 18b). The
doors themselves are concave in plan which perhaps
suggests that they (and the doorcases) were not originally
intended for these positions but rather for some roundended room. The room over the library, formerly a
bedroom but now used as a dining-room, is similarly
panelled but here the woodwork has been left unpainted.
In the Edwardian wing the original decoration was
evidently fairly simple except in Lady Essex's bedroom on
the first floor overlooking the garden, where the four
corners are splayed and fitted with doorcases imitated from
those in the former library. The chimneypiece in this room
has been removed.
Nos. 4–26 (even) Davies Street, The Manor, and
Nos. 55–57 (consec.) Grosvenor Street
Nos. 4–26 (even) Davies Street, The Manor, and
Nos. 55–57 (consec.) Grosvenor Street were built in
1910–12 as one composite scheme to the designs of
Edmund Wimperis and J. R. Best and consist of a block of
flats (The Manor) with ground-floor shops at Nos. 4–12
Davies Street, four houses and shops at Nos. 14–26 Davies
Street and three houses at Nos. 55–57 Grosvenor Street.
Plans for the redevelopment of this large site had been first
drawn up by Eustace Balfour, the estate surveyor, in 1905,
but it was not until 1908 that negotiations were opened
with a prospective builder, John Garlick. In the following
year, however, Lieutenant-Colonel Clifford Probyn, a
chemist who had taken over a shop at the corner of Davies
Street and Grosvenor Street in c. 1875 and had since
become a J.P. and a member of the London County
Council, asked to take all of the frontage to Grosvenor
Street and part of the return frontage to Davies Street.
This was agreed and contracts were concluded with
Probyn and Garlick during the winter of 1909–10, but
shortly afterwards John Garlick died and his executors
assigned the southern part of the site to Courtauld
Thomson (later Baron Courtauld-Thomson), a financier
who subsequently built Norwich House in Dunraven
Street. William Garlick, John Garlick's son, was apparently prepared to take the central part of the Davies
Street frontage and new contracts were concluded with all
three parties by November 1910, but Garlick immediately
divided his plot between Probyn and Thomson. Garlick's
firm were Thomson's builders for Nos. 4–20 Davies Street
and Foxley and Company built the houses in Grosvenor
Street and, presumably, Nos. 22–26 Davies Street. (ref. 82)
The composition is divided into three parts (Plate 47a in
vol. XXXIX). The southernmost, consisting of The Manor
and the ground-floor shops numbered 4–12 Davies Street,
is a symmetrical block of five full storeys with a restless
façade sporting bays, canted and bowed, iron balconies at
all floor levels, and a crowning balustrade in which
Wimperis's typical honeycombing is interspersed with
areas of solid brickwork having attached segmental
pediments. The houses and shops at Nos. 14–26 Davies
Street have four storeys and attics with dormer windows,
and here the gently rounded contours and relative
simplicity of the bow fronts look forward to the more
straightforward neo-Georgian style of Wimperis's firm in
later years. In contrast Nos. 55–57 Grosvenor Street are
sharply angular, with canted bays and additional features
such as a Doric colonnade on the Grosvenor Street façade
and a heavy portico on the Davies Street side at the
entrance to No. 55. The three elements in the design of the
whole group are tied together by the use throughout of
brown bricks with red-brick dressings, similar stone
dressings to the first-floor windows, and a deep modillion
cornice above the fourth storey.
Claridge House:
Nos. 28–36 (even) Davies Street
and 25 Brook's Mews, built in 1924 by Kirk and Randall
to the designs of S. Gordon Jeeves, is a seven-storey block
of flats with shops on the ground floor in the red-brick neoGeorgian idiom favoured on the estate at this period. (ref. 83)
Here such features as slightly projecting bays at each end
and a cornice with bold egg-and-dart mouldings between
the bays help to give the building a coherent form, and,
unusually, the long return frontage to Brook's Mews is also
fully treated in the manner of the Davies Street façade.
Nos. 46 and 48 Davies Street
Nos. 46 and 48 Davies Street see page 4.
Nos. 50–54 (even)
Nos. 50–54 (even), consisting of the Running Horse
public house at the corner of Davies Mews and two
adjoining houses (now converted into one), were built in
1839–40 by Joshua Higgs (Plate 24b in vol. XXXIX). (ref. 84) They
are an attractive group of four-storey buildings of stock
brick with stuccoed ground floors and extensive stucco
dressings including consoles and hoods to the first-floor
windows and a strong linking cornice at third-floor level.
No. 52 has a portico with Greek Doric columns which are
fluted in their upper parts; a similar portico at No. 54 was
removed during reinstatement after war damage in 1948–9
when Nos. 52 and 54 were joined together. (ref. 85) Higgs also
built a workshop and stabling in Davies Mews which were
demolished in 1902. The workshop communicated with
No. 54, where Higgs and his son, Joshua Higgs junior, had
their building firm between 1839 and 1861. (ref. 47)
There had been a tavern called the Running Horse on
this corner site since 1738, (ref. 86) and, as rebuilt by Higgs, it was
one of the few public houses to survive the reforming zeal
of the first Duke of Westminster and is now the oldest on
the estate.
The architect Frederick Etchells, who was active on the
estate during the inter-war years, had his office at No. 52
from 1930 to 1940. (ref. 77)
No. 56.
In 1889 this site, which was formerly occupied
by the southern part of Grosvenor Market, was made
available to the St. George's Rifles for a new headquarters
and drill hall. The St. George's was one of the Rifle
Volunteer Corps formed in 1859, but it also claimed
descent from the St. George's Volunteers of the French
Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars who had used the site
now occupied by St. Mark's Church in North Audley
Street as a parade ground for several years. (ref. 87) The
demolition of Grosvenor Market was desirable from the
Estate's point of view, especially as its inhabitants might be
rehoused in newly built model lodging-houses in Mount
Row, and the Duke of Westminster granted a new lease at a
peppercorn rent for ninety-nine years, a term which he
subsequently extended to two hundred years. (ref. 88)
The building, which was erected to the designs of
Charles Herbert Shoppee by E. Lawrance and Sons at a
cost of some £16,000, was opened by the Duchess of
Westminster on 6 December 1890 (Plate 19c). It included
a drill hall, armoury, gymnasium, mess room and officers'
rooms. A terracotta statue of St. George and the Dragon,
modelled by Lieutenant G. E. Wade, sculptor brother of
the architect Fairfax Wade, and a former officer in the
corps, was placed on the pediment over the entrance. (ref. 89)
Shoppee's lively elevation of red brick and stone, with its
curious copper-covered cupola, was a prominent feature of
Davies Street until the building was almost totally
destroyed by bombing in 1940.
The present drill hall (Plate 19e) was built in 1950–2 by
James Miller and Partners to the designs of Trenwith
Wills (ref. 90) for the Queen Victoria's Rifles (King's Royal Rifle
Corps) which had been formed from the amalgamation of
the St. George's with the Victoria Rifles and other
battalions. Its restrained neo-classical elevation in stone,
rusticated on the ground floor with smooth ashlar facing
above, is in marked contrast to its predecessor and pays
decorous respect to its early-Victorian neighbours at Nos.
52–54 (which had been taken over by the Q.V.R. in
1949 (ref. 85) ). As a result of further amalgamations the buildings
are now occupied by the Fourth (Volunteer) Battalion of
the Royal Green Jackets.
No. 58
No. 58 was built in 1889–91 to the designs of J. T.
Wimperis and Arber for John Bolding and Sons, the firm
of sanitary engineers and manufacturers (Plate 21).
Boldings had been founded in 1822 in South Molton
Street and had since expanded to take in several nearby
premises, including, from about 1870, a workshop in
Grosvenor Market. In the 1880's the firm was looking for a
plot which would be large enough to bring together its
various activities under one roof, and the Grosvenor Board
offered the northern part of the site of Grosvenor Market.
Wimperis's designs for a building which would combine
retail premises, showrooms and a factory, were approved
by the Duke of Westminster, who thought that 'the
elevation would be a great ornament to Davies Street'.
Boldings' lease contained the express provision that the
building could be used for 'works incidental to the
business of a manufacturing sanitary engineer and founder
including the erection and use of one twelve horse power
Gas engine and three small tool forges'. (ref. 91)
Wimperis's essay in an early northern Renaissance style
owes much of its effectiveness to the materials used—
sandy red and buff terracotta (supplied by Clark and Lea of
Wrexham). The builders were Wall Brothers of Kentish
Town for the foundations and lower parts and Messrs.
Pattinson of Sleaford for the remainder. (ref. 92) In 1932 Darcy
Braddell remodelled the entrance hall in an art-deco
manner using thick fluted quarter-columns at the angles
and a jazzy cornice (Plate 21c), but of this nothing now
survives. (ref. 93) After Boldings had vacated the premises the
interior was altered in 1976–7 to the designs of T. P.
Bennett and Sons to house an antique market on the
ground floor and offices and workshops above. In the
conversion most of the florid ornamentation of the exterior
has been preserved and enhanced by cleaning, but on the
ground floor the mullioned-and-transomed windows have
been replaced by large areas of plate glass and, in the
southernmost bay of the Davies Street front, by a new
entrance.