The former Charles Street
Now Nos. 28–44 (even) and 33–49 (odd)
Wellington Street
This northern part of Wellington Street, between
Tavistock Street and Russell Street, antedates the
southern part by two centuries, and had existed
as Charles Street since the fourth Earl of Bedford's development of Covent Garden. (For Nos.
23–31 and 18–26 Wellington Street see pages 226–
229.) Seventeenth-century maps (Plates 3,
5, 6)
show that originally, although the line of Charles
Street was continued northward by Bow Street, at
the southern end it communicated only eastward
with York Street. Southward egress was blocked
by the gateway into the stables of Bedford
House, and a proposal to make a continuation to
the Strand in 1673 came to nothing (see page 36).
When the Bedford House site was laid into streets
in 1706–14 a westward communication was
opened at the southern end of Charles Street via
the new Tavistock Street, but no southward
extension was made (Plate 7). When this was
provided by the opening of Wellington Street in
1835 Charles Street retained its name until 1844,
when it was changed to Upper Wellington Street.
The separate enumeration of the houses was preserved, but in 1859 both the name and numbering
were assimilated to Wellington Street.
Charles Street was laid out under leases running
from 1631 (on the east side) and from 1633–5 (on
the west side), which are tabulated on pages 298–9.
The street filled up with inhabitants during the
years 1632–8. (ref. 2) Much of the west side consisted of
the backs of two sites leased in the Piazza, but
houses were built on these rear frontages, and all
this side was occupied from the beginning by
ratepayers assessed in Charles Street. In the middle
of the west side a passage extended to the southeast corner of the Piazza, where it was still shown
on Horwood's map of 1819 (Plate 8).
One of the first occupants, in 1635, was designated 'grocer' in the ratebooks, and the street
was never socially very exalted, attracting hardly
any persons of title as permanent residents.
In 1640–1 the north end of the west side and
all the east side was settled on the fourth Earl of
Bedford's younger son, Edward Russell. (ref. 63) Only
the north-west part was regained by the Dukes of
Bedford in the nineteenth century and the consequences of the 1640–1 settlement are very visible
today in the contrast between the east and west
sides of this stretch of Wellington Street. By 1685
(probably in about 1663) all the east side had been
sold by Edward Russell, evidently to three
different purchasers: John Athy, Nicholas Ady
or Atty, and Richard Arris. (ref. 89)
From 1681 a site on the west side was held on
lease together with the Old Hummums in the
Piazza, and afforded an alternative entrance to
the 'sweating—house' there (see page 91). In
1691–5 a music-room and auction-room was
situated next to the gate into Bedford stable-yard,
and Robert King and Johann Franck gave vocal
and instrumental concerts here under the name of
the 'Vendu'. (ref. 90) The social character of the street
was mixed. From 1721 the actors Colley Cibber
and Barton Booth lived in adjacent houses newly
built on part of the present site of the Flower
Market. (ref. 91) A few years later, about 1726, the
house on the site of the present No. 40 Wellington
Street was taken as the parsonage house of the
parish of St. Mary le Strand: it continued to be
listed as such in the Covent Garden ratebooks
until 1876 and still has a tablet bearing the initials
of that parish fixed to its front. The adjacent
house at No. 38, when occupied as the Hanover
coffee house, was so badly conducted in 1787
that the Covent Garden vestry took measures
against it. (ref. 92) In the first half of the nineteenth
century Charles Street had a doubtful reputation.
In 1835 the inhabitants complained to the vestry
of the notorious brothels at two houses on the west
side near Russell Street, and by 1844 the former
Hanover coffee house had (if it was ever reformed)
relapsed, to become, with the adjacent house
southward, a brothel of 'the very lowest description'. (ref. 93) By that time the street had been opened
to a greater current of traffic by the making of
Wellington Street. Charles Street was not widened
or re-aligned, but because of 'the bad repute' in
which it stood, the old name was abolished in
1844. (ref. 94)
The mid nineteenth-century Post Office directories indicate the very miscellaneous character of
the occupants: a public house, a theatrical hosier,
two coffee rooms, a figure-maker, an appraiser,
the Weekly News, and a barber on the east side,
and a hotel, a solicitor, a type-printer, a musicseller, the Gardener's Chronicle, a pencil-maker,
and a corn-dealer on the west. The transformation of the street into part of a main highway
was, however, to bring great changes on the
west side where the Dukes of Bedford redeveloped
most of the sites to house the Flower Market: first
in 1862–3 at Nos. 37 and 39, then in 1871–2
with the building of a widened front at Nos. 35–
39, and again in 1904–5 when Nos. 43–49 were
rebuilt as the Flower-Market extension on a site
partially re-acquired by the Bedford estate in the
nineteenth century. These ducal enterprises have
divested the west side of the street of all its former
domestic character. On the east side, however, the
properties alienated from the Bedford estate in
1640–1 have been little affected in their fabric
by the opportunities for overall redevelopment
offered by the opening of Wellington Street and
the growth of the market. None of the houses
can be identified as being of any great age but no
general reconstruction seems to have taken place
since the eighteenth century. At No. 42 a public
house has borne the name of the Coach and
Horses since 1753: (ref. 95) the present building probably preserves the elevational pattern of a rebuilding of 1775–6. (ref. 78) The plain house at No. 30
was probably built in 1760–1, and was first
occupied by a teacher of the bassoon. (ref. 96)
Ratepaying occupants in Charles Street include:
Lady Perrin, 1636; Captain Yarmouth, 1636;
Captain Abraham Yarner, 1637–c. 1641; Dr.
Samuel Baker, 1652–c. 1657; Dr. Thomas
Laurence, c. 1684–5; Captain Henry Harris,
c. 1687–c. 1702; Thomas Gibson, c. 1705–45,
portrait painter; Barton Booth, 1721–33, actor;
Colley Cibber, 1721–40, actor; Captain Thomas
Baker, c. 1726–36.