No. 15
Architect, James Stuart, 1764–6. Balcony added in
c. 1791 by Samuel Wyatt
The site of this house was agreed to be granted
by the Earl of St. Albans and Baptist May to John
Grosvenor, citizen and goldsmith, and Richard
Hayburne, citizen and carpenter, in trust for the
builder, Richard Frith, on 13–14 June 1673, the
same date as the agreement respecting No. 14. A
ground-rent of £13 5s. 2d. per annum was
reserved. (ref. 310) The house was built by 1676 (ref. 311) but
was not occupied in that or the following year. (fn. a) In
May 1677 one of Frith's trustees, Grosvenor, was
replaced by two new trustees, John Shorthose,
citizen and mason of London, and Thomas Meads,
citizen and plasterer. (ref. 310) In May of the following
year Frith and the trustees sold the site, nominally
for the rather low price of £2850, to Sir John
Dawnay (later Viscount Downe) (ref. 310) after Sir John
had submitted an apparently formal Chancery
petition to obtain a statement of the mortgages and
encumbrances on the property. (ref. 313)
In the same and following year, 1678–9, the
house was occupied by Frances Stuart, Duchess of
Richmond. For the first few years of the house's
history it seems to have been occupied only for
short terms, and was probably occupied by Viscount Downe only in the year 1686. (fn. b) In the
summer of that year he sold the house for £3000
to Sir Thomas Clarges in trust for the Marchioness
de Gouvernet and her daughter, Lady Eland. (ref. 310)
The Marchioness lived here until 1722.
A deed of February 1717 (? 1717/18) refers,
unlike earlier deeds, to the house as 'new', (ref. 310) but
Sutton Nicholls's view of c. 1722 (Plate 128)
seems to show the house still to have possessed its
original external appearance.
In April 1748 the house was bought by the
admiral Lord Anson, from the Earl of Clarendon. (ref. 314) In November 1751 Matthew Brettingham, senior, surveyed the house and made a plan
of it for Lord Anson but little, if anything, seems
to have been done. Bowles in his view published
in c. 1752 (Plate 130) shows the old seventeenth-century front. In 1752–3 the rating of the house
was reduced. (ref. 6) Brettingham also sent 'a Book of
the Earl of Leicesters House at Holkham . . . to
Lord Anson's house' at an unknown date, for
which he was apparently paid by Lord Anson's
heir, Thomas Anson, in February 1764 whilst the
house was rebuilding. (ref. 315)
For when in 1762 Lord Anson had died, leaving the house and a fortune to his elder brother,
Thomas Anson of Shugborough, (ref. 316) a bachelor of
sixty-six and a man of taste, the new owner undertook a rebuilding which embodied the more
delicate, self-conscious and matured taste of the
1760's. It also almost certainly gave the square,
perhaps to its detriment, its first stone façade, the
elements of which were rigorously organized into
a unified and self-contained composition. The
architect chosen was James Stuart, whose Antiquities of Athens, making familiar the details if not the
spirit of ancient Greek architecture, had appeared
in the year of Lord Anson's death, and who was
presumably acquainted with Thomas Anson
through their membership of the Society of
Dilettanti.
The old house was pulled down in the summer
of 1763 and the new house was probably occupied
by the end of 1766. (ref. 6) Some letters written in a
familiar tone by Stuart to Anson which survive for
the period from about June 1764 to September
1766, and a few others of 1769–70, give an idea of
the mainly easy relations of architect and patron, (ref. 317)
but no accounts survive to indicate the expense of
the work (fn. c) and only one or two workmen's names
are known. The chief mason was Alexander
Rouchead (fn. d) of North Audley Street who was presumably the mason of that name who had worked
on Norfolk House (see page 192). Another workman was named Evans.
In June 1764 the house had reached first-floor
level. The achievement of each stage was evidently
attended with jollification: Stuart wrote that 'the
grand function of wetting the first floor was performed last Saturday when upward of 50 men had
their bellies full of Beef pudding and Ale and your
health was drank with very cheerfull huzzas, the
Masters treated themselves and I had the honor of
being president'. Later in the summer he reported
that the pediments of the first-floor windows were
being put in position and that he was himself busy
designing the capital of the Ionic columns which
run through the two upper storeys of the façade.
These capitals occupied much of Stuart's attention. In them, he wrote, 'I do for the honour of
Athens interest myself very much.' Later in the
autumn, when they were still unfinished, he confessed 'I shall not know how to quit London till I
see a Capital completed . . . my inspection and instruction is continually necessary till one of them
is finished, they must not murder my Capitals the
greatest grace and ornament of the building.'
Stuart had the satisfaction of reporting that the
sculptor, [Peter] Scheemakers, who was working
with him for Anson at Shugborough, had 'taken
two of the Volutes into his Care'. Stuart's antiquarian taste, and doubtless Anson's also, was
gratified by the circumstance that these capitals
'are most exactly of the same dimensions with those
of the portico of Minerva Polias': Stuart remarked
complacently of this happy chance, 'I knew that
they would be nearly the same size with the
originals but was not aware that there is not a
hairsbreath [sic] of difference in their Diameters.'
The masons were thought dilatory, and all the
workmen were troubled by want of cash. But by
December 1764 the front of the house, though uncompleted, with none of the capitals yet 'out of
hand', was being covered, and Stuart was able to
say that 'the House advances apace'.
There is a gap in the correspondence from
December 1764 to September 1766, when Stuart
was writing to Anson about the glazing of the
lower part of the windows in the first-floor front
room with plate glass. A receipt is mentioned from
'Rose', possibly the plasterer, Joseph Rose; it was,
perhaps, for work here. Another gap in the
correspondence follows, until 1769–70, when the
building of the house was no longer being discussed. (fn. e) Thomas Anson appears as ratepayer for
the house in 1766, and by April 1768 Lady Shelburne could note in her diary that she had
attended a 'breakfast and concert' in honour of
Mrs. Montagu, another of Stuart's patrons, at
Mr. Anson's, 'a very fine house, built and ornamented by Mr. Stuart'. (ref. 321) As late as April 1770
some payments to the mason were still outstanding.
His total claim was £2682 2s. 9d.
Lady Shelburne's good opinion of the house
was doubtless fully shared by its architect, who had
told Anson while it was building that it was 'a
topic of much conversation among the Connoisseurs in Architecture'. Stuart's pleasure in the
contemplation of his own skill found outlet in the
flattering references to the house by the author of
the anonymous Critical Observations on the Buildings and Improvements of London of 1771 if, as
seems probable, the author was Stuart himself, (fn. f)
This author points to No. 15 and two of Samuel
Tuffnell's houses as demonstrating the excellences
possible in the 'street house':
'These sort of fabricks then, are incapable of
much grandeur; but they admit of beauty in any
degree. It is therefore this last which ought principally to be aimed at. An unity of order enriched
with ornament, in fair and highly polished
materials, is all that seems required. Nor are
models of this sort wanting among us. The two
houses lately erected by Mr. Tuffnell, in Cavendish square, are fine examples; as is also that of
Mr. Anson, in St. James's square. When once
this last is compleated according to the plan, the
public will be more able to do justice to the classic
taste which directed it. In its present state, it is
wonderfully beautiful, and will serve to convey the
idea of what is here meant.'
Despite the suggestion that the house was
outwardly uncompleted it must be presumed that
the façade to the square was finished at this time
and that what remained to be carried out was either
inside the house or an architectural treatment of
the courtyard and buildings at the rear, perhaps
with some intention to carry this back to include a
façade on Duke Street.
Figure 28:
No. 15 St. James's Square, plans
Figure 29:
No. 15 St. James's Square, elevation
The house is of three storeys and a basement,
each with three openings in front (Plate 165,
fig. 29). The Portland stone façade has a rusticated ground storey supporting a pedimented
engaged tetrastyle Ionic portico resting on pedestals and rising, in the Palladian manner, through
the two upper storeys. At each end of the façade
is a strip of plain walling, wide enough for all the
mouldings, including those of the cornice, to be
returned on to it, thus separating the composition
from its neighbours on either side.
The stonework to the basement is vermiculated
and the windows have segmental heads, the level
of the ground floor being marked by a plain band.
The ground-storey windows are round-headed
and are set in arched recesses with a moulded impost-band. The window openings have simply
moulded surrounds and the doorway may originally
have been formed in a similar manner but now
occupies the whole width of the arched recess with
a pair of Roman Doric columns supporting a frieze
and cornice, the tympanum above being glazed:
there is some evidence of alteration to the stonework.
Figure 30:
No. 15 St. James's Square, section B-B
Stuart has already been quoted as saying that the
capitals of the main order were of identical dimensions with those to the temple or shrine of Minerva
Polias, which forms part of the Erechtheum. (ref. 323)
This, however, does not apply to the order as a
whole: at No. 15 as in the Erechtheum the
columns are fluted and have a necking of anthemion ornament, but the architrave has only two
fascias instead of three, the frieze is undecorated
and there is a simple dentil cornice. The first-floor
windows between the columns have architraves
with plain friezes and pediments. It is probable
that their sills were originally in line with the
capping to the pedestals of the columns but they
are now level with a stone balcony which must date
from Samuel Wyatt's alterations of 1791–4 (see
below). There is a band of wave ornament below
the second-floor windows, which have slightly
shouldered architraves. The ends of the pediment
carry low parapets which are returned back from
the face of the building.
There is nothing exceptional about the plan
(figs. 28,30–1). The ground storey has been considerably altered but formerly an entrance hall led
through an inner lobby to a large rectangular toplit staircase hall, the stair rising in the normal way
to the first floor only. There was a front and back
room, and behind the stair hall a long wing containing, probably from the first, a service stair
flanked by a lobby, with two rooms beyond. A
return wing existed at the rear of the courtyard at
a later date but it may have been an addition. The
plan of the first floor was a repetition of that below
with a single room across the front.
Figure 31:
No. 15 St. James's Square, section A-A
The rear wing, which is the same height as the
main part of the house, and five windows wide, is
faced with pinkish-yellow stock brick with Portland stone dressings (fig. 30). What was originally
a central projection in which the middle three
windows in each storey were grouped somewhat
closely together, is now no longer central to the
courtyard owing to the addition of a twostoreyed bow to the main block. This addition
is joined to the rear wing by a convex-curved projection and returned back to the original east end
of the court by means of a similar convex curve on
the south side. Broad stone bands mark the level
of the ground and first floors and there is a
narrower moulded band at the level of the second-floor window-sills. The whole is surmounted by a
stone cornice with a stone-coped brick parapet
above and brick frieze beneath, the latter separated
from the main wall surface by a narrow stone
moulding.
The ground storey is faced with rusticated
brickwork and has a central rusticated round-arched window with plain stone imposts continued
on each side, first as bands, next as lintels over the
narrower square-headed windows on either side,
and lastly as an impost to a round-arched window
in the wide single bay to the south of the central
projection.
Four pairs of plain stone Doric pilasters, rising
directly, without bases, from the bandcourse
marking the level of the first floor, divide the
lower part of the second storey into three bays of
the same widths as those below. The pilasters
support an entablature consisting of stepped architrave, plain frieze and dentil cornice, this last
being interrupted somewhat clumsily by the stone
archivolt of the central round-arched window. In
the flanking bays the windows finish square under
the entablature, above which nearly half the storey
consists of blank walling. The whole forms a
motif derived, in all probability, from the RomanoGreek Aqueduct of Hadrian. (ref. 324) A segmental-bowed oriel window framed in a stone surround
and opening on to a bowed wrought-iron balcony
in the wide single bay to the south appears to be an
addition of a later date.
The windows in the third storey of the rear
wing itself are all of equal width, though centred
over those now, or formerly, below. They are
without architraves but have square stone lintels
crowned by a stone cornice-hood.
A considerable part of Stuart's interior decoration survives and is described below with the later
work executed by Samuel Wyatt. It has a distinctive character, many of the details being taken
from Greek and Romano-Greek sources recorded
in the various volumes of The Antiquities of Athens.
It is quite unlike the interior work which was
being carried out at Shugborough at about the
same date and with which Stuart's name has been
connected. (ref. 325)
In 1785 Thomas Anson's nephew and heir,
George Anson, bought the old house next door,
No. 16. (ref. 326) In 1789 he died and in the following
year his son Thomas (who was created Viscount
Anson in 1806) pulled No. 16 down, (ref. 6) immediately before embarking on elaborate embellishments to No. 15. The adjacent site remained
vacant and part of it was taken into the back
premises of No. 15: in 1804 Thomas Anson disposed of the vacant site at a small profit (see
page 154).
The improvements to No. 15 in the years
1791–4 were carried out at considerable expense
by craftsmen working under the direction of
Samuel Wyatt, who was similarly modifying and
adding to Stuart's work at Shugborough.
No correspondence is known to survive which
would, like Stuart's, tell something of Wyatt's
attitude to the work. But unlike the earlier work,
Wyatt's activities are recorded in an (incomplete)
collection of bills (ref. 327) and a probably complete summarized account (ref. 317) which gives the names of some
of the craftsmen and indicates the large sums then
spent.
A summary of 'S. Wyatt's Bills' totals about
£9763. This list includes coppersmith's and
slater's work, 'Ironmongery and Composition Enrichments', stonemason's work totalling only some
£55, and large bills for carpenter's work (some
£4925) and bricklayer's work (some £3210).
Appended to this is another list of twenty-six
'Sundry Tradesmen's Bills' amounting to some
£17,907. Only one class of work is represented in
both totals: the second list starts with the summary
of the bill of John Devall, stonemason, totalling
some £1514. Bills of the plumber, smith, and
glazier are included in the second list. Most of the
bills in this list are for internal work, including
furnishings. Scagliola columns in 'Verd Antique'
and 'Yellow Antique' in the former library and
dining-room respectively were provided by 'Domn
Bartoli'. The chief embellishments were on the
first floor, where 'friezes' and 'pilaster pannels'
were painted by Cornelius Dixon. Some of the
pictorial decorative paintings set into the ceiling of
the first-floor front room were painted by Biagio
Rebecca (Plate 169), as were some others which
have since disappeared. (ref. 328)
Wyatt's alterations to the front of the house
included the provision of a copper railing to the first-floor balcony costing some £112 out of a total
coppersmith's bill of £474. It is likely that the
stone balcony is also his work and that he lowered
the sills of the first-floor windows and made the
alterations to the entrance doorway already
suggested (Plate 165, fig. 29). (fn. g)
At the rear there was a greater change; a flat
D-shaped bow was added to the main block,
engaging a smaller segmental bow added to the
lobby in the rear wing, both rising to the level of
the sills to the second-storey windows and forming
the projection at the east end of the court already
referred to. The stone mouldings of the existing
work were continued, and at ground- and first-floor level is a large three-light window to the
main rear room, that on the first floor having a
balcony, with a metal railing, and a segmental
relieving arch above it. Plain single windows light
the lobby, and the first-floor window at the far
end of the wing was replaced by the tall bowed
oriel, already mentioned. These alterations by
Wyatt largely destroyed the formal character of
Stuart's design. The return wing at the rear of the
courtyard may have been entirely the work of
Wyatt but it is known only from plans in the
Soane Museum (see below). These plans, and
some old photographs in the possession of the
Clerical, Medical and General Life Assurance
Society, provide information about many parts of
the house which have been altered.
The front door led into a hall of two parts, the
inner of which has been removed. The part which
remains has a coffered barrel-vault springing from
an impost decorated with a band of leaf ornament,
and on either side there are plain doorways, that on
the left being blocked and that on the right serving
a cupboard. The inner compartment of the hall
was square in plan and groin-vaulted. The front
part may be by Stuart but the date and character of
the inner compartment is not known except that
the chimneypiece which survives in the right wall
is evidently by Wyatt. It is of white marble, and
the plain opening is flanked by panelled pilasters
delicately carved with bowls of fruit and drops of
hops and barley. The frieze, which is defined by a
minute band of guilloche ornament, is decorated
with festoons and drops of vine, tied by ribbons,
and there is a plainly moulded cornice-shelf. The
hall opened to a small lobby, consisting of a square
groin-vaulted compartment flanked by apses, the
south containing the door to the front room. A
wide opening led into the staircase hall.
The staircase was removed in 1928, when the
staircase hall and the inner parts of the lobby were
thrown open to the two principal ground-floor
rooms, which had themselves been opened to each
other at an earlier date. The architects for the
alteration were Messrs. Curtis Green and Partners. The stair formerly rose against the left-hand
wall to a half-landing, beneath which were doors to
the lobby and service stair in the rear wing with a
niche between them. Similar niches flanked the
opening from the entrance vestibule and at the
foot of the stairs was a door to the main front
room, paired by another below the landing which
may always have been false.
The front room now contains very little of
interest, but the small enriched cornice and the
frieze, decorated with anthemion and wreaths
containing vases, is probably Stuart's work. The
ceiling has roundels of vine and smaller ones of
rose, which appear to be original though some at
least are not in their original positions. Wyatt
must have been responsible for the tall narrow
panels beside the window openings and he may
have inserted the double doorway formerly
existing between this and the back room, for the
columns which flanked it, in antis, were those of
'Yellow Antique' scagliola provided under his
direction by 'Domn Bartoli'.
The rear room retains another enriched cornice and a frieze decorated with ewers and paterae
resembling one used by Stuart in two rooms on
the first floor of Spencer House. The ceiling is
decorated with large loosely related circles formed
by intertwined naturalistic foliage and containing
wreaths of vine overlaying crossed spears and
crooks, tied with ribbons. These two ground-floor ceilings are similar in character but are unlike Stuart's other work. The bow added to the
rear room by Wyatt is semi-circular internally
and the large flat window is flanked by curved
mahogany doors with carved architraves, one
leading only to a cupboard and the other to the
lobby beside the service stair. A chimneypiece
now in the library was formerly in this room
(Plate 170b): it is of white marble and has an
eared architrave to the opening, with carved
mouldings, flanked by long thin consoles enriched
with acanthus leaves and terminating in ornamented oval paterae. The frieze has an excellently
carved relief of a pair of panthers drinking from
bowls, with an urn containing grapes and foliage
between them, which may be derived from a fragment found by Stuart 'built into the front of a
house at Pola'. (ref. 329) At either end of the frieze is an
enriched circular patera and, above, a dentil cornice which appears to have been altered by Wyatt.
The service stair and the lobby beside it have
been remodelled to allow for the installation of a
lift. Formerly the stair had rounded ends and was
cut off from the lobby, which can have been little
more than a passage before the addition to it of the
segmental bow. What must be the original doorways remain at either end, with carved mouldings
to the architrave and cornice but no frieze. The
latter may have been removed when a low gallery
was introduced overhead by Messrs. Curtis Green
and Partners. The six-panelled doors themselves
are of mahogany and have carved egg-and-dart
mouldings. The rest of the decoration in the room
must date from the time of Wyatt's alterations.
The bowed wall is pierced by two openings containing a window and a door to the main rear
room: both have architraves with carved leaf
decoration, and level with their heads is a band of
anthemion and lotus bud ornament. A flat chairrail is carved with a wave moulding and above the
two openings are rectangular panels enclosed by
narrow enriched mouldings with a circular panel
between them. The small cornice is dentilled and
has an enriched cymatium.
What must have been two separate rooms in the
rear wing were formed into a library by Wyatt, the
columns and pilasters of 'Verd Antique' scagliola
provided by Bartoli taking the place of the dividing
wall (Plate 168b). The main part of the room is
lit by a group of windows comprising a central
round-arched one with lower ones on either side.
The window shutters and the soffits of the squareheaded openings have raised-and-fielded panels,
the architraves are plainly moulded and the archivolt is carved. The doorcase is similar to the pair
in the lobby but has a deep frieze carved with
scrolls of acanthus leaf. All this work is probably
Stuart's but the library fittings and the ceiling
decoration must be by Wyatt. Beside the doorway
and on either side of the chimneypiece (which is
that removed from the principal rear room) are
large bookcases of painted pine, partly recessed
into the walls. They are divided by thin pilasters
decorated with leaf ornament into a wide central
section flanked by narrower ones. The flat enriched chair-rail is continued across the bookcases.
Below it the shelves are closed by flush doors and
above, by tall narrow doors, each with three panels.
The frieze to the bookcases has fluting above the
side doors and scroll decoration in the centre,
separated by a roundel containing an urn above
each pilaster. The cornice is enriched and there
is a blocking-course over it with a central break
forward. The frieze to the room has the same
scroll pattern as the doorcases and the cornice has
an enriched bed-mould and cymatium. There is a
broad margin to the ceiling decorated with a string
of small circles and ovals containing paterae and
anthemion. The central area is enclosed and
divided into three by bands of intricate guilloche
ornament, the end sections containing elliptical
wreaths and paterae, and the square central compartment a circular wreath with arabesque ornament at the corners, enclosing a square panel
containing smaller circles and a central rosette. The
dividing colonnade consists of two widely spaced
Ionic columns with answering pilasters or antae
supporting a small enriched architrave which is
recessed behind the main wall face. The bases are
of white marble and the capitals, which have a
necking of anthemion ornament, appear to be of
plaster. The soffit of the beam is panelled, with
enriched mouldings.
The smaller, inner, part of the library, which is
now partitioned off, was decorated and fitted in a
manner similar to that already described. It
ended in a segmental apse containing a bookcase
flanked by doorways, but all this has been removed
and a mid nineteenth-century chimneypiece of
white marble, formerly in the main part of the
library, has been inserted in the right-hand wall in
what was the central compartment of a second
bookcase. The decoration on the ceiling has been
extended to fit the new shape of the room.
In the return wing at the back of the courtyard,
which was rebuilt early in this century by Messrs.
Dunn and Watson, there was a room with
rounded ends which was approached from the apse
of the library through a tiny, nearly elliptical,
lobby, lit by a small window contrived in the angle
between the two blocks. A third door from this
lobby led to a D-shaped secondary staircase of
stone, which still exists although considerably
altered. Behind the stair there was a small room
with a closet and at the back of the room with the
rounded ends was the upper part of the laundry.
Nothing is known of the appearance of this wing
but the form of the plan suggests that it was the
work of Wyatt.
The main staircase of the house, rising to the
first floor, was constructed of stone with a wrought
iron balustrade of rather complicated trellis form,
divided by narrow panels containing scroll and
anthemion ornament, and supporting a delicate
mahogany handrail. The first floor was marked
by a plainly moulded band, the skirting and chairrail also being continued round the compartment
(Plate 166a). The doorway to the front room
was nearly opposite the head of the stairs and a
similar doorway at the end of a cantilevered gallery
led to the rear lobby. Two doors, one at each end
of the south wall, opened to the main rear room.
The doorway to the front room survives but
the present gallery is new, re-using the old
balustrade. The whole compartment has a rich
dentil cornice above a frieze decorated with
anthemion and other ornament and a narrow enriched architrave. In the ceiling two ornamented
beams are introduced, forming a square central
space between the narrow end compartments,
each decorated with a band of intersecting octagons
containing square sunk panels and rosettes. There
is a shallow dome in the centre supported on
pendentives and rising to a circular roof-light
(Plate 166b). The tympana are decorated with
plaster drapery and a central oval plaque bearing a
figure set in a garland of husks. The pendentives
contain eagles with outstretched wings, holding
wreaths, and above them festoons and drops of
husks are suspended from the base of the dome.
This has diagonal coffering containing rosettes
and a band of anthemion ornament beneath the
shallow decorated drum which rises to the rooflight. Some of this decoration could be by Stuart
but it seems more likely that it is all the work of
Wyatt.
In the front room (Plate 168a) the doorway
from the staircase is balanced by another leading to the main back room and between them
is the chimneypiece. The skirting and chair-rail
have carved mouldings, the latter being fluted, and
the rich architraves to the doors and windows have
a cyma moulding in place of the usual flat face,
probably inspired by a similar detail found by
Stuart in a 'ruin at Salonicha called the Incontada'. (ref. 330) The two-leaf doors are of mahogany and
date from the late eighteenth century. The
chimneypiece (Plate 170a) is of white marble and
is very like one formerly in the 'great room' at
Spencer House. The opening has an eared architrave, carved with an egg-and-dart moulding,
flanked by a pair of fluted Corinthian pilasters with
female masks in their capitals supporting an
architrave and a dentil cornice having enriched
mouldings. Between the capitals runs a frieze
carved in low relief, with nude male figures
copied from a section of the frieze of the Choragic
Monument of Lysicrates, (ref. 331) and two draped
female figures. Over the chimneypiece is a tall
mirror in a gilt frame formed by fluted pilasters
rising to carved consoles which support an enriched cornice and enclose a fluted frieze: it could
well have been designed by Stuart. The room has
a small enriched architrave and cornice and a very
deep frieze with loose scroll decoration. The
ceiling (Plate 169) is reduced to a square by shallow beams, incised with fret ornament, the narrow
compartments at either end being decorated with
long hexagonal panels and smaller square ones set
diagonally. Within the square portion is a large
octagon containing hexagonal coffers with rosettes
which diminish towards the centre where a smaller
octagon frames a low coved dome, ornamented
with arabesque and palm leaf decoration radiating
from a central rosette. The surround to the main
octagon is divided by bands of guilloche ornament
into rectangular and long hexagonal panels, with
small triangles at the corners. The panels are
filled with arabesque decoration and contain
rectangular and oval compartments for paintings.
The design of the ceiling, cornice and frieze is
very similar to that executed by Stuart for Lord
Holdernesse in the drawing-room of what is now
Londonderry House in Park Lane.
The alterations carried out in this room by
Wyatt, apart from the lowering of the window-sills which has already been discussed, are of a
superficial nature. The bills list 'friezes' and
'pilaster panels' painted by Cornelius Dixon on the
first floor. The friezes no longer exist but there
are pilaster panels, presumably by Dixon, painted
with arabesque ornament in brown monochrome.
They and the whole of the upper part of the wall
surface are enclosed by narrow, reeded, gilt mouldings with rosette stops, and at either end of the
room are triple mirrors, similarly framed. The
wooden curtain boxes, carved with acanthus leaves
and imitation drapery, may also date from Wyatt's
time although they do not appear in the accounts.
The eight painted panels in the ceiling are by
Biagio Rebecca (Plate 169) and represent classical
figure subjects, well executed in light clear colours.
Rebecca charged twelve guineas each for the oval
paintings and five for the smaller rectangular
ones. (ref. 332)
The rear room (Plate 167a) which was at first
a simple rectangle with a coved ceiling retains a
great deal of Stuart's decoration. The one original
doorway is similar to those in the front room, the
skirting has enriched mouldings and the chair-rail
is carved with a wave moulding. The chimneypiece (Plate 170d) of white marble has an eared
architrave, enriched with egg-and-dart moulding
round the opening, and strip pilasters on either
side running up to carved consoles which support
the cornice-shelf. This has carved mouldings and
below it is a fluted frieze of cyma section. The
frieze of the room itself is ornamented with
paterae and there is a small enriched cornice. The
cove rises to a flat ceiling (Plate 167b) surrounded
by a band of fret ornament with similar bands
dividing the cove into sections. At either end
there is a row of three small panels, the corner ones
containing octagons with concave sides and the
middle one being further subdivided. The central
square compartment contains an enriched circle
enclosing a large octagon, again with concave
sides, a smaller figure of the same shape in the
centre and eight round-headed panels containing
paintings. The whole of the ceiling is decorated
with arabesque ornament.
Wyatt's addition of a bow to the room necessitated the removal of one side of the cove, the bow
being covered by a shallow semi-dome with
decoration copied from the existing ceiling and
containing four painted roundels. The spandrels
left between the segmental section of the new
ceiling and the coved section of the old are filled in
with plaster drapery resembling that in the dome
to the staircase. The big three-light window is
flat, as in the room below, and the curved doors on
either side match the third one in the room. The
painted roundels in the ceiling to the semi-dome
contain standing figures against a background of
sky and are probably the '4 Round [pictures] in
Colours' listed in Rebecca's bill, for which he
charged four guineas each. The eight panels in
the centre of the ceiling, containing similar figures,
are thought to be by another hand. (ref. 328) They could
perhaps be the 'eight small circles' [sic] for which
Rebecca charged £3 8s. 'to changing the ground
and touching the figures'.
The ceiling in this and the front room, and also
that over the staircase, are painted in shades of
pink, green and blue with touches of red and a
considerable amount of gilding. Whether this
represents a survival of Wyatt's original colour
scheme is not certain for A. T. Bolton in 1917
refers to 'the present sombre effect' of the front
room. (ref. 333)
The lobby in the rear wing has been altered
but retains some plain late eighteenth-century
fittings and a chair-rail carved with anthemion
ornament. Projections in the dado on either side
of the two openings in the bowed wall may have
formed pedestals to pilasters over the rectangular
portion of the room only. The ceiling has a small
cove decorated with elongated hexagonal coffers
and rising to a narrow band of guilloche ornament
above a small enriched cornice. The flat central
panel bears two circular plaques with standing
figures in relief. The ceiling over the bow is
entirely plain and it might be supposed that the
decorated portion is a survival from Stuart's
rectangular lobby but for the existence of a nearly
identical cove to the ceiling of the saloon at
Doddington Hall in Cheshire, which is the work
of Samuel Wyatt.
The principal room in the rear wing, above the
main part of the library, is lit by the three middle
windows, their reveals being lined with raised-and-fielded panels with carved mouldings. There
is a fluted chair-rail and the other fittings are
similar to those in the two rooms already described.
Above a diminutive enriched cornice and a frieze
decorated with anthemion, the ceiling rises in a
cove to a flat panel enclosed by a band of guilloche
ornament and decorated with octagonal coffers,
containing rosettes, arranged diagonally. In the
centre is another rectangular panel divided into
narrow end compartments, with anthemion and
arabesque ornament, and a square central compartment decorated with intersecting curves and
arabesques in the corners. This may well be by
Stuart but the decoration of the cove, with small
paterae and thin festoons and drops tied by ribbons,
must be an addition by Wyatt. The chimneypiece
(Plate 170c), of white marble, consists of a carved
and fluted architrave flanked by narrow margins
rising to finely carved winged horses, holding
scrolls, which support a shelf only separated from
the top of the architrave by two narrow mouldings.
The edge of the shelf is decorated with a minute
band of guilloche ornament and this part of the
chimneypiece, at least, must be by Wyatt.
The inner room is similarly decorated but with
a different frieze. It ends in a broad segmental
apse, like that which formerly existed below, but
containing two single doorways. The chimneypiece is modern and the room is lit by the bowed
oriel window already described. The ceiling was
destroyed by bombing during the last war and the
design of the present one is an adaptation of that
in the room below.
The first floor of the return wing was similar
in plan to the ground floor but over the kitchen
was a large room with a bed-recess flanked by
closets.
On the second floor the rooms are plainly
finished with simply moulded woodwork, friezes
decorated with fluting and other ornament, and
small moulded cornices. The chimneypieces consist of plainly moulded wooden architraves with
marble slips and cornice-shelves above, only the
pair in the large front room having any enrichment.
At the time of Wyatt's alterations a garden or
'shrubbery' was formed at the back of the house,
under the superintendence of Charles Sandys. (ref. 327)
After these improvements had been carried out
Thomas Anson settled the house in September
1794 on his intended bride in a marriage settlement. (ref. 326) Between April 1798 and November
1800 Samuel Wyatt did some further, small,
repairs to the house. (ref. 317) Despite their expenditure
there the Ansons do not seem subsequently to have
lived in the house at all continuously (ref. 6) and contemplated selling it. Lord Eliot considered taking it
in 1804 when Soane surveyed the house and was
asked £30,000 for it by Wyatt. (ref. 334) In 1806 the
house was let to the Duchess of Gordon at a rent
of £525 for six months. In 1809, when the
Marquis of Abercorn occupied the house, Soane
made further plans of it and was sent another
valuation at £34,500 by Lord Anson. (ref. 335)
In 1818 Lord Anson was succeeded by the
second Viscount, who in 1831 was created Earl of
Lichfield, the house being thereafter generally
known as Lichfield House. As Postmaster-General Lord Lichfield was responsible for the
introduction of penny postage and his residence in
the square made it the scene of a quaint annual
parade of mail coaches on the Queen's birthday. (fn. h)
His extravagance compelled the sale of the contents of the house and of Shugborough in April
1842. (ref. 336) The sale of the house itself, described as
'a Princely Habitation' on the 'west and preferable
side of St. James's Square' was also attempted but
not effected. (ref. 337)
After the sale of the furnishings, the house stood
empty until the end of 1846 (ref. 6) when it was taken by
the Army and Navy Club until 1850. The house
again stood empty from 1851 to 1853 although it
was used for a display of paintings during the summer of the Great Exhibition. (ref. 338) From the last
quarter of 1854 until midway through 1856 the
house was again occupied by a club, the Junior
United Service, whose club-house in Charles
Street was being rebuilt (see page 292) and who,
on vacating No. 15, bought and removed some
mirrors. (ref. 339) Meanwhile, in July 1854, the Earl
had come to an agreement for the sale of the house
to William Sedgwick of Regent Street for the
comparatively modest sum of £15,300, and in
October 1854 Sedgwick had agreed to lease the
house to the club at £1080 per annum, (ref. 326) which
presumably provided the title under which they
occupied it. But Sedgwick went bankrupt and the
Earl's sale to him did not proceed, (ref. 326) and in April
1856 the Earl, Sedgwick and others sold the house
for only £12,750 to the General Medical Society
(now the Clerical, Medical and General Life
Assurance Society) which had previously thought
of acquiring No. 2. (ref. 340) The purchase price was
said by Dasent in 1895 to have been 'probably by
far the cheapest transfer of freehold property
which has occurred in the Square during the last
half century'. (ref. 341) Alterations, costing perhaps
some £2490, were carried out for the Society by
the architect Charles Fowler, of Furnival's Inn, (ref. 81)
and executed by Messrs. Cubitt. (ref. 339)
The back premises were rebuilt in 1928 by
Messrs. Curtis Green and Partners who also made
major changes on the ground floor, where the
partitions were removed to form a large office: the
staircase was also taken away. The interior was
damaged when a bomb fell on Mason's Yard in
February 1944, but has since been carefully
restored. (ref. 342) The Society continues to occupy No.
15, having enjoyed a longer continuous tenure or
the same building than any other business house
in the square.