The Architectural Decline of
the Piazza
Before attempting to chart the breaking up,
gradual at first, of the Piazza's original uniformity,
it is necessary to note the presence of balconies
extending in front of the principal-storey windows belonging to the second and seventh houses
on the north side. As these highly fashionable
'purgulas' appear in the bird's-eye view by Hollar
and in the early painting at Wilton (Plates 1, 11)
it is reasonable to assume that they were provided
when the houses were built, and are not to be
regarded as serious departures from the original
design of the portico buildings.
Here it may be observed that the uniform
stuccoing of the pilaster-strips, window-aprons,
and upper sill-band was probably carried out at an
early date, although it may not have been intended by Inigo Jones or de Caus. There is no
direct reference to this work in the building
accounts relating to the north-east portico buildings, and it is significant that the Corinthian
pilasters in Great Queen Street and the Ionic
pilasters in Lincoln's Inn Fields had exposed brick
shafts.
Some rebuilding of the original houses in the
Piazza took place before the close of the seventeenth century. Three houses on the east side
(Nos. 1–3 Little Piazza) which collapsed in 1670
were rebuilt as before, but the first important
change came in 1689–90 when the north house
on the west side (No. 1 King Street) was rebuilt in
an entirely different style with an 'artisan' front
having five windows crowded into each storey,
and a gabled wall facing south to the churchyard (ref. 22) (Plates 28a, 30a). In c. 1698 the regularity of the portico houses in the Great Piazza
was disrupted for the first time when the house on
the east corner of James Street was altered about
the roof, and a balustraded parapet substituted for
the original eaves-cornice.
Early in the eighteenth century the south side
of the Piazza was transformed. After the death of
the first Duke of Bedford in 1700 the second
Duke removed from Bedford House in the
Strand to Southampton House in Bloomsbury and
the site of the old house and its garden was built
upon. This entailed the removal of the market,
hitherto close to the garden wall of Bedford
House, into the railed open space of the Piazza.
In 1706–14 fourteen plain houses without arcades
were built on the south side of the square (later
numbered 4–6 and 8–14 Tavistock Row, 20
Southampton Street and 1–3 Henrietta Street),
and Southampton Street was made, linking the
Piazza for the first time with the Strand (fig. 32
on page 208).
The house on the south side of the church (No.
37 Henrietta Street) was rebuilt in 1729–30, (ref. 23)
and that on the north side, No. 1 King Street,
which had already been rebuilt in 1689–90, was
again rebuilt in 1753–4 (ref. 24) (Plates 28a, 29b).
The first major casualty to the uniform facade
of the portico buildings occurred in 1716–17
when, during the minority of the third Duke, his
trustees permitted the westernmost house in the
north range of the Great Piazza to be rebuilt, with
disastrous effect. Four bays of the portico building
were now replaced by the assertive Baroque front
of No. 43 King Street, designed in a style akin to
Thomas Archer's (Plate 77a). This new and inappropriate front, with seven windows to each
storey where the original building had only four,
may well have prompted Campbell's slighting
observation on 'the Lanthorn Way of Building',
even though he was discreet enough not to offend
by a more direct reference.
By the middle of the eighteenth century, or
possibly earlier, stucco was being applied to the
portico houses in the Great Piazza. Charles
Macklin's lease of No. 10–11 in 1753 required
him to stucco (or perhaps re-stucco) the pilasters
on the front of the house. (ref. 25) In 1761 the lessee of
No. 4–5 was requested to stucco the west and
south fronts of his house all over, (ref. 26) and the lessee
of No. 12 had to 'new stucco' the front of his
house and the rustics of the piers (presumably
the piers of the arcade). (ref. 27) In the following year
repairs at No. 6–7 included making good the
stucco in the 'piazza' or portico walk and on the
fronts to correspond with the adjoining houses (ref. 28)
(i.e. No. 4–5 and No. 8), and in 1775 the
tenant of No. 3 had to repair the stucco on the
front of his house and the ornaments round the
windows. (ref. 29) No. 2 apparently retained its brick
face until Thomas Drury applied a composition
in 1802. (ref. 30) The adjoining house, No. 1, is shown
with a stucco front in a photograph taken shortly
before its demolition (Plate 44b).
A scheme to restore architectural uniformity
was initiated around 1796, when the leaseholder
of No. 4–5, on the east corner of James Street,
was required to rebuild his ruinous premises and
use Portland stone for the arcade, pilasters, window dressings, parapet and balustrade. This was
done at the request of the fifth Duke's surveyor,
Henry Holland, who supervised the work 'as his
Grace intended to rebuild and continue the whole
of the Piazza in like manner'. (ref. 31) Despite this,
No. 3 on the west corner of James Street, with
three bays to the Piazza, was partly rebuilt around
1800 in a most utilitarian manner with a plain
brick face above the arcade. A few years later the
five bays westwards were refaced with stucco
above the arcade and dressed with giant Tuscan
pilasters, obviously copied from the portico of
St. Paul's Church. At first these pilasters supported an appropriate entablature which, all too
soon, was mutilated to form a fascia for signs
(Plate 44). Although their evidence is not conclusive, some views drawn at this time suggest
that other houses were dressed with this Tuscan
order, notably those at the north end of the east
side, where considerable damage had been caused
in 1808 by the fire at Covent Garden Theatre.
By this time many of the arcade piers had been
crudely repaired, their rusticated faces being
cleaned off and rendered smooth with cement. (fn. a)
The fifth Duke's intention to rebuild in accordance with Holland's designs presumably
applied only to the remaining portico houses in
the Great Piazza, for those in the Little Piazza had
already been destroyed by a fire in 1769. This intention was a reversal of the fourth Duke's ideas,
for after the fire of 1769 the steward of the estate
had written to the Duke's agent that he thought
the restoration of the 'little piazzas' would be 'an
Extraordinary Expence and answer to little purpose', particularly 'as the other [i.e. the Great]
piazzas are propos'd to be demolished at the
Expiration of the present Leases'. He suggested
that it would be better to rebuild without the
portico walk and to set back the frontage 5 or
6 feet from its former line. (ref. 32) The new houses
were so built, a terrace of four sharing a front
somewhat similar to those of Flitcroft's houses
around Bloomsbury Square (Plates 32b, 47a).
This four-storeyed front was built of brick, with
a stone or stucco bandcourse at first-floor level
and a modillioned cornice below the attic, which
was carried up to form a parapet partly concealing
the garret windows. Each house had a roundarched doorway, recessed in a rusticated doorcase
with a triangular pediment, and some of the firstfloor windows were dressed with a moulded
architrave, pulvinated frieze, and cornice.
In 1858 the four bays at the east end of the
north side of the Great Piazza were demolished
to make room for the conservatory-architecture of
the Floral Hall (Plate 42b), and by 1868 the remainder of this range east of James Street was
repaired and partly rebuilt as the Tavistock Hotel
(Plate 45a). Although the original design of the
rusticated arcade was retained, it was surmounted
by a lofty upper face finished with cement, having
two main storeys dressed with a giant order of
Corinthian plain-shafted pilasters, and an attic
storey above the entablature. This reconstruction
produced a building with a uniform front of eight
bays, which was closer in style to the Queen's
Gallery at old Somerset House, then ascribed to
Jones, than to the original portico buildings.
Contrary to what might have been expected,
the Tavistock Hotel elevation was not duplicated
when the corresponding eight-bay range west of
James Street was rebuilt in 1877–9 as Bedford
Chambers (Plates 45a, 45b, 49a). When the need
for rebuilding here had arisen, the ninth Duke,
with his good taste and concern for architectural
propriety, had insisted, somewhat against his own
interests, that the facade of the new buildings
should approximate to the original design. The
Duke's wishes must have been clearly expressed
for his surveyor, W. S. Cross, even suggested that
he might like to consider the continuation of 'the
Piazza', or portico walk, round the south side of
the square and went so far as to prepare a design
for the Duke's approval. (ref. 33) This scheme came to
nothing, however, for the Duke commissioned
Henry Clutton, the architect whom he had
recently engaged to restore St. Paul's Church, to
design Bedford Chambers. He also desired that
Clutton should be consulted upon the designs for
other new buildings in the Piazza.
In Bedford Chambers, Clutton echoed the
original Jones—de Caus elevation with restrained
French overtones, producing a design of considerable distinction which was beautifully executed by William Cubitt and Company in
Portland stone and fine narrow-coursed red
brickwork. Nevertheless, the Duke's intentions
and Clutton's designs were strongly criticized in
The Builder in 1878. Recognizing a general
resemblance to 'the massive houses erected in
France during the reign of "Henri quatre"'
(presumably in Paris, in the Place des Vosges), the
writer went on to complain that 'Such façades are
only tolerable when they are known to be the
genuine work of the seventeenth century, and are,
necessarily, crowned by the lofty roof of steep
pitch.'
Curiously enough, the same writer found little
fault with Clutton's façades to the contemporaneous building on the corner of Southampton
Street and Henrietta Street, 'except, perhaps, that
the dormer windows are too big and powerful'.
This building, now Nos. 1–2 Henrietta Street, has
a lower stage of rusticated stonework that is not
arcaded, and an upper stage of red brickwork
where the windows are linked vertically by their
stone dressings, rising through the balustraded
parapet into tall pedimented dormers (Plate 48b).
In 1883–5 Nos. 1–4 King Street, north of the
church, were rebuilt with façades by Clutton that
combined a rusticated arcade, containing the
ground-storey and mezzanine windows, with a
three-storeyed upper stage closely related to that
of Nos. 1–2 Henrietta Street, except that the
prominent stone dormers were omitted (Plate
48a).
The next stage involved part of the south range
on the east side of the Piazza, where the Hummums Hotel (now Russell Chambers) was rebuilt
in 1887 (Plate 49b). Here the façades take on
a more Italianate character, especially in the
treatment of the windows of the three-storeyed
upper stage, although affinity with the earlier
buildings is maintained by the rusticated arcade
framing the ground-storey and mezzanine windows, and by the pedimented dormer windows
of stone that break the crowning balustrade. A
perspective drawing of the new Flower Market
in Tavistock Street (Plate 43c) shows that it was
then intended to rebuild the north range of the
east side of the Piazza as an exact match with the
new Hummums Hotel, and to build a similar block
on the south side of the Piazza, between Southampton Street and the new Flower Market,
leaving space for a wide covered way from the
Piazza to Tavistock Street.
This, however, was not to be, for when the
much-altered north-east range was demolished
in 1887–8, its site was absorbed into the market
area. Although Nos. 34–37 Henrietta Street were
rebuilt in 1889–90, providing a block on the
south side of the church to balance that on the
north (Plate 48b), there were no further attempts
to complete the uniform rebuilding envisaged by
the ninth Duke and his architect. The formation
of Mart Street in 1932–3 brought about the
demolition of the Tavistock Hotel, which was
partly replaced by the commonplace block of
Piazza Chambers. Now, despite its larger scale
and some stylistic differences, Clutton's Bedford
Chambers alone survives to recall the grandeur
and uniformity of the portico buildings erected in
the 1630's.