Davies Street: West Side
Nos. 1–7 (odd)
Nos. 1–7 (odd) see page 322.
Nos. 13–27 (odd).
This six-storey block of shops,
offices, showrooms and flats was built in 1963–5 to the
designs of Sir John Burnet, Tait and Partners in a simple,
modular pattern of dark brick and marble cladding with
balcony-like projections at intervals in the upper storeys. (ref. 94)
The redevelopment included No. 53 Grosvenor Street
which is, however, treated in a more conventional neoGeorgian manner.
Nos. 29–37 (odd) Davies Street and 29–31 (consec.) Grosvenor Street.
This neo-Georgian red-brick block of
flats, offices and shops, consisting of four main storeys and
a tall attic, was built in 1926–8 by G. E. Wallis and Sons to
the designs of Robert Angell and Curtis, (ref. 95) who perhaps
took their stylistic cue from the slightly earlier Claridge
House opposite.
Nos. 39–49 (odd) Davies Street
Nos. 39–49 (odd) Davies Street see page 29.
No. 53
No. 53 (now part of the Grosvenor Office) see page 4.
Nos. 55–61 (odd)
Nos. 55–61 (odd) are a group of four late-Georgian
houses built in 1824–7 by Samuel Erlam, builder and
surveyor. Four storeys high (except at No. 59 where an
extra storey has been added), they have plain stock-brick
façades above altered ground floors.
The ground on which these houses stand was formerly
part of the curtilage of No. 66 Brook Street and was chiefly
occupied by the offices and stabling of that house. After the
original lease of the house had expired in 1822 terms for
renewal were agreed with James Hurtle Fisher, a solicitor,
who asked that the plot should be divided and leased in
three lots. He, himself, was to take both the middle section,
comprising No. 53 Davies Street, at a rent of £119, and the
northern part, which was earmarked for building, at a rent
of £1. (ref. 96) When the lease of the latter was granted to him for
sixty-two years in 1824 it referred to four messuages and a
coach-house and stables 'built ... or now in building'. (ref. 97)
The stables, which were on the north side of No. 61, were
later rebuilt or converted into a house with two shops on
the ground floor. This was demolished in 1886 when the
entrance to Cock Yard (now St. Anselm's Place) was
widened. (ref. 77) Within three months of obtaining his lease
Fisher had granted sub-leases of the houses and stables to
Samuel Erlam (or, in one case, his nominee), who was
presumably then engaged in building them. (ref. 98)
Nos. 57, 59 and 61 have narrow, two-bay frontages, but
No. 55 is a more imposing three-bay house with greater
storey heights and a plain cornice above the second floor.
This house, which had cellars extending under the other
three houses, was sub-let, at Erlam's direction, to a wine
merchant. In 1831, when the house was advertized for sale,
it was described as having been 'Fitted up in a superior
manner under the direction and good taste of Henry
Harrison'. (ref. 99) In 1886 it was added to the Grosvenor Office
at No. 53, (ref. 100) and in 1922 both Nos. 55 and 57 were
converted into offices for Boodle, Hatfield and Company,
the solicitors to the Grosvenor Estate, who have occupied
them since 1923. The alterations made at this time at a cost
of some £10,000 by F. Foxley and Company to the designs
of Edmund Wimperis, the estate surveyor, included the
removal of the previous entrances to the houses, access
now being obtained through a shared entrance at No. 53,
and the refacing of their ground storey in channelled stucco
with round-headed windows. (ref. 101)
The most attractive feature of No. 61 is its ornate
ironwork, which was added in 1865. (ref. 102) This includes the
railings to a first-floor balcony which is supported by thin
twisted columns, the latter also forming an unusual porch
in front of the entrance. There are also individual
balconettes and more florid ironwork to the windows of the
upper storeys.
St. Anselm's Church and Vicarage (demolished).
The brief history of St. Anselm's, Davies Street, is in its
early stages bound up with that of the Hanover Chapel in
Regent Street. This well-known and prominent building,
which was part of the original development of Regent
Street, had been erected in 1824–5 to designs by C. R.
Cockerell as one of the Commissioners' Churches and was
soon afterwards assigned its own ecclesiastical parish. (ref. 103)
The first Duke of Westminster took an interest in the
Hanover Chapel, contributing substantially from 1879
towards the income of its incumbent, the Reverend David
Long. (ref. 104) In 1881 Long addressed a plea to the Duke for
help in improving the chapel, which had fallen on hard
times. The question having been debated at the Grosvenor
Board, it was agreed that the chapel would 'never answer in
its present situation owing to the altered circumstances of
the times', and that it would be best instead to apply for an
Act of Parliament to pull down the building, sell the site
and erect a new church in the Davies Street district of the
Grosvenor estate; here the Duke felt confident of offering a
site in 1884, on or near the Grosvenor Market. (ref. 105)
Since Long left the Hanover Chapel in 1883, this
proposal for some time hung fire. But in 1890 it was
resurrected with a new site in mind on the west side of
Davies Street between the present St. Anselm's Place and
Weighhouse Street, abutting at the back on the newly built
Hanover Schools in Gilbert Street. The Board, supported
by the rector of St. George's, Hanover Square, and the
Bishop of London, now went ahead with the Hanover
Chapel (Regent Street) Bill. It met with some opposition,
chiefly from the Royal Institute of British Architects,
which objected to the demolition of one of London's very
few monuments to Cockerell's 'refined and cultured taste'.
But in 1891 the bill quickly passed into law. (ref. 106)
By early 1893 the Duke's surveyor, Eustace Balfour, had
been appointed architect for the new buildings, which
were to be designed in conjunction with his partner
Thackeray Turner. The church, soon called St. Anselm's,
was to occupy the corner with Robert (now Weighhouse)
Street and to be linked with a vicarage next to the junction
of Davies Street and Cock Yard (now St. Anselm's Place).
The freehold of this site was presented to the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners in March 1893. After approval of the plans
in 1894 the work was entrusted to Balfour and Turner's
favourite builders, Walter Holt and Sons of Croydon,
whose contract for church and vicarage was worth
£20,000. By the end of 1895 the vicarage was finished, and
on 15 February 1896 the church was consecrated in the
presence of the Duke and Duchess of Westminster.
Shortly afterwards the Hanover Chapel was demolished,
its records and a few of its fittings being transferred to the
new church. (ref. 107)
St. Anselm's was the only substantial Anglican church
designed by Balfour and Turner (Plate 20a, 20b, 20d, figs.
22–3: see also Plate 38b in vol. XXXIX). There is stronger
circumstantial evidence in this case than in other of the
partnership's works in Mayfair that the dominant share of
the design was Thackeray Turner's; indeed architects who
had known him well felt confident that the church was
chiefly his. (ref. 108) Whatever the apportionment of responsibility, the design was an audacious and idiosyncratic
one, imbued with the Arts and Crafts principles to which
both architects—and Turner in particular—firmly adhered. Yet despite its thoughtful originality, there was a
severity coupled with wilful eccentricity about the church
that failed to endear it to worshippers and critics. Opinions
about St. Anselm's differed sharply. The Builders' Journal
thought it 'not only one of the most interesting of modern
Churches, but the best Church raised in London of late
years'; but Beresford Pite in another periodical considered
it an insult to both Cockerell's Hanover Chapel and the
gentle memory of St. Anselm, and an exhibition of 'that
pride of bastardy which is so prized nowadays'. (ref. 109)
The peculiarities and careful detail of St. Anselm's,
together with the fact that the church has been demolished, make necessary a longer description than usual.
The architects' starting point was an attempt 'to avoid
introducing features in the design which call up remembrances of ancient buildings ... as our present
conditions of building render competition with such
buildings impossible'. (ref. 110) So although the shape of the
church's exterior was fundamentally Gothic, with double
aisles, a clerestory, pitched tile roofs and buttressing,
overtly Gothic motifs were confined to the windows, which
displayed reticulated tracery within elliptical heads. There
was no tower, and only the north and east sides were fully
open to view. The east front towards Davies Street (Plate
20a) consisted of church and vicarage, bound into one
composition at upper levels by means of rounded and
pierced arches which continued as a blank arcade across
the church and ended next to Weighhouse Street in a pair
of openings in the end-gable housing the bellcote. While
the vicarage had prominent bay windows to the main
floors, the east end of the church was markedly plain, with
only three tiny windows, two large buttresses and the
blank arcading to distinguish it. On the Weighhouse Street
end of the bellcote was a sculptured rood, probably set up
shortly after the church had been finished. The rest of the
north front (Plate 24a, fig. 22) was more even and
rhythmical, with massive flying buttresses sweeping down
from the level of the main roof and finishing in sturdy piers
which broke regularly into the aisles and were pierced with
rainwater spouts. There was an entrance from a lean-to
porch in the north-west position, but the main porch was
in the south-west corner, behind the vicarage. On the west
front the chief feature was a generous seven-light window,
again with reticulated tracery. The materials for the whole
of the exterior were stock bricks, with copious Portland-stone dressings.
The interior of St. Anselm's conformed in plan to the
standard liturgical arrangements of late-Victorian churches, while departing more wholeheartedly than the
exterior from orthodoxy of style or detail (Plate 20d, fig. 23:
see also Plate 38b in vol. XXXIX). Although there was no
structural chancel, the body of the church was divided
from the aisles by arcades of coupled columns. High
transverse arches across the nave, springing from clerestory level, divided the flat ceiling (which was of Oregon
pine) into compartments. The aisles themselves were rib
vaulted, and next to the south-west entrance was a small
two-bay morning chapel also with rib vaults, set back from
the south aisle behind further columns and a railing of
ebony. In character all this work bore marked resemblances to church interiors of the Florentine quattrocento, especially to Brunelleschi's Santo Spirito and
Pazzi Chapel. Not only the mouldings and elliptical arches
but also the alternating texture of light and shade breathed
the spirit of the early Italian Renaissance; the columns,
ribs and dressings were all executed in a blue-grey Robin
Hood stone from the Forest of Dean, while the walls were
plastered and whitewashed. The east end culminated in a
complex arrangement of flat arches and pilasters flanking
the altar, with three small lancets over and, above these,
crowning representations of the Four Evangelists carved in
blocks of Robin Hood stone by Laurence Turner,
craftsman brother of Thackeray Turner. Laurence Turner
also executed the formalized carving on all the capitals of
the columns, and a pierced oak screen marking off the
vestry in the south-east corner. As a token of Balfour and
Turner's loyalty to the Arts and Crafts ideal of conscious
craftsmanship, the stone dressings throughout the church
were left 'as from the tool' and then waxed so as to set off
their texture and make them washable; further, the
plasterwork was applied to the walls in a single coat from
the trowel, without other instruments. (ref. 110)
Figure 22:
St. Anselm's Church and Vicarage (demolished), elevations
Figure 23:
St. Anselm's Church and Vicarage (demolished), plan in 1896
Other details and fittings in the church displayed the
architects' commitment to eclecticism of manner and
materials. A dado of Powell's opalescent glass tiles ran
round three sides of the walls, flush with the plasterwork
above. The windows were all glazed with special thick
panes of Prior's glass, made by Britten and Gilson and
bound with saddles of gunmetal. The floors progressed
from two tones of wood block in the side chapel to squares
of Irish green, black and Pavonazzo marble in the
sanctuary. The choir was set off from the nave by a dwarf
screen of Irish green marble topped with gunmetal or
bronze, and contained stalls of teak, while the sanctuary
was marked by a curving brass rail. The altar was simple
and because of a lack of funds there was at first no
permanent organ, pulpit or reredos, though it was
eventually hoped to cover the east wall with mosaic and to
introduce coloured decoration elsewhere. But a broad and
plain octagonal font of black Alloa granite (Plate 20b) was
installed at the west end of the south aisle. (ref. 111)
Few changes occurred at St. Anselm's during its brief
span. An oak pulpit was installed, probably by Laurence
Turner in 1919, and at some earlier point a permanent
organ was added. (ref. 112) But the church clearly never enjoyed
widespread support and in 1923 the incumbent reported
the vicarage as 'somewhat large and expensive to keep
up'. (ref. 103) So in 1936 the Chuch Commissioners, noting the
decline in local population, decided to divide the parish
between St. George's, Hanover Square, and St. Mark's,
North Audley Street, to pull down St. Anselm's and to sell
the site. An Order in Council to this effect was obtained in
February 1938 and on 28 April of that year the last service
was held. The freehold of church and vicarage was then
sold back to the Grosvenor Estate, a low price of £45,000
being agreed because the Duke of Westminster had given
the land in 1893. The buildings were demolished in June
1939 together with the Hanover Schools (by then known as
St. Anselm's Schools). (ref. 113)
This was not quite the end of the story of St. Anselm's.
When demolition was first canvassed F. W. Troup, a loyal
friend of Thackeray Turner, advocated that the church be
dismantled and re-erected on a suburban site, as had
occurred in the case of St. Andrew's, Wells Street. Troup
sought help from various quarters, but few architects were
enthusiastic. H. S. Goodhart-Rendel, for instance, thought
the church 'a purely personal record of Thackeray
Turner's particular tastes' and added: 'though I admit
that its design has much historical significance as a revolt
from Gothic in a fashionable neighbourhood, I feel that
the building deprived of its context, historical and local,
might be more a curiosity than a thing of beauty'. (ref. 114)
Nevertheless Troup did manage to interest the authorities
in re-using some of its features in the new church of St.
Anselm's, Ventnor Avenue, Belmont, Stanmore, to which
it had been agreed that the endowments of the Davies
Street church should pass. N. Cachemaille-Day, the
architect for the new St. Anselm's, had been associated
with Balfour and Turner's church and expressed himself
'ready to build the successor church in the same spirit and
tradition of architecture'. Consequently St. Anselm's,
Belmont (1939–41), though a plain basilican building, was
partially constructed from the bricks of the old church;
the columns and capitals of St. Anselm's, Davies Street,
serve the nave arcade, many of the windows with their
original tracery and Prior's glass are re-used, and the
sanctuary paving and rails, choir stalls, font, organ,
doorways and roof trusses are all incorporated. The few
wall memorials were, on the other hand, transferred to St.
Mark's, North Audley Street. (ref. 115)
St. Anselm's Schools, Gilbert Street (demolished).
These parish schools (Plate 24a) were built in 1888–9 to the
design of W. D. Caröe, and demolished in 1939; their site
is now occupied by part of No. 65 Davies Street.
The first branch schools of the Hanover District of St.
George's parish were opened in 1846 in Davies Mews, and
were transferred a few years later to premises in South
Molton Street. (ref. 116) An inspector's report on their deficiency
led in 1886 to the school managers asking the Grosvenor
Board for a site, and the Duke of Westminster quickly
promised to present one on the east side of Gilbert Street,
between Cock Yard (now St. Anselm's Place) and Robert
(now Weighhouse) Street. By June 1887 W. D. Caröe had
been appointed architect for this, the first of several
commissions that he was to execute upon the Grosvenor
estates; the reason for his choice is unknown. Plans for a
school to accommodate 110 boys, 110 girls and 150 infants
were approved early in 1888, and in April the tender by
Messrs. Turtle and Appleton of Wandsworth to carry out
the work for £5,115 was accepted. The Duke opened the
completed Hanover Branch Schools on 4 March 1889. (ref. 117)
The plan and character of the new three-storey brick
building conformed to the principles of the London School
Board, with the departments for the elder children placed
above the infants' school. The master's house stood at the
street corner, while the playground came behind the school
in Gilbert Street. The design was tall and irregular but
compact, with only a few touches of Gothic detailing to
give a hint of style. The chief features were a broad bay
rising through all the storeys at the back, and a bellcote
sandwiched between two chimneys.
The buildings eventually became known as St. Anselm's
Schools. On ceasing to be used as schools they reverted in
1938 with the freehold of the land to the Grosvenor Estate,
and were demolished together with St. Anselm's Church
in 1939.
No. 65 Davies Street
No. 65 Davies Street is a seven-storey neo-Georgian
office block which occupies the whole island site bounded
by Davies Street, St. Anselm's Place, Gilbert Street and
Weighhouse Street. After St. Anselm's Church had been
demolished in 1939 and the site sold back to the Duke of
Westminster preparations were put in hand for rebuilding
on this large plot to the designs of Howard, Souster and
Partners, but the outbreak of war intervened and the
building was not erected until 1948–50. It houses the
British Council. (ref. 118)
Nos. 75–85 (odd) Davies Street and 7–9 (odd)Weighhouse Street.
At the time of writing (1978) this site
is awaiting redevelopment in connexion with the rebuilding of Bond Street Underground Station, but it was
formerly occupied by a block of shops and chambers which
were erected in 1890–1 in conjunction with an electrical
generating station (Plate 19b). The Westminster Electric
Supply Corporation, which was one of the companies
competing in the supply of electricity to Mayfair and
adjacent parts of Westminster, approached the Estate early
in 1890 for a site on which to build a power station. The
Board suggested a large plot at the corner of Davies and
Robert (now Weighhouse) Streets, for which the Company
agreed to pay a rent of £406 per annum on a sixty-year
lease. The generating station itself was designed by
Professor A. B. W. Kennedy, who was the Company's
chief engineer from 1890 to 1926, but the architectural
dress was supplied by C. Stanley Peach. The builders were
Holliday and Greenwood. (ref. 119)
Peach's lively street façades were not unfitting company
in the impressive group of late-Victorian buildings
towards the north end of Davies Street including St.
Anselm's Church, Boldings' factory and the headquarters
of the St. George's Rifles, all except Boldings now
demolished. Contemporaries, however, seemed as interested in the massive chimney-shaft of the power station
as in the design of the chambers and shops, one observer
commenting that 'It is very satisfactory to note the care
taken with the designs of these stations, now so numerous;
their chimneys have mostly some features to recommend
them to the eye, and the thread of white steam, which is all
that usually rises from them, rather enhances the effect of
their mass against the sky'. (ref. 120) The power station closed in
1922 and although the premises were subsequently used as
a garage (ref. 77) the chimney survived until the recent demolition
of the whole block.