Chandos Place
Plate 51c
Until 1937 this was known as Chandos Street.
It takes its name from the fourth Earl of Bedford's father-in-law, the third Lord Chandos.
The part comprised in the parish of St. Paul,
Covent Garden, extended westward from Bedford Street to include (on the north side) the
eastern part of the present Peabody Estate frontage (that is, the sites of Nos. 58 and 59 Chandos
Street as shown on Horwood's map) and (on the
south side) approximately the eastern half of the
Charing Cross Hospital frontage (that is Nos. 8–
15 consec. Chandos Street on Horwood). (fn. a)
On the north side the site of Nos. 60–68 was
granted to a single lessee, Richard Brigham, the
King's coachmaker, in 1631 (see table on page 294)
and was built up, with one or two gaps, in the
years 1636–8. (ref. 21) On the south side most of the sites
were sold by the fourth Earl in 1635 and 1637,
reserving only fee-farm rents. The purchasers
here included Thomas Baldwyn, perhaps the
comptroller of the Office of Works, and Daniel
Charlewood, the bricklayer. (ref. 74) One of the houses
on this side, No. 5, had fine and distinctive woodwork that was admired by Soane and delineated
by C. J. Richardson (ref. 75) (Plate 75). This was
probably the house, built on ground sold by the
fourth Earl to a John Browne in 1638, which
appears in the ratebooks in 1644 in the occupation of a 'Mr German', succeeded in 1645 by
John Trenchard, the Earl's steward. Other early
occupants were probably Sir William Lister
(1647) and George Kirke, esquire (c. 1648–52).
By 1679, however, it seems to have become the
Three Tuns tavern. It is known that by 1677
the house had a balcony, opening from the diningroom, which is mentioned in a deed of that year
among the fixtures to be maintained in repair by
the lessee. (ref. 76)
A few people of title occur among the early
residents in the street, including Dudley, third
Baron North, the courtier, littérateur and founder
of Tunbridge Wells, who lived at or near No. 66
in 1647 during his service on parliamentary
committees. (ref. 77) In the late 1650's the Danish
agent was also rated for a house in a similar
position (possibly in the vacant ground lying back
from the north side).
Some idea of the character of the street in the
1660's is given by the designations of the residents
in Bedford leases granted at that time. At the
south-east corner, Diddier Foucaute was an
apothecary: the other tenants were on the north
side, and included, from west to east, a tailor, a
'gentleman' of the Inner Temple, Sir William
Gideon, knight, another tailor, a coachmaker, a
leather-seller, a 'chirurgeon', a 'gentleman' and a
cook. (ref. 78)
The probably rather haphazard building on
this side of the street occasioned considerable
redevelopment under leases from the fifth Earl,
particularly in the years 1685–8, when Bedford
Court was laid out on the vacant ground behind
the street frontage (see above).
In c. 1738 the narrow passage called Long Alley
leading south to the Strand where Agar Street
now runs, was rebuilt, together with adjacent
frontages to Chandos Street. The site (sold by the
fourth Earl in 1636–7) then belonged to William
Pulteney of St. George's, Hanover Square, esquire,
and in October 1737 he had concluded an agreement for the rebuilding with the architect Isaac
Ware and a glazier of St. Martin's in the Fields,
Charles Carne. A year later the leases of individual sites were granted. Ware and Carne were
given leases of a small site fronting Chandos
Street, and of two sites in Long Alley, and joined
with Pulteney in granting leases of the two corner
sites in Chandos Street to Thomas Paulin of
Covent Garden, mercer. Ware and Carne also
themselves had a lease of a site at the south-east
end of Long Alley, fronting the Strand at No.
429. The eight other small sites, all on the east
side of the alley, were granted by Pulteney,
Ware and Carne to seven building lessees:
Thomas Carter, the statuary; Leonard Phillips,
timber merchant (two sites); Robert Pollard, lime
merchant; John Thornhill, the serjeant painter;
Thomas Wagg, smith; Stephen Whitaker,
brickmaker; and William Wilton, plasterer. By
1739 Ware and Carne had mortgaged their
lease of No. 429 Strand to the carver, James
Richards. (ref. 79)
It was intended that the name of the passage
should be changed from Long Alley to New
Exchange Row but (perhaps because of the
demolition of the New Exchange itself, on the
south side of the Strand, at this time) that name
does not seem to have been used and it is marked
as Castle Court on later maps, until its replacement by Agar Street in 1830.
Ten tradesmen in the Covent Garden section
of Chandos Street are listed in Mortimer's
Universal Director of 1763—four mercers, a
hosier, two musical-instrument makers, a jeweller,
a portrait painter, and a coachmaker. In the 1850
Post Office Directory coachmakers were still listed
at No. 66. There were four public houses on
the north side of the street. Of the other nineteen houses, three contained printers and engravers, one a bookbinder and one a bookbinder's
tool cutter.
When the Peabody Buildings were erected in
1880–1 the frontage of their site on the north
side of Chandos Street, which had previously
aligned with the frontage west of Bedfordbury,
was set back to align with Nos. 60–68.
Ratepaying occupants in Chandos Street include: Sir William Gideon, 1640–70; John
Herne, 1641, ? lawyer, counsel for defence of
William Laud; Lady Tufton, 1641–c. 1647;
Lady Lumpton, 1645; Lady Moore, 1645; Sir
William Lister, 1647, member of the Long
Parliament; Dudley North, third Baron North,
1647; Adrian Scroope, 1647, ? regicide; George
Kirke, c. 1648–52, ? father of Lieutenant-General
Percy Kirke, colonel of 'Kirke's Lambs'; John
Trenchard, 1645, agent to the fourth Earl of
Bedford, member of the Long Parliament; John
Kersey, 1652–77, mathematician; 'Nich Wesson',
1653, ? Nicholas Weston, member of the Long
Parliament; the Danish agent, 1656–9; Esquire
Hungerford, 1659, ? (Sir) Edward Hungerford,
founder of Hungerford Market, Charing Cross,
member of the Long Parliament; Dr. Nisbeth,
1660–1.
Nos. 1–5 (consec.) Chandos Place
See Nos. 4–6 (consec.) Bedford Street.
Nos. 62–65 (consec.) Chandos Place
Charing Cross Hospital Medical School
These buildings were erected in 1881 (Nos.
62–63) and 1889 (Nos. 64–65), under lease from
the ninth Duke of Bedford, to the designs of John
J. Thomson. As first designed and built the ground
floor of Nos. 64–65 accommodated the southern
arm of Bedford Court, which was closed in
c. 1903–4. (ref. 80)
These adjoining buildings originally had uniform fronts of red brick and terra-cotta, designed
in a free Renaissance style, but the upper part of
the earlier (west) front has been rebuilt in a
simple utilitarian manner. The later (east) front
is four storeys high and three windows wide. The
rusticated ground storey is finished with a dentilled
cornice, and the second storey has panels of
foliage ornament beneath the windows and a
heavy cornice on bold brackets above. In the top
storey, set between plain pilasters, are two small
round-arched windows with semi-circular basinshaped sills. The front is finished with a cornice
and parapet, its centre raised and ornamented with
panels, flanked by decorative shell motifs.
No. 66 Chandos Place
See Nos. 10–13 (consec.) Bedford Street.
Nos. 67 and 68 Chandos Place
This building was erected in 1866–8, although
its dignified shop front is suggestive of an earlier
date (Plate 58a). The builder was John Clemence
of Villiers Street who held an eighty-two-year
Bedford building lease from Lady Day 1866.
The architect is not known. Between Clemence's
acceptance of the proposed form of lease in March
1866 and its signing in August 1867 its terms
were made more favourable to him, by the
extension from one to two years of his peppercorn
term. The first occupant of the premises was a
wholesale manufacturer of leather travellingcases. (ref. 81)
The display windows and arched central doorway of the projecting shop front are flanked by
panelled Doric pilasters, supporting a plain fascia
and a dentilled cornice, all of painted woodwork.
The three-storeyed upper part of the front is of
Italianate design, executed in painted stucco.