Floral Street
Until 1895 this was known as Hart Street. The
part east of James Street was called Hart Street
from the beginning, and was so named in the
1638 ratebook. (ref. 143) It evidently took its name
from the White Hart Inn which was built in
1632–3 in Long Acre with a frontage on and
yard into Hart Street east of the present Nag's
Head. (ref. 154) The western part was at first called
Elm Street (ref. 155) (from Elm Close, an alternative
name of the Mercers' Company property north of
Long Acre (ref. 156) ) or Garden Lane. (ref. 157) In the eighteenth century the parts east and west of James
Street were named Great Hart Street and Little
Hart Street respectively in the parish ratebooks.
Until the early 1860's the street was blocked at
its west end beyond No. 24, where the south side
now breaks forward opposite Conduit Court, by
the rear curtilage of No. 29 King Street. This
west end was thus a cul de sac, save that after
about 1690 pedestrians could reach Long Acre
through Conduit Court, and could reach King
Street, very circuitously, via Conduit Court,
Lazenby Court and Rose Street (see Plate 7).
Most of the westward extension of Hart Street
made in 1861–5 is outside the area dealt with in
this volume.
The street was laid out immediately south of
the northern range of the brick wall which since
c. 1610 had enclosed the central part of Covent
Garden (see page 24), and which was demolished
to make the northern frontages of the new street.
This is mentioned, as an unnamed way 24 or 25
feet wide, in deeds of 1633 (ref. 158) (west of James
Street) and 1636 (ref. 159) (east of James Street). On
the south side of the street the frontages were
formed by the rear premises of the leasehold sites
in King Street and the Piazza, but nine or ten
occupants were assessed for rates on this side of the
street in 1637. On the north side seventeen or
eighteen were assessed. On this side the part west
of Banbury Court had been sold by Francis, Lord
Russell in 1618 to the Earl of Pembroke (see
page 268), and the part eastward of this as far as
James Street was alienated from the main Bedford line in 1640–1 when it was settled on the
fifth Earl's younger brother John. (ref. 147) East of
James Street some sites were granted away in fee
farm by the fourth and fifth Earls but others were
retained until the sale of 1918.
Although blocked at its west end, the east end
of the street opened from the first into Bow
Street, and James Street afforded access to the
Piazza and Long Acre. The latter was also
accessible from the beginning (in addition to the
passage through the yard of the White Hart
tavern) via Phoenix Alley (now Hanover Place),
which is named in the 1638 ratebook, (ref. 143) and,
probably, via Blackamoor Alley (later Leg Alley
and now Langley Court) which existed under
that name by 1653. (ref. 160) Both these passages are
shown on Hollar's mid seventeenth-century aerial
view. (fn. a) Of the other two surviving passages into
Long Acre, Conduit Court was probably made
in c. 1686–90 by Leonard Cunditt, an innholder
in Long Acre, (ref. 161) and is shown on Blome's parish
map of c. 1686. This does not show Banbury
Court, which is not mentioned by Strype in 1720
but is shown on Rocque's map published in 1746.
The first premises to be assessed for rates in the
street were mostly valued at low figures, but one
or two more substantial properties occur on both
sides and at both ends. The first occupants included two majors, a captain and a doctor, and in
1651 Sir John Clotworthy was lodging in the
street. (ref. 162) The goldsmith, tailor, barber and
shoemaker mentioned in records of the 1650's
and 1660's (ref. 163) were doubtless more typical of the
street, and in 1690 it contained nine licensed
victuallers. (ref. 144) A 'French school' is mentioned
in the following year, evidently at the time of its
closure. (ref. 164) In 1703 the churchwardens were
authorized to take a house in the street for the use
of the parish poor. (ref. 165) Strype spoke of the street in
1720 as 'not over well built or inhabited; the
South Side being for the greatest Part taken up by
Coach-houses and Stables belonging to the
Houses in Covent Garden'. (ref. 8) One or two cabinetmakers occur in the street in the 1740's and
1750's, (ref. 166) and also auction rooms (ref. 167) (probably
at No. 53 where an auctioneer had premises in the
1770's). (ref. 168) In the 1750's a stonemason, Thomas
Stephens, had premises in the street, (ref. 169) doubtless
at No. 16 where he was located in 1773. (ref. 170)
In 1751 a ratepayer identifiable as a schoolmaster
appears at the site of No. 12, (ref. 171) and was succeeded by another until the building on that site
was taken by the British and Foreign School
Society in the 1820's, and subsequently rebuilt in
its present form (see page 62). The parish
girls' charity school was also somewhere in the
street in the 1770's. (ref. 1) A sedan-chair maker is
mentioned in 1775 and a fan-mounter (at No. 48)
in 1785. (ref. 172) A disorderly house at No. 49
attracted the attention of the parish vestry in
1787, (ref. 173) and by the early nineteenth century the
parish records contain a number of references to
nuisances in the street. Disorderly houses were
complained of again in 1819. (ref. 174) In 1829 the
Committee of Management set up a sub-committee to consider complaints of the presence of four
'Dung Pits'. On investigation, two were judged
to be 'offensive', as the neighbours threw filth and
dead animals into them. Only one was recommended for removal, as the footway on the south
side of the street in their locality was not made use
of, and the abolition of all the pits would have
been an inconvenience to stable-keepers. (ref. 175) In the
early 1840's brothels, particularly near Bow Street,
were again attracting parochial attention: (ref. 176)
one good man living on the corner with that street
suggested in 1844 that the name of Bow Street
should, by reason of its ill fame, be changed, and
likewise that of Hart Street, 'which is as notorious
as any Street in London—Any name would be
better than the old one'. (ref. 177) In 1848 a doctor resident in James Street made a different complaint,
of the stench from the cow-shed at No. 11 Hart
Street. Investigation, however, proved inconclusive: some neighbours supported the complaint,
while others 'attributed their improved state of
health to the fact of their proximity to the
Cows'. (ref. 178)
In 1861 the Duke of Bedford's steward
reported that the street was almost entirely
occupied as warehouses, workshops and stabling.
To ease the congestion on market-days the Duke
decided to undertake the expense of opening the
west end into the newly made Garrick Street, and
this was done by 1865. (ref. 179) At the same time the
subordination of the street to the market was
emphasized by the decision that as leases on the
south side of the street fell in the sites should be
rebuilt as seedsmen's warehouses, in the hope of
attracting the seed trade to Covent Garden. (ref. 180)
The Post Office directories of the later nineteenth century show the extension of trades connected with the market in the street, and by 1899
the congestion from market traffic was again bad
enough to discourage the retention of No. 12 as a
school-building. The market-trades are still very
strongly represented, together with some activities
ancillary to the world of opera and ballet. In
contrast to the mid nineteenth century, the north
side, which was then largely taken up by the backs
of coach-building and other premises in Long
Acre, is represented by more individual sites in the
directories than is the south. A few very plain
buildings on the north side probably date from the
first half of the nineteenth century, but the present character of the street is mainly that of late
nineteenth-century warehouses and workshops.
Ratepaying occupants of Hart Street include:
Lady Millyson, 1636; Major Gibbs, 1637–
c. 1640; Major Moore, 1637–c. 1640; Dr.
Harte, 1639–40; Captain Woode, 1639.
No. 12 Floral Street
See page 62.
No. 24 Floral Street
This building was erected in 1858–9 (Plate
74b). An eighty-year building lease from Lady
Day 1858 was granted by the Duke of Bedford
in November 1860 to Robert Rogers, a gold-lace
maker at No. 30 King Street, of a piece of ground
including this site at its northern end and the
premises in King Street at its southern. The
accepted tender for this warehouse from William
Howard, a local builder, was published in October
1858 and named C. G. Searle as the architect. (ref. 181)
The front is an excellent example of industrial
architecture, making its effect with a formal pattern of windows, furnished with metal casements
of late-Georgian character, set in a plain face of
stock brickwork. There are three lofty storeys,
the second and third each having a central group
of four windows, almost square in proportion,
with stone sills and segmental arches of brick.
At each end is a very wide window of three equal
lights, its flat gauged brick arch resting on an
iron lintel-plate supported by slender Doric
colonnettes of cast iron, placed in front of the
mullions. This general pattern is repeated in the
ground storey, with doors replacing some of
the windows.
Nos. 46 And 47 Floral Street
These small houses with shop fronts were built
in or shortly before 1830 (ref. 182) and retain much of
their early nineteenth-century character (Plate
74a). Each house has a narrow front of three
storeys, one window wide, to Floral Street, and
No. 47 has a return front, three windows wide,
to Hanover Place. The shop fronts are furnished with barred sashes, placed between slender
plain-shafted Doric pilasters which support a
deep fascia and a dentilled cornice, all of painted
woodwork. The two-storeyed upper face of
stock brick has plain sill-bands of painted stone or
stucco extending across the Floral Street front
only, and is finished with a narrow stone coping.
The barred sashes of the windows are hung in
openings having plastered reveals, stone sills, and
shallow segmental arches, the brickwork dressed
with stucco to simulate three voussoirs, the middle
one projecting slightly. Dormer windows project from the steep slope of the slated mansard
roof.
No. 52 Floral Street and
Nos. 7 And 8 Bow Street
These houses were erected in 1838, when the
north-west end of Bow Street was widened by
the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. The
Commissioners' architects, Thomas Chawner
and Henry Rhodes, had required the excessive
width between the windows of the upper storeys,
shown in the elevation submitted to them, to be
reduced, but they are still very widely spaced. (ref. 183)
The first occupants of No. 52 Floral Street were
Thomas Stevens, the parish surveyor of pavements,
and the sculptor Peter Skae; of No. 7 Bow Street
a dentist and a chemist; and of No. 8 (probably) a
firm of gasfitters. (ref. 184)