Hereford Street and Hereford Gardens
Few areas of the estate have changed so drastically as the
part of Oxford Street now occupied by Hereford House
where not only is the present building quite different in
function, type and scale from the houses which previously
existed on the site, but also in the process of its erection a
whole street was swept away. This was Hereford Gardens
(formerly Hereford Street) which ran parallel to Oxford
Street about forty-five feet to the south. Joining Park
Street at its east end, it was closed on the west by a wall
separating it from the courtyard of Camelford House, but a
short north-south arm gave access to Oxford Street.
The large rectangle bounded by Park Street on the east,
Park Lane on the west, Oxford Street on the north and
North Row on the south was the last parcel of ground to be
taken under a building agreement during the initial
development of the Mayfair part of the Grosvenor estate.
In June 1765 John Phillips, carpenter, contracted to pay
£320 per annum after a two-year peppercorn term—a rent
well in excess of that previously paid by speculators on the
estate—for ninety-nine-year leases of this north-west
corner. (ref. 15) Phillips was the nephew of Thomas Phillips,
carpenter, and he lived in the house built by his uncle at
No. 39 Brook Street. (ref. 16) By this time he had himself
established a considerable reputation as a master carpenter
both in London and elsewhere.
The agreement makes no reference to a new street being
cut through the area, but by 1773, when the first building
leases were granted, both the line of the street and its name
had been determined. It was originally intended to extend
all the way from Park Street to Park Lane but the intended
western end was in the event used as the courtyards of the
two large mansions built there.
On the north side of Hereford Street between Park
Street and the return arm joining Oxford Street Phillips,
and, after his death in 1775, (ref. 17) his executors, sub-let the
ground to building tradesmen who built a conventional
terrace of three- and four-storey houses facing south.
Among the tradesmen were John Barlow, bricklayer and
coal dealer; William Barlow, bricklayer; John Dibbs,
painter; John Elkins, bricklayer; William Phillips,
builder; and Thomas Webb, plumber. The sub-leases date
from 1774–8, but the houses were not all occupied until
1787. (ref. 18) Originally they had short gardens at the rear on the
Oxford Street side but shops were later built there and can
be seen in Tallis's view of Oxford Street in 1838–40 (fig.
42).
On the remaining plot on the north side, between the
north-south arm of Hereford Street and the stable block of
the mansion which came to be known as Camelford House,
a substantial house with a coach-house and stabling was
built, probably by John Phillips, and completed in 1774. (ref. 19)
Originally numbered in Oxford Street, the house later
became No. 10 Hereford Street, and, after 1870, No. 12
Hereford Gardens. Lieutenant-General Sir Hildebrand
Oakes lived there from 1815 until his death in 1822, and he
was followed by Sir Hudson Lowe, governor of St. Helena
during the exile of Napoleon, (ref. 20) who, perhaps after making
substantial embellishments, persuaded the Estate to grant
him a new fifty-six-year lease in 1837, even though the
existing lease still had twenty-seven years to run. (ref. 21) Tallis's
view of the Oxford Street front at about this time (fig. 42)
shows that the main body of the house was of four tall
storeys, with a long two-storey wing to the east. Lowe lived
there until 1840. (ref. 22) In later years the house was turned into
bachelor chambers (ref. 23) and refronted (Plate 45a), but the
grant of a new lease in 1837 eventually proved of some
embarrassment to the Estate. The presence of the building
had an adverse effect on the letting of the grand new houses
built in Hereford Gardens after 1864, and when, in 1885,
the leaseholder, John Galsworthy (probably the father of
the novelist in his capacity as a man of property) applied
for renewal terms he was informed that no extension could
be granted. The house was demolished promptly on the
expiry of the lease in 1893 and its site made into a garden. (ref. 24)
The south side of Hereford Street was developed after
John Phillips's death under direct leases from Lord
Grosvenor to the architect John Crunden, at the direction
of Phillips's executors, in 1777, at a total ground rent of
£180 per annum. (ref. 25) Crunden also took the return frontage
to Park Street under sub-leases from the executors in
1778. (ref. 26) For this small site he designed a symmetrical group
of three houses which he had built under contract, but in
Hereford Street a terrace of nine houses numbered 11–19
(consec.) from west to east was erected under sub-leases
from Crunden, mostly to building tradesmen. (fn. a) Illustrations of the terrace in early nineteenth-century views of
the west end of Oxford Street (ref. 29) show a group of four large
houses at the west end, one of them (No. 13 leased to Cox)
having a pediment and pilasters which were no doubt
intended to close the vista from Oxford Street down the
north-south arm of Hereford Street.
The building firm of Henry Holland the younger and
Lancelot (Capability) Brown appear to have worked on the
four westernmost houses and on the houses in Park
Street. (ref. 30) Crunden himself was an assistant to Henry
Holland the elder and it is possible that he maintained an
association with the same building firm when run by
Holland's son and used it in his speculations. (ref. 31) Of the
building tradesmen who were granted sub-leases by
Crunden only Thomas Carter, mason, the lessee of No. 15,
is known to have been connected with Holland and Brown.
He was presumably the stone-carver who had a yard near
Piccadilly and specialized in fine chimneypieces. (ref. 32) John
and William Hinchliff, the lessees of No. 19, were also
noted masons, (ref. 33) and it may be significant that in 1864,
when fittings of some of the houses were to be sold prior to
their demolition, the Marquess of Westminster asked that
'the valuable chimney pieces' should be reserved from the
sale (ref. 34) (see Plate 75b).
The majority of the houses on the south side of Hereford
Street were occupied by 1785. (ref. 22) In that year, however,
Thomas Pitt, now Baron Camelford, who was living at the
adjoining Camelford House, offered Nos. 11 and 12 (at the
west end) to the Society of Dilettanti for conversion into a
museum and library to a design prepared by his friend,
John Soane (Plate 69d). In his proposal he stated that,
'They have cost him above three thousand pounds, no
expense having been spared upon the timbers and other
materials', and thought that they could be finished for the
Society's purposes for a further £2,500. (ref. 35) The Society,
however, considered that this sum and the cost of upkeep
were beyond their resources, and the houses were occupied
as normal dwelling houses by 1789. (ref. 22)
The success of the terrace can be judged from the social
status of its early occupants. Before the end of the
eighteenth century the inhabitants of these nine houses
included the Dutch ambassador; the Dowager Countess of
Darnley; Lord Seaforth; Lady Archer, widow of the
second Baron; two baronets—Sir Alexander Craufurd and
Sir John D'Oyley; Ladies Finch and Winn; Generals
Morrison and Stibbert; and Colonel Hastings. (ref. 22) Besides
the chimneypieces, several of the houses must have had
fine decorative features. Soane undertook work at No. 14
in 1794, (ref. 36) and when No. 12, first occupied by Lady Archer,
was demolished in 1865 twenty-four paintings thought to
be by Henry Howard were removed from two drawingroom ceilings. (ref. 37) Paintings were also preserved from No.
13. (ref. 38)
The three houses in Park Street designed by Crunden
are illustrated in a lecture drawing by Soane which shows
an elaborate composition for such a small and inconspicuous site (Plate 13c in vol. XXXIX). In the centre
Crunden placed a wide, five-bay house of three storeys, the
third being a full attic storey as defined by a classical
frontispiece of pilasters, entablature and pediment framing
the three central bays. The pilasters had capitals freely
derived from the Tower of the Winds in Athens, an Order
used by Crunden at Boodle's Club in St. James's Street of
approximately the same date. (ref. 39) On each side were plainer
two-bay houses, heightened by an extra storey in the roof
and advanced slightly from the main façade of the centre
house, having long return frontages to Hereford Street and
North Row respectively. All three houses were either faced
with stucco jointed in imitation of stone or possibly stone
faced, and were finished by 1778. (ref. 22)
The centre house, which was later known as No. 62 Park
Street, was let by Crunden at a rack rent of £160 to
Thomas Fitzherbert. (ref. 40) He died in 1781 and his widow, the
celebrated Mrs. Fitzherbert, married the Prince of Wales
(later George IV) at this house in 1785. (ref. 41) Soane undertook
repairs here in 1801 for Kenelm Digby, esquire, who took
up residence in that year. (ref. 42) The southern house (No. 63
Park Street) was probably also let for short terms; between
1812 and 1837 it was occupied by Crunden's 'much
esteemed relation', Sarah Stevenson, to whom he left
£1,000 in his will. (ref. 43) The northern house (No. 20 Hereford
Street) was occupied by Crunden himself from 1778 until
his death in 1835 in his ninety-fifth year. (ref. 44)
In 1863, one year before the leases granted under John
Phillips's building agreement of 1765 were due to expire,
the Marquess of Westminster decided that Hereford
Street should be rebuilt (with the necessary exception of
No. 10, the lease of which had been renewed in 1837).
Measured by the standing of their occupants, the houses
on the south side could hardly be said to be at the end of
their useful life. The inhabitants in that year included
Lords Delamere, Rivers and Saltoun and Lady Charles
Townshend, and, until recently, one house had been used
as the Spanish Embassy. The income in fines and rents
from renewals of the existing leases would certainly have
equalled if not exceeded that eventually obtained from the
ground rents of the new houses, and, apart from a general
desire for 'improvement' there were no obvious reasons for
redevelopment. Thomas Cundy III was, however, given
the opportunity to provide another architectural essay in
the Second Empire manner of Grosvenor Gardens. (ref. 45)
Figure 43:
Hereford Gardens (demolished), site plan in 1875
Cundy's first design was for nine houses on the south
side of the street and stabling on the north side, his role
evidently being merely to provide the elevations, the
internal planning being left to the developer concerned.
Charles James Freake applied for terms but he thought
that the houses would be too expensive to build and he
would not offer sufficient ground rent. (ref. 46) George Trollope
and Sons, after some negotiation, ultimately agreed in 1866
to pay a total ground rent of £1,200 per annum for ninety-nine-year leases, provided that some modification of the
scheme would be permitted. This condition was accepted,
and the changes made at Trollopes' insistence, apart from
minor alterations to Cundy's elevations, were the substitution of a garden for the proposed stabling on the
ground between Hereford Street and Oxford Street, and,
after some prevarication, the building of eleven houses
rather than nine. (ref. 47)
The rebuilding of Hereford Street was much bedevilled
by the great financial crisis of 1866, which was followed, in
1869–71, by a sharp downturn in the volume of building in
London. Before the building contract had even been
exchanged Trollopes applied unsuccessfully to borrow
£20,000 from the Estate, giving as their reason the present
'money market difficulties'. Nevertheless they signed the
agreement, (ref. 48) and building began in 1866 from the west
end. By 1869 only five houses had been covered in, all of
them having stabling at the rear in North Row. This slow
progress was causing some concern, however, and
references in the Board minutes to 'Messrs. Trollope's
want of capital' elicited in 1869 the response that the crisis
of 1866 was 'still preventing houses of this class being
taken'. (ref. 49) Two of the houses for which leases were granted
were apparently not occupied until 1875. (ref. 50)
Trollopes also criticized the decision to erect railings
instead of a wall between the garden ground and Oxford
Street. The main purpose of this proposed wall was to
reduce the noise of traffic, but the Vestries of St.
Marylebone and St. George's, Hanover Square, objected to
its intended height, which was ultimately in 1870 fixed at
only four feet six inches, topped by iron railings. In the
same year the name of the street was changed to Hereford
Gardens, ostensibly to avoid confusion with Hertford
Street, but perhaps also to provide an address more
suggestive of rus in urbe. (ref. 51)
In 1871 G. F. Trollope asked to be allowed to substitute
plainer elevations for Cundy's design in the remaining
houses so that they could be sold for £8,000 rather than
£11,000. He complained of the noise from Oxford Street
and the lack of depth of the plots, and stated that 'neither
his firm, nor any other could, he thought, make a fair profit
out of the houses if built according to the present
elevations'. As it seemed unlikely that anyone else would
take over the contract on reasonable terms, the Board
agreed and the firm's revised elevations for the remaining
houses in Hereford Gardens and an additional house at the
corner with Park Street (known as Hereford House and
later No. 117 Park Street) were approved by the third
Marquess (later the first Duke of Westminster). (ref. 52) These
houses were built without attached stables, land for which
was provided on the east side of Park Street where they
were grouped around a courtyard called Hereford Gardens
Mews entered from North Row (Plate 48e). The elevations
of this stable block were designed by Cundy with
inevitable modifications by Trollopes. (ref. 53)
The leases of the remaining houses in Hereford Gardens
were dated 1873 and that of Hereford House December
1874, (ref. 54) but it was not until 1876 that all the houses were
finally occupied. Despite the protracted history of their
erection they attracted several notable inhabitants. The
first occupants included the third Marquess of Exeter, the
sixth Earl of Glasgow, the twenty-second Baron Dacre and
the fourteenth Baron Inchiquin. P. C. Hardwick, the
architect, lived at No. 2 from 1874 until his death in 1892.
By 1880 his neighbours included a marquess, three earls
and a baron. (ref. 50)
In completing Hereford Gardens Trollopes, either out
of their own aesthetic sense or at Cundy's insistence, used
his design for one more house to complete a uniform
composition in the western half of the terrace. This
consisted of six tall houses with high roofs and attics
lighted by elaborate dormer windows; the end houses were
advanced from the general building line and their roofs
were heightened in a full French pavilion treatment with
long, tapering iron finials as in Grosvenor Gardens (Plate
45a; see also Plate 14b in vol. XXXIX).