No. 14
Architect, J. Osborne Smith, 1896–8
This, described by Dasent before the present
Library building was erected as 'admittedly the
worst house in the Square', was, if not the 'worst',
certainly the smallest on the three main sides of the
square, with a frontage of only twenty-seven feet.
Even more noticeably than No. 13 it was associated
with no one period of continuous family occupation long enough to bring about elaborate rebuilding. One ambitious scheme was planned, but not
executed.
The site, together with a plot of ground in
Mason's Yard, was granted at a rent of £9 5s. per
annum by the Earl of St. Albans and his leasehold
and freehold trustees to John Grosvenor and
Richard Hayb(o)urne in trust for Richard Frith
on 13–14 June 1673, (ref. 284) the same day on which
Frith was granted the adjacent site to the south, of
No. 15.
In January 1674/5 Frith sold the site to Sir
Fulke Lucy (ref. 284) who appears as occupant of the
newly built house in 1676 (ref. 6) and lived here until
1678. In March 1679/80 he sold the house to
Sir John Williams of Minster Court, Thanet,
Kent. (ref. 285) The ratebooks, followed by Dasent, (ref. 286)
seem to place the Williams at the adjacent No. 13
between 1678 and 1683. This must, however, be
the result of an irregularity in the sequence of the
entries (which seem badly disordered for Nos. 13–
15 c. 1678–86) as a lawsuit makes it clear that
the Williams' house had an east-west axis and
was therefore (as the evidence of the sale of 1680
would suggest) No. 14, which faces east, and not
No. 13, which faces south. Sir John Williams died
in the autumn of 1680 but the house was occupied
by the family for a year or two longer. Sir John
had employed a carpenter, John Day, of the City
of London, to make some alterations and additions
to the house. This resulted in a dispute in Chancery between Day and Sir John's widow, Lady
Susannah Williams, (ref. 287) the records of which give a
few details of the work. Sash windows are mentioned in the dining-room, where Day made a
'Nitch or Arch' over the door; there were casements in a back room. Day worked on the stables
and a 'backhouse' and also made a 'garden room'
which contained a 'bathing place'. (fn. a)
Day claimed that he had been responsible for
the payment of other workmen on Sir John's behalf: workmen whose names are mentioned are
John Brandis, glazier; Robert Meades, plasterer;
and Jos. Britten, smith: William Parker, bricklayer, was paid a small sum for making the bathingplace and putting in a copper. Payments were
made and agreements witnessed by Sir John's
servant, Baldassare Artima, an Italian, who was
ordered from Court as a papist in January 1680/1
when a servant of Lady Williams. (ref. 289) Day's dispute with Lady Williams possibly had an element
of sectarian faction: the receipts signed by Day
which were recited in evidence by Lady Williams
and which were presumably phrased by Day, are
suggestive of emphatic Protestantism in their
omission of the 'Saint' from 'St. James's Square'
and their qualification of the pagan month-names
with a 'so-called'.
In July 1698 the representatives of the Williams family sold the house to Lady Crew (ref. 290) who
in 1704 married Admiral the Earl of Torrington.
In June 1716 the house was sold by the Dowager
Countess to Samuel Trotman (ref. 290) of Bucknell,
Oxfordshire, (fn. b) perhaps the member of that family
who won the designation of 'the mad Trotman' by
his eccentricities, which seem to have extended to
a curious reconstruction of his Oxfordshire
home. (ref. 292) The month before the sale a prospective
purchaser of No. 14 was told 'it is in ruinous condition. The last inhabitant, Mr. Temple, fled out
of it for fear it should fall on his head.' (ref. 293) Sutton
Nicholls's view of c. 1722 (Plate 128) seems to
show the exterior of the house still in the style of
the original houses in the square, but unlike Kip's
view of c. 1714–22 (Plate 4) it shows an attic
storey which raised the height of the façade above
its neighbours. There may thus have been some
degree of reconstruction, perhaps designed to make
the most of a narrow site. (fn. c)
In January 1725/6 the Duke of Kent took a
lease of No. 14 while his own house was rebuilding. (ref. 294) The lease contains an inventory of the
house which seems to indicate that, whether or not
a complete rebuilding had then taken place, the
interior had recently been renovated in early
eighteenth-century taste. The impression given is
of a house in good condition and completely
fitted out. A folding street-door with a two-light
window over it opened on to a hall paved in Purbeck and panelled head-high. An arch with
Corinthian pilasters led to the great staircase of
'wainscot' woodwork lit by a large 'compass' or
round-headed sash window. At the head of the
stairs the dining-room door was surmounted by a
plaster-of-Paris bust of Cleopatra's head, possibly
in the niche made by Day. All the rooms and
passages, including those on the second floor, were
panelled, mainly in oak, except where space was
left for hangings, or for paintings over the chimneypieces. These were throughout of white, red-and-white or black-veined marble, or of Portland stone,
with the exception of one of plaster of Paris on
the second floor. A 'fine plaster fret-work ceiling'
in the dining-room, and plaster cornices in other
rooms are mentioned. On each side of the diningroom chimneypiece were Corinthian pilasters, and
over it two 'death's heads' (probably cherubs'
heads). The windows were all sash-hung. In the
garden were walks of Purbeck stone, laid 'in
tarris', (fn. d) and a leaden cistern dated 1700. A 'porch'
or garden pavilion containing a seat is mentioned,
with high panelling, a sash window, four oval
windows on top, and a deal door into the garden.
The sides were slated and the top leaded. This was
perhaps Day's 'garden room', and the 'baithing
place' mentioned among the 'back buildings' was
probably that made for the Williams.
In 1729 Samuel Trotman, son of the purchaser
of the house, conveyed it to his brother Thomas, of
Siston, Gloucestershire. (ref. 290) For the years 1730 to
1732 the house was empty and between 1732
and 1734 the rates were reduced. From 1749 to
1767 Peter Ducane of Braxted, Essex, who had
hitherto had his town house in Pancras Lane,
occupied No. 14 at a rent of £140 per annum (ref. 297)
and began his tenancy with a renovation of the
interior of the house, between 1748 and 1750,
probably costing about £1100. (ref. 298) (Sir) Robert
Taylor was paid some £267 for a marble chimneypiece with a wooden overmantel, and two gilded
marble tables in the drawing-room, together with
repairs to other chimneypieces in the house. (ref. 299) The
cabinet-maker, William Hallett, of Great Newport
Street, was paid about £100 for mahogany furniture, (ref. 300) and the upholsterer, Thomas Burnett,
£413 for crimson or yellow damask hangings and
mahogany chairs covered in black Spanish leather. (ref. 301)
John Whitehead, a 'stucco man', repaired the 'fret
work ceiling' and cornice in the dining-room. (fn. e)
In February 1772, two vendors, Samuel Trotman, senior and junior, sold the house to the retired
merchant, Sir William Mayne. It was then said
to be let to Mayne or his under-tenant, Sir Charles
Asgill, who in fact occupied the house from 1768
to 1773, for £195 per annum. (ref. 290) From 1774 to
1777 Mayne himself occupied the house. In
1776 he was created Lord Newhaven and in that
year the design for a new house was made for him
by Robert Adam. (ref. 302)
Although designed for a relatively narrow site,
Adam's plan (Plate 190b) shows all his usual regard for convenience combined with fine spatial
effects, with axial vistas through rooms of varying
shapes. The front hall is a deep oblong on the
south side of the front parlour—a circle with
niches—linked by a semi-hexagonal ante-room to
the eating-room, a deep oblong at the back.
Beyond the hall is the principal stair, rising round
the walls of an almost square compartment, with a
door on the north side opening to the ante-room,
and a door on the west leading to the service stair
and a water-closet beyond a small light-area. In
the long and narrow back wing, reached from the
service stair or from the eating-room through a
lobby, is the study, lined with bookcases. Beyond
the study is the 'gentleman's dressing-room' with
a powdering-closet and a private stair leading to
the bedroom above. Adam also shows a possible
extension on the north side of the house, with a
large bed-chamber and a dressing-room served by
a passage entered from the main ante-room.
In his sketch-design for the front (Plate 190a),
Adam avoids competition with James Stuart's
large-scaled Ionic temple front next door, and is
content to make his effect with an ingenious,
small-scaled and delicately detailed composition.
His plan required that each of the principal floors
should have only two windows, with a wide pier
between them. These windows, and the doorway,
are each divided into three lights by slender
columns, supporting a straight entablature in the
ground storey, where the piers are rusticated, but
forming Ionic Venetian windows, set with fan
tympana in the two arches of the second storey.
Each of the two upper storeys has two plain window openings, but the third storey is underlined
with a frieze-band composed of oblong panels between festooned draperies, and it is finished with a
moulded cornice below the attic, which is treated
as a high pedestal. The duality produced by the
fenestration pattern is to a large extent resolved by
introducing ornamental panels into the pier between the windows. In the second storey is a tall
panel with a relief of a candelabra on a tripod, and
a roundel above. The third storey has a similar
panel with a relief of a vase on a tripod, and in the
attic is sketched an arabesque panel.
This design was not executed, and during the
years 1777–80, before Lord Cadogan entered
into occupation, the house was given the plain
front that survived substantially unaltered until
1896. (ref. 6) The comparatively low floor levels of
the original house, with an attic storey, were
retained.
In 1845 the London Library, which had been
founded in 1841 at No. 49 Pall Mall (see page 331),
hired No. 14 from Edward Foster of No. 54 Pall
Mall, and in 1879 bought the freehold from C. J.
Foster and Frederick Janson for £21,000: (ref. 303) in
its early years the Library shared the house with
the Statistical Society and other societies. (ref. 304) In
1896–8 the premises were rebuilt with the present
façade to the square by J. Osborne Smith of Old
Queen Street, Westminster, at a cost of £23,000. (ref. 305)
Further extensions were carried out in 1920–2
when a bookstore was built at the back by Osborne
Smith at a cost of £26,555, and in 1932–4 when
the back premises were rebuilt with an extension
northward, by Messrs. Mewès and Davis at a cost
of £43,828. (ref. 306) By the beginning of the war of
1939–45 the total number of books in the Library
was approximately half a million. (ref. 307)
In 1913 the freehold of No. 8 Duke Street had
been purchased for £18,000, 'since money was
fairly abundant', and by further purchases in 1923
and 1931 in Mason's Yard, 'any question of encirclement from enterprising builders and landlords
was rendered impossible. Above all, the Library
was free to make windows on every side.' (ref. 308)
Considerable damage was done to the bookstacks in February 1944 when a bomb fell in
Mason's Yard. (ref. 309)
The front of the London Library is a curiously
eclectic design, carried out in Portland stone. The
ground storey has a round-arched doorway,
framed in an Ionic doorcase and placed on the left
of two windows, each divided by stone mullions
and transoms in the Elizabethan fashion. The
second storey is mildly Georgian, with three
sashed windows, the three-light middle window
being dressed with a pediment and enclosed by a
round-arched recess, and the side windows have
oblong panels above them. The lofty third storey
is again Elizabethan, with three tall windows, wide
between narrow, each divided by mullions and
transoms below round-arched heads, but a
triangular pediment provides a Georgian finish
to the front.
The Prevest Room contains a fine chimneypiece designed by Robert Adam for Shelburne
(later Lansdowne) House and presented to the
Library in 1933 in memory of Henry Yates
Thompson. (ref. 307)