CHAPTER XIV - Artillery Passage and South Side of Artillery Lane
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Artillery Passage was commonly known as
Smock Alley and the eastern part of Artillery
Lane outside the Old Artillery Ground was
usually known as Raven Row, though it was
sometimes also known as Smock Alley and sometimes as Artillery Street or Lane.
The southern side of this line of street between
Middlesex Street and Bell Lane was, like the area
to its south (see Chapter XV), built up comparatively early: Ryther's imprecise map ofc. 1640
suggests that there were then buildings along this
line. Faithorne and Newcourt's map, published in
1658 but probably surveyed in the 1640's, and
Hollar's map of 1667 both suggest that the line
was built though perhaps not continuously. In
Ogilby and Morgan's map of 1677 it appears as a
virtually unbroken line of building, except for a
yard or garden near the west end.
In the later seventeenth century this range was
part of the estate of William Wheler of Datchet,
Buckinghamshire, and at the partition of this
part among his seven daughters in 1675, it
formed part, under the designation ’Smock
Alley’, of the ’seventh schedule’ which fell to
Katherine Wheler, wife of John Balch (sometimes Blatch or Black), the recipient of the Spital
flelds Market grant of 1682 (see page 128). (fn. a)
From him the property passed to his daughter
Elizabeth and from her to relations of her father
by whom in July 1708 it, together with other
parts of the ’seventh schedule’, was conveyed to
trustees for Charles Wood and Simon Michell,
who developed an estate on other parts of this
property (see Chapter XIII). They disposed of
the Smock Alley property, however, to Richard
Griffen of Whitechapel, gentleman, who speaks in
his will made in January 1711/12 of his freehold estate in Smock Alley as lately purchased.
In February 1734/5 the property was owned
by Richard Griffen's son, George Griffen of
Plaistow, Essex, esquire. On 6–7 February he
mortgaged it to Ambrose Page of Bow, esquire, to
secure £820, and on 7 February an assignment in
trust to attend the freehold and inheritance of the
same was made by William White of Doctors’
Commons, at the appointment of George Griffen,
to William Newland of the Inner Temple,
gentleman. (ref. 1)
The subsequent history of the freehold is not
clear, but in 1756 it may have been vested in
Sarah Wescomb of En field, spinster, who in that
year granted a lease of six houses, from the present
No. 8 Artillery Passage to No. 58 Artillery Lane
inclusive, and is there said to have possessed the
houses on which these six abutted to east and
west. It is not clear whether her own interest was
freehold or leasehold. Her granting of the lease
coincides with the expiry of the lease of at least one
of these houses granted by executors of Thomas
Wilkes, a lessee of the estate. (ref. 2)
Nos. 3 and 9A Artillery Passage and No. 52 Artillery Lane
Formerly Nos. 3 and 9 Artillery Passage and No. 1
Raven Row
Nos. 1–8 (consec.) Artillery Passage were
described in 1707, in terms probably taken from
an earlier deed, as newly built by William Parker, (ref. 3)
presumably the bricklayer who built houses on the
south side of Spitalfields Market and in South
Street in 1685 (see Plate 51a), and two houses
on the north side of Artillery Passage in 1682
under a lease from Nicholas Barbon. (ref. 4) Of these
eight houses one, No. 3, survives.
In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries No. 9a Artillery Passage and No. 52
Artillery Lane (Plate 54a) may, like Nos. 56 and
58 Artillery Lane, have formed part of the leasehold estate of Thomas Wilkes, weaver (see
below sub Nos. 56 and 58 Artillery Lane).
The rate books (ref. 5) indicate that No. 9a dates from
before 1700, when it was occupied by Robert
Chilman. It was perhaps also built by Parker at
the same time as Nos. 1–8.
No. 52 Artillery Lane was built as a pair with
No. 9a. In 1713 and 1716 it was occupied by
Ephraim Montague, citizen and silk thrower of
London, who also occupied the cellar of No. 54. (ref. 6)
In 1724 the house was occupied by Benjamin
Barrineau who was included as of Smock Alley in
a list of Eminent Merchants and Tradesmen in and
about London in 1740. (ref. 7) The following year he
moved to No. 28 Spital Square, where he was
described as a silk merchant in 1763. (ref. 8) In 1743
the occupant of No. 52 appears as Peter Motteux, (ref. 9)
an apothecary and probably the son of Peter
Anthony Motteux, the dramatist and translator of
Cervantes and Rabelais. (fn. b) In 1717 he had taken
an assignment of two messuages on the north side
of Artillery Passage in the Old Artillery Ground, (ref. 4)
in 1718 of ground on the east side of Gun Street (ref. 12)
and in 1739 of land in Bethnal Green when he
was described as of Widegate Alley (by which
Artillery Passage and Lane was probably meant). (ref. 13)
He died in 1748 leaving his property to his son
Peter. (ref. 14)
(fn. c) In July 1756 this Peter Motteux occupied No. 52 but no longer did so on 25 March
1757, when he received a sub-lease of the present
Nos. 8 and 9a Artillery Passage and No. 52
Artillery Lane for seventy and three-quarter
years from the occupant of No. 58 Artillery Lane,
being described as of Charterhouse Square,
esquire. (ref. 15) He is so described in his will made and
proved in 1769, which mentions his ’leasehold
estate in Raven Row and Frying Pan Alley’. (ref. 16)
(fn. d)
No. 3 Artillery Passage is a small house, three
storeys high and one room deep. Above the shop
is a largely original front of late seventeenth
century date faced with mixed stocks and having a
bandcourse between the storeys. The stone
coped parapet may be a later alteration from an
eaves-cornice. There are two windows in each
storey, with rough segmental arches of brick. The
lower windows are furnished with flush-framed
sashes and the upper with mullioned and tran
somed casements.
No. 52 Artillery Lane and No. 9a Artillery
Passage were built with mirrored plans as a pair of
houses, each containing a basement cellar, three
storeys, and a roof garret. Both houses have
modern shop-fronts and the front of No. 52
Artillery Lane has been rebuilt above the level of
the first-floor window-sills, but the red brick face
of the upper two storeys of No. 9a Artillery Passage is largely original. Each storey has two windows and, against the west party wall, a narrow
recessed panel, all equal in height and having flat
arches of gauged brickwork. The windows have
exposed flush frames with sashes of later date. A
raised brick bandcourse marks the second-floor
level and the front is finished with a moulded
eaves-cornice of wood.
Nos. 56 and 58 Artillery Lane
Until 1895 Nos. 3 and 4 Raven Row
Precise identification of sites from Ogilby and
Morgan's map of 1677 is hardly possible, but on
this map the site of Nos. 56 and 58 appears to be
occupied by a small building at the east end,
divided by a small yard from a larger building
occupying most of the site, and part of a smaller
building at the west end. Between this site and
the corner of Bell Lane three buildings are shown.
In the rate book of 1700 (ref. 17) ’Mathew Hebart’
appears as the occupant of a house rated at 5d.
per week, apparently in succession to Jonas Cole
since the previous assessment. Subsequent continuity of tenure by Hebart or Herbert in the rate
books of 1713 and 1716 (ref. 9) and a deed of 1711
identifies this house as occupying a site corresponding to that of the present No. 56. The deed
of 1711 states that Herbert was a mercer, and
that the house was known by ’the sign of the catt’,
by which No. 56 was also known in the later
eighteenth century. (ref. 18)
In the rate book of 1700 four houses are listed
east of this, that adjoining Matthew Herbert's,
approximately on the site of No. 58, being
occupied by Widow Fisher and rated at 6d. per
week. The other three houses eastward were
rated at 1d. or 1½d. per week.
The deed of 7 February 1734/5 between
White, Griffen and Newland gives an obscurely
worded description of the whole south side of
Artillery Passage and Artillery Lane. This seems
to have been taken from an indenture of
27 November 1707, probably the conveyance
from Charles Wood to Richard Griffen. But the
frontage running west from Bell Lane to include
the site of No. 58 and apparently part of the site of
No. 56 is described as in the occupation of ’John
Thair’, abutting westward on four messuages in
the occupation of Thomas Wilkes or his undertenants; and the western end of the range is said to
be occupied by eight houses newly rebuilt by
William Parker (ref. 3) (see above). This description,
therefore, probably dates back to an earlier period,
perhaps not long after the partition of the Wheler
estate in 1675, when the Smock Alley property
was described as being leased to Matthew Dent
yer, Thomas Wilkes and John Thayer. (ref. 19)
In the early eighteenth century Thomas
Wilkes, described as citizen and weaver of London,
appears to have held on lease premises occupying
the sites of Nos. 54, 56, 58, 62 and 64 Artillery
Lane. Presumably No. 60 was also held by him,
and his possessions probably stretched further
west, as the description recited in the deed of
1734/5 suggests; (fn. e) he also held an interest in the
other parts of the ’seventh schedule’ of Sir William Wheler's former estate, including part of the
site of Christ Church.
Shortly before his death in June 1711, Thomas
Wilkes started to rebuild some of his property; in
his will he left to Wilkes James, the son of a
’kinsman’ two houses ’by me lately rebuilt’, in
the occupation of Samuel Rayley, apothecary, and
John Lawrence, tobacconist. (ref. 20) These can be
identified as the easternmost houses on the south
side of Artillery Lane, later Nos. 62 and 64:
between 1700 and 1713 the rateable value of these
houses and also of the later No. 60 rose considerably and their occupancy changed.
Rebuilding evidently went on after Wilkes's
death, for on 30 November 1711 his executor,
Philip Humphreys, sub-let No. 54 to John Furnis
or Furnes, citizen and clothworker. (ref. 18) In 1717
an assignment of adjoining property describes
No. 54 as ’a new built brick messuage’; (ref. 21) this
description may derive from an unspecified lease
of unknown date, but it is probably later than
Wilkes's death in 1711.
The fragmentary series of rate books provides
most of the evidence for the date of the building of
the present Nos. 56 and 58, which until Furnes's
death in 1720/1 were held by him on lease from
Thomas Wilkes. (ref. 22) These two houses appear to
have been constructed in the early eighteenth
century as a pair of houses with equal frontages
and identical plans. In the rate books the occupancy of No. 56 (and also of Nos. 60, 62 and 64)
can be traced continuously from 1700. In the
rate book of 1713, however, there is no entry
corresponding to No. 58: the premises occupied
in 1700 by Widow Fisher do not appear. In the
rate book of 1716 William Jourdain appears as
the occupant of No. 58, and thenceforward the
house can be traced continuously, remaining in
the occupation of a ’Jourdain’ or ’Jordain’ as late
as the rate book of 1773. It may be, therefore,
that Widow Fisher's house was demolished in
1713 for the erection of No. 58, which was
occupied by 1716; and that No. 56 was also rebuilt without changing its occupancy since 1713,
as a pair to No. 58, and on a rather smaller scale
than that suggested by Ogilby and Morgan's map
of 1677, as its rateable value fell between 1713
and 1716 from £24 to £18. (ref. 9)
Alternatively, it may be that the omission of
Widow Fisher's house in 1713 was due only to
its being unoccupied, and that the building of Nos.
56 and 58 in their present form occurred between
1716 and 1720. During this period the occupancy
of No. 56 passed from Matthew Herbert to
Samuel Rybot or Ribault: the occupancy by the
Rybots continued to at least 1777. In 1716 the
rateable value of No. 56 was £18, compared with
£14 for No. 58; in 1724 it was £15, which is a
little more consistent with the construction of a
pair of virtually identical houses. £15 and £14 are
the rateable values at which the houses on the site
were assessed in 1743 when the present pair were
almost certainly in existence. (ref. 9)
On 26 November 1720 John Furnes made his
will (proved on 15 March 1720/1 (ref. 23) ). He made
bequests of his leasehold houses in Raven Row,
that is, the present Nos. 54, 56 and 58 Artillery
Lane, occupied respectively by John Lee, Samuel
Rybot and William Jourdain. Nos. 56 and 58 he
left to his cousin, Mary Jaggard, and No. 54 to
his cousin, Samuel Jaggard, who is subsequently
described as citizen and joiner of London. (ref. 24) Conceivably Jaggard had built Nos. 56 and 58 between 1716 and 1720, a new tenant, Rybot, then
coming into possession of one of the houses,
No. 56.
In 1724 the two houses were occupied by
William Jourdain and Samuel Rybot, in 1743 by
William Jourdain and Thomas Bonofous (perhaps
a business associate of the Rybots), and in 1750 by
Nicholas Jourdain and Thomas and Philip Bonofous and Francis Rybot. In the latter year
Thomas and Philip Bonofous also occupied No. 24
Fournier Street. (ref. 9)
It was between 1750 and 1759 (probably in
1756–7) that the fronts of the two houses were
rebuilt, the existing shop-front of No. 56 inserted,
and the elaborate embellishments of the first-floor
rooms of the two houses undertaken. (See figs.
60–62 for plan, section and elevation: Plates 84,
85 and 86 for the exterior: Plates 88a, 90, 91,
92a, 96b, 99b, c, 102a, 108b for the interior.)
In June 1756 Nicholas Jourdain, the occupier
of No. 58, described as a mercer, took a lease for an
unspecified term of years from George Montague
Dunk, second Earl of Halifax of the third
creation, of a piece of ground at the back of
Nos. 52–58, abutting south on Frying Pan Alley,
and including the back-yards of the houses in
Artillery Lane. (ref. 25) In the following month Jourdain took a lease from Sarah Wescomb of Enfield,
spinster, of the sites of the present Nos. 8 and 9a
Artillery Passage and Nos. 52 and 54 Artillery
Lane for slightly less than seventy-one years from
April 1757, and of Nos. 56 and 58 Artillery Lane
for twenty-eight years from April 1799, together
with all messuages to be erected on the same: he
was then said to be already entitled to the latter
two houses until April 1799 (ref. 26) In March 1757
Jourdain leased Nos. 8 and 9a Artillery Passage
and No. 52 Artillery Lane to Peter Motteux, together with land behind them abutting south on
Frying Pan Alley, for seventy and three-quarter
years. (ref. 15) In June 1757 he leased No. 56 to its
occupier, Francis Rybot, mercer, for a similar
term. (ref. 27)
In this lease No. 56 was described as a ’new
built messuage’. The survival of earlier interior
features indicates that neither No. 56 nor No. 58
can have been wholly rebuilt at this time, but, the
lease not being in the form of an assignment, the
words are unlikely to be survivals from an earlier
deed and presumably indicate the date at which
the fronts of the houses were reconstructed and
the shop-front of No. 56 inserted, perhaps at
Jourdain's initiative. In December 1758 Francis
Rybot assigned the residue of this lease to Thomas
Bonofous of Newington, gentleman, perhaps his
partner. (ref. 28) Between 1750 and 1759 the rateable
value of the two houses was doubled, from £15 to
£30 each.
The first-floor interior of both houses and the
shop-front of No. 56 have been attributed on
stylistic grounds to Abraham Swan, some of
whose designs they resemble, but there is no
documentary evidence of this. (ref. 29)
After their rebuilding both premises were
occupied as shops. In 1763 Jourdain and Rybot
are included as mercers in a list of ’warehouse men
and shopkeepers’, as distinguished from ’manufacturers’ or ’merchants’. (ref. 8)
Francis Rybot, the occupant of No. 56, had
property interests elsewhere in the Spitalfields
neighbourhood. In 1751 he acquired a house on
the west side of Crispin Street from Samuel Ireland, bricklayer, and in 1753 he assigned it to
Philip Bonofous of Sydenham, gentleman. (ref. 30) In
1755 he took a lease of another house, No. 40
Crispin Street (see page 140), slightly north of the
former, from David Garnault. (ref. 31) Rybot does not
occur in Crispin Street in the rate book for 1759
or subsequently. In all these transactions he was
described as of Spitalfields, mercer, but he also
appears as a silk weaver at the sign of the Cat in
Raven Row (i.e. No. 56 Artillery Lane) in about
1760, and again in 1777; he is said to have been
preceded by Elizabeth Rybot at the same address
in 1726. (ref. 32) In 1775 Francis Rybot appears as a
member of the Spitalfields Vestry. (ref. 33) In 1780 he is
described as a mercer of No. 3 Raven Row (i.e.
No. 56 Artillery Lane). In the same year he is
also described as a weaver and mercer of No. 106
Cheapside, while Francis Rybot, junior, is
similarly described as of No. 110 Cheapside. (ref. 34)
Shortly afterwards the family connexion with No.
56 Artillery Lane seems to have ended, for in
1782 the London Directory contains only one
entry, for Francis Rybot, senior, mercer and
weaver, of No. 106 Cheapside. Probably more than one Francis Rybot occupied the house
successively. (fn. f) In 1908 specimens of silk were
found among early papers (which have now disappeared) relating to No. 56.
From 1782 to 1799 the house was occupied by
Thomas Blinkhorn, silk weaver. (ref. 37) From 1813
to 1858 it was occupied by Edward Jones, grocer,
and from 1859 to 1904 by Cornelius Barham,
grocer; it remained a grocer's shop until 1935.
Nicholas Jourdain, the lessee of both houses in
1756 and occupant of No. 58, was elected a
Director of the French Protestant Hospital of ’La
Providence’ in 1749 (ref. 38) and one of the Governors
of the Spitalfields workhouse in 1754. (ref. 33) In 1755
and 1763 he appears to have had a partner named
De Gron, (ref. 39) and in 1772 another named Rich. (ref. 40)
His connexion with No. 58 seems to have ended
shortly after 1772, when he was perhaps in
financial difficulty as his will, made on 1 September 1784 and proved on 18 July 1785, describes
him as formerly of Spitalfields, mercer, but then of
Morden College on Blackheath. It is not informative about his estate, which he left to his granddaughter, Mary Risoliere. (ref. 41)
In 1783 the house was occupied by Andrew
Fowler, grocer and tea dealer, (ref. 42) who was also
rated for No. 52 and No. 9a Artillery Passage. (ref. 9)
From 1817 to 1836 the house was occupied by a
firm of silk and satin dressers described as Perry
and Co. (ref. 43) or Perry and Archer. (ref. 44) Until 1857 it
was used as a glass warehouse, (ref. 45) and from 1858 to
1935 by a firm of cigar makers. (ref. 46)
In 1923 the chimneypiece and panelling of the
first-floor front room of "No. 58 (Plate 92a) was in
the Geffrye Museum. (ref. 47) It is no longer in the
Museum, and may have been withdrawn by the
owner in the same year. Its present whereabouts
is not known.<According to John Harris in 1961 this room was in the United States of America, possibly in the Art Institute of Chicago.>
The carved Rococo chimneypiece (Plate 90,
fig. 63) formerly in the first-floor back room of
No. 56 was purchased in 1927 by Messrs. Moss
Harris and Sons. (ref. 48) It is thought to be now in
America.
Nos. 56 and 58 Artillery Lane are paired
houses, well built and larger than the majority of
houses in the neighbourhood, each containing a
basement cellar and four storeys, the attic perhaps
replacing an earlier roof garret (figs. 60–2). The
ground floor of No. 56 contains the shop and a
back room, and alongside the party wall with No.
54 is a narrow hall leading to the stair compartment. The first floor has a large front room with
three windows and a back room. The same
arrangement occurs on the two upper floors,
except that there are two front rooms, one with
two windows and the other with one. The
chimney-stack serving the back rooms adjoins the
staircase wall, an unusual position. The plan of
No. 58 mirrors that of No. 56, and both houses
have back additions with rooms entered from the
staircase half-landings.
Apart from the shop-fronts filling the ground
storey, the houses share a front of yellow and pink
stock bricks, built to a design that reflects the
sensible good taste shown in the smaller London
houses of Ware and Flitcroft. (fn. g) Each house has
three windows evenly spaced in each upper storey,
the groups being linked on the first and second
floors by recessed panels against the party wall. A
block cornice of stone defines the attic storey, the
brick face of which is carried up to form a parapet
with a narrow stone coping. The window openings have stone sills, flat arches of gauged brickwork, and plastered reveals framing the double
hung sashes, most of which retain the original
stout-section glazing bars. While the windows
are all equal in width, their height decreases with
each successive storey.
No. 56 has the finest mid-Georgian shop-front
surviving in London (Plates 84, 85). Extending
the full width of the house, it is divided into four
bays of different width by Doric three-quarter
columns, which stand on plain stone pedestals and
have moulded bases, plain shafts, and enriched
capitals, all of wood. The extreme left-hand
column has a much smaller girth than the others,
and its capital is not enriched. From the left, the
first and third bays are equal and contain the shop-
windows; the shop entrance is in the second bay,
and the house door in the fourth. The windows form projecting bays with straight fronts
and rounded angles, and they rest on stallboard gratings of vertical iron bars. Stout
glazing bars divide each window, horizontally
into five panes, each end one quadrant curved, and
vertically into four panes with a fifth above the
moulded transom. Stone steps rise to the shop's
door of two leaves, each with a tall upper panel of
glazing set in a ’Chippendale’ geometrical fret
pattern of moulded bars. The house door has six
panels, the lower two flush and the others raised
and fielded. The plain jambs of the doorway have
enriched Doric imposts, the top members continuing on the transom beneath the wrought iron
fanlight grille of Chinese-Rococo fret design. The
shop-windows and flanking columns are surmounted by an architrave and triglyphed frieze,
the triglyphs centred over the columns being
truncated by the shaped brackets that project in
support of the overhanging corona of the mutuled
cornice. Architrave and frieze are omitted above
the doorways in favour of two elaborately carved
motifs set against a plain ground (Plate 86). An
oval cartouche in a Rococo frame flanked by palm
branches marks the shop entrance, and the house
doorway has a double festoon of drapery centred
on an Aurora mask encircled by rays with scrolls
below. The first-floor windows of No. 56 have
been lengthened to give easy access to the balcony
formed over the shop-front cornice. The castiron railing of the Regency period has four identical
panels, with anthemion ornaments and a diagonal
bracing of spearheads enclosed in a border of small
circles.
The shop interior has been considerably altered,
but the deal fitting that lines the east wall is
probably original. It is divided into three shallow
recesses of equal width, by plain pilasters with
moulded imposts. Each recess has an arched head
and the face is finished with a block cornice which
returns round the room. An elliptical-arched
opening leads to the back room.
The decorative treatment of the house entrancehall suggests a mid-eighteenth-century date.
Tuscan pilasters divide each side wall into three
equal bays, and transverse arched soffits parcel the
ceiling into three square compartments, the first
and third cross-vaulted and the second having a
circular panel with four pendentives and a central
boss. The floor is paved with stone slabs of
different sizes, inset with a regular pattern of
slate diamonds, originally linked by incised lines
simulating joints. An arched opening with
panelled pilasters leads to the oblong compartment
containing the staircase, which appears to belong
to about 1720. It is generally constructed of deal
and rises on each side of a narrow well. In accordance with the custom of the time, the cut strings
extend as far as the second-floor landing, with
carved brackets up to the half-landing below, and
shaped plain brackets above. The balusters, of
similar turning but with plain and twisted shafts
used alternately, are spaced two to each tread, and
the moulded handrail of mahogany begins with a
spiral curtail and is ramped up over the newels,
which are treated as fluted Doric columns. The
top flights of the staircase have moulded closed
strings, turned balusters, and straight handrails of
deal housed into the plain column-newels. Up to
the half-landing above the first-floor level there is
a panelled dado matching the balustrade, the wallface above being plastered and ornamented with
Rococo panel-mouldings of papier mâché. Each
of the two doorways on the first-floor landing
(Plate 96b) has a six-panelled door framed by a
moulded architrave, surmounted by a pulvino
frieze and a triangular pediment with a modillioned cornice. The wall-face surrounding the
front-room doorcase is adorned with a motif of
floral festoons and pendants linked by rocaille
ornaments.
Figure 60:
No. 56 Artillery Lane, plans
Figure 61:
Nos. 56 and 58 Artillery Lane, front elevation,?1757
Figure 62:
No. 56 Artillery Lane, section
The two first-floor rooms still retain much
of their fine mid-eighteenth-century decoration.
The large front room (Plate 91), now divided, is
lined with deal panelling. The plain dado, with a
moulded skirting base and a cornice chair-rail,
forms a pedestal for the series of tall plain panels,
wide alternating with narrow, set in cymamoulded framing. An enriched modillioned cornice of plaster surrounds the plain ceiling. The
fireplace centred in the east wall has a French
Rococo chimneypiece of veined white marble,
framing a fine basket grate of Empire design. The
wainscoted face above the chimneypiece is not
panelled, being intended as a ground for a picture
or looking-glass. This field is framed by an
elaborate garland of fruits and flowers, suspended
by three ribbon-bows to form a double festoon
with long pendants terminating in Rococo
ornaments, the whole modelled, apparently, in
compo or papier-mâché. On each side of the
chimney-breast is an arch-headed recess, filled to
the arch springing with a china or book cupboard,
across the front of which are continued the skirting, the chair-rail, and the impost cornice, the top
members of the last curving to crown a simple
swan-necked pediment. The lower compartment
of each cupboard has plain flush doors to match
the dado, but the upper part has a pair of curiously
patterned glazed doors of mahogany. At each end
of the long wall opposite the windows is a doorway,
with a pedimented doorcase, like those on the
landing. The splayed shutters and moulded architraves of the three windows appear to date from
the early nineteenth century.
The wainscot lining of the back room (Plate
90) is more elaborate and slightly earlier in style
than that in the front room. Raised-and-fielded
panels of varying width and two heights are set in
ovolo-moulded framing, with a moulded and fretcarved chair-rail. The enriched dentilled and
modillioned cornice is again of plaster, and the
ceiling is plain. The simple Venetian window has
a plain ovolo-moulded architrave. There are two
doorways, one on the right of the chimney-breast
and one in the back wall, each having a six-panelled door, framed by a Classical architrave and
surmounted by an ogee pulvino frieze and a
scrolled swan-necked pediment. The finest feature
of the room has, unfortunately, been removed.
This was a continued chimneypiece of carved
wood in the Chinese Rococo taste (fig. 63). The
dark-veined marble surround of the fireplace opening was framed by C-scrolls, two large ones on
each side, the lower outcurved and the upper incurved, and four smaller incurved ones across the
head. All had rocaille fringes and those on each
side were partly overlaid by acanthus scrolls. The
upper stage enclosed a picture space, on each side
being a tall Gothick shaft and a fantastic tree, both
rising from and supporting Rococo cornices dripping with icicles. Below and above the picture
space were chains of C-scrolls with floral festoons
intertwined with acanthus scrolls, and over the
centre rose an open pagoda. The tent roof of this
last, and the fantastic birds that must originally
have been perched on the cornices, were restored
by the time the chimneypiece was in the hands of
Messrs. M. Harris and Sons. The present
chimneypiece is of no interest, but it frames the
very fine Empire basket grate of steel and brass
that was probably installed in the early nineteenth
century, in odd contrast with the Rococo exuberance of its original setting.
The mid-eighteenth-century refashioning did
not extend to the second-floor rooms. The front
rooms are lined with plain rebated panelling, with
a moulded chair-rail and a box-cornice. The
larger room has an excellent chimneypiece of wood
(Plate 102a), with an eared egg-and-dart architrave, a fret-ornamented frieze with a profile console at each end, and a bracketed cornice-shelf.
Panelling of a finer quality and an earlier date lines
the back room, where the panels of two heights are
raised on bolection mouldings, there being no
chair-rail. The fireplace contains a fine hobgrate and has a wooden chimneypiece with an
eared ovolo-moulded architrave, an ogee pulvino
frieze, and a cornice-shelf. Nothing of interest
survives in the top-storey rooms.
Figure 63:
Chinoiseri chimneypiece formerly in No. 56 Artillery Lane first -floor back room
The early nineteenth-century shop-front of
No. 58 is in poor repair and cannot compare in
interest with its splendid neighbour. Doric
pilasters with narrow shafts, half plain, half
fluted, divide the front into four unequal bays and
support the simple entablature. The shopwindows, above high-panelled stallboards, were
originally divided into small panes.
The house entrance-hall and stair compartment (Plate 88a), except for the splayed linking
arch and the omission of the Rococo panels on the
staircase walls, are almost identical with those in
No. 56. The finest interior was, undoubtedly, the
first-floor front room (Plate 92a), now stripped of
its panelling and chimneypiece, but retaining its
ceiling of Rococo plasterwork. The walls were
lined with plain panels in two heights, set in ovolomoulded framing with a moulded skirting and a
cornice chair-rail. The six-panelled doors were
framed by triangular-pedimented doorcases similar
to those in No. 56. The fine continued chimneypiece (Plate 99b, c) was in the style of Abraham
Swan, being Classical in form and Rococo in detail. The marble slips of the fireplace opening
were framed by a bold ovolo architrave, carved
with scallop-shells and darts. Pendants of ribbons,
fruits and flowers stood in high relief from the
recessed jambs, and the frieze above was adorned
with rocaille-fringed C-scrolls entwined with
floral garlands on each side of a plain central
tablet. This supported a forward projection of the
cornice-shelf, which had three enriched members
and a fretted dentil course. The upper stage
rested on a plinth adorned with palm-branches and
flowers, and it consisted of an oblong panel first
enclosed by a raised ribbon-and-flower moulding,
and then by an ovolo architrave carved with a
guilloche and flowers. This architrave was eared
and the head curved to form a swan-necked pediment, its tympanum filled with rocaille work and
foliage scrolls. Flattened profile-consoles of
Rococo form flanked the architrave frame. An
enriched modillioned cornice of plaster finished
the walls and framed the ceiling, all that survives
in situ (Plate 108b). This is decorated with lowrelief plasterwork. A large oblong panel with incurved corners is formed by a plain moulding
which is partly overlaid by Rococo motifs, one in
the middle of each side, and one placed diagonally
at each corner. These motifs are composed of
linked C-scrolls, rocaille work, and curling foliage
branches, each corner motif being finished with a
trumpet-shaped vase of flowers. The side motifs
only are linked by chains of acanthus buds to
the central motif, roughly oval in form,
which surrounds the chandelier-boss of acanthus
leaves.
The front rooms on the second floor are lined
with plain panelling, and the front room contains
an early eighteenth-century chimneypiece of
marble, now painted, with wide flat jambs and a
shaped lintel. The back room retains only the
plain panelling on the fireplace wall, with a simple
chimneypiece of wood. This room and the upper
part of the house have been damaged by fire and
are of no further interest.