No. 21
Architects, Messrs. Mewès and Davis, 1936, the front
being a four-bay extension of that of No. 20
This site was agreed to be granted in June 1673
at a rent of £17 17s. 8d. per annum to Robert
Warden, esquire, (fn. a) in trust for Arabella Churchill,
the Duke of York's mistress, who occupied the
house from 1675 until her association with the
Duke ended in 1678. (ref. 436) The adjacent house to
the north, No. 20, was occupied by Sir Allen
Apsley, the Duke's treasurer of the household.
Sir Allen's daughter, old Lady Wentworth,
writing one of her chatty, ill-spelt letters to her
son in 1710, said with reference to No. 21 that
her father 'had the building of it, and it cost ten
thousand pound. . . . My father built it by the
order of King Jaims for Lady Dorchester.' Lady
Wentworth was presumably confused by the fact
that the Countess of Dorchester, James II's mistress, occupied the house from 1685 or 1686 to
1696, but her faulty recollection may indicate that
Sir Allen had been charged with the supervision of
the building of the house to suit the demands of
his master's earlier favourite. (fn. b)
Lady Wentworth observed, perhaps significantly, that the property had walls 'of a great
height, becaus none should over look them', with
'a prety little garden'. She thought it 'the strongist
built of all the housis in the Squar . . . its the best in
the squar', (ref. 438) a favourable opinion that others seem
to have shared. The front to the square was one
of the widest of any of the 'single-width' plots.
In September 1678 the recently widowed Lady
O'Brien was reported to have bought Arabella
Churchill's 'fine house' for £8000, (ref. 439) although in
1685 Arabella's husband seems still to have had an
interest in the house. In February 1679 Lady
O'Brien married Sir Joseph Williamson, and they
lived here until 1684. (ref. 6) The Earl of Longford,
writing to the Duke of Ormonde in March
1681/2, when the Duke was offered the hire of
old St. Albans House, Sir Edward Villiers's house
in St. James's Street or Sir Joseph's house, calls the
last 'the finer finished and better furnished of the
three'. (ref. 440)
In January 1684/5 the house was acquired on
behalf of Catherine Sedley, apparently from
Arabella Churchill's husband. (ref. 441) In April 1686
it was said that 'the house is furnishing very fine'
for occupation by the Countess of Dorchester, as
Catherine Sedley had then become, (ref. 442) and she
lived here until 1696, when she vacated it on her
marriage to Sir David Colyear, afterwards Earl
of Portmore. A series of comparatively short
tenancies followed, and in 1710 it was being
offered for sale, according to Lady Wentworth, at
£6000. (ref. 438) Evidently no sale was made, and the
Countess returned to the house with the Earl of
Portmore until her death in 1717. (ref. 6) The ownership of the house then presumably passed to her
daughter, of supposed royal birth, the Duchess of
Buckinghamshire, from whom the Earl of Portmore bought it in August 1723. (ref. 443) He lived here
until his death in 1730 (fn. c) when he was succeeded by
his son, the second Earl, to whom he had conveyed
the house in January 1725/6. (ref. 445) In 1732 the
second Earl married the widow of the third Duke
of Leeds. In July 1740 he sold the house to Lord
Dupplin and Francis Godolphin, doubtless in
trust for the Countess of Portmore's stepson, the
fourth Duke of Leeds, who had very recently
married. (ref. 446) On the Duke of Leeds's death in
March 1789 the old house passed to his son, the
fifth Duke, who determined to rebuild it.
This rebuilding was taking place from 1790 to
1793, (ref. 6) but the work evidently did not satisfy the
Duke and Duchess, and the house was not finished
until alterations had been carried out under Soane's
direction in the years 1795–6.
The original architect for the rebuilding, who
was responsible for the main features of the elevation to the square and of the plan, was Robert
Furze Brettingham, a grandson of the builder of
Norfolk House and No. 5 in the square, and an
old acquaintance of Soane's. It is curious to note
that his work at Buckingham House, Pall Mall,
was probably also altered by Soane (see page 360),
and that it was Soane who later gave an opinion
adverse to Brettingham in a dispute of the latter
with a client. (ref. 447) Soane's records of the alterations
to No. 21 contain many references to consultations
with Brettingham but do not reveal whether their
relations were amicable or contentious.
Few details of the history of Brettingham's own
work emerge from Soane's records. A reference
to 'Mr. Brettingham's order and Mr. Novosielski's
Receipt for £250' dating back to April 1792 (ref. 448)
suggests that Michael Novosielski had some connexion with the building or decoration of the
house.
On 12 March 1794 Soane met the Duchess of
Leeds and three days later wrote to her to report
that Brettingham was 'willing to meet any investigation that may be desired'. (ref. 449) In May Soane
'sent to Mr. Brettingham a statement of the
business'. (ref. 450) Soane evidently thought the Leeds
sufficiently dissatisfied with the house for it to be
worth his while to produce in June plans and an
elevation for a complete rebuilding of Brettingham's brand-new house. A model was made from
these drawings (ref. 451) and the design was subsequently
published in Soane's Designs for Public and Private
Buildings of 1828. (ref. 452)
This unexecuted design (Plate 193) is for a
house containing a semi-basement and four
storeys, including the attic, and Soane's plans
make no use of any part of Brettingham's structure
although the disposition of the front rooms is
similar in both designs. A three-bay portico provides a handsome approach to the front door,
which opens to a square cross-vaulted hall, its
floor being lower than the general level of the
ground storey. (fn. d) On its west side is the nightporter's cubicle, south of a short flight of stairs
rising to a domed lobby off the principal staircase,
a deep D-shaped compartment lying between the
north-east and north-west rooms. The north-east
room is the library, a deep oblong in plan with two
windows overlooking the square, and the northwestern is the eating-room, a very large oblong
with a segmental-bowed end wall containing three
windows overlooking the garden. South of the
principal staircase is the second stair and a court
that gives light and air to the second stair, to the
lobby and water-closet adjoining the south-east
dressing-room, and to the lobby, south of the
principal staircase, that serves the south-west
drawing-room, a deep oblong with two windows
towards the garden. The principal staircase is
another of Soane's variations on Kent's masterpiece at No. 44 Berkeley Square, and it rises with
a straight central flight, then branches in curves
left and right, to return in straight parallel flights
to the principal-storey landing. This is flanked by
cross-vaulted lobbies, one serving the two drawingrooms on the east, overlooking the square, and the
other leading south to the bed-chamber and
dressing-room over the back drawing-room, and
west into the large music-room above the eatingroom. The east lobby projects into the musicroom, where an organ recess is provided by forming a balancing lobby which leads to a screened
gallery at the north end of the staircase, linking the
music-room with the front drawing-rooms.
The front elevation is severe and neo-classical,
with a three-bay portico of plain-shafted Ionic
columns projecting from the rusticated ground
storey. The plain upper face contains two tiers of
five evenly spaced windows, all dressed with narrow architraves, and the attic, with five oblong
windows, is finished with a simple cornice and
blocking-course.
In the event, however, Soane only modified the
existing house. In July 1794 he made plans of
Brettingham's house, 'as built' (ref. 453) (Plate 192) and
during the summer and winter was discussing the
house; one topic talked over with Brettingham
was 'warming the staircase'. In August 1794
there is mention of 'an action against Stoddart
for dimensions', possibly for inadequate brickwork. (ref. 454) By the end of March 1795 the plans for
the alterations were completed. The commencement of the work was delayed for a day or two by
Brettingham's wish for 'some of his friends to see
the House in the present state'. (ref. 455) The alterations
were probably finished by the end of the following
year. In September 1796 Soane read his report to
Brettingham, afterwards having dinner with him
at a coffee-house. The following month he was
copying Brettingham's answer. (ref. 456)
The work for which Soane's workmen were
paid amounted only to some £430, mainly for
gilding ornaments in the ground-floor rooms. The
library bookcases were reset, and the upper part
of the portico enclosed by the mason. (ref. 457) T. J.
Boileau painted a frieze of figures and pictures
over doors and chimneys. (ref. 458) The redecoration of
the library was perhaps influenced by the library
of Spencer House which Soane viewed with the
Duke of Leeds in January 1795. (ref. 455) These bills,
however, were for work 'not in Mr. Brettingham's
Abstract of Bills' and it seems likely that other
work was done, perhaps by Brettingham at the
suggestion of Soane, whose bill for directing the
work, making drawings for the alterations and for
the workmen's use, and settling the bills, amounted
to the sum, comparatively large in relation to his
workmen's bills, of £300. (ref. 457) Plans of the house
in 1876 (ref. 459) show various alterations from Brettingham's plan. The most important of these
structurally dates from the nineteenth century,
but the alterations on the first floor, where small
rooms within the dressing-room and chamber had
been altered or abolished, and the chamber opened
into the front drawing-room, were probably all the
work of Soane, who in March 1795 made a
drawing for the first-floor dressing-room door and
showed the Duke and Duchess 'a general Section
and perspective View of the effect of the Manner
proposed to finish the Door from the Dressing
Room to the Drawing Room I Pair', which they
ordered to be carried out. The alteration of the
library door on the ground floor, which is
apparent in a comparison of the plans of 1794 and
1876, was also Soane's work, although it does not
occur in his workmen's bills. (ref. 460) His alterations
also seem to have involved the provision, by
Brettingham, of three new designs for chimneypieces in August 1794. (ref. 461)
The 1794 plan of Brettingham's house before
alteration (Plate 192) shows that the back wall of
the old seventeenth-century house had been retained and that Brettingham's back rooms were
built out beyond it, with a slight break at this
point in the southern party-wall. The 1876 plan
shows the back rooms reconstructed and the line
of the party-wall straight. This reconstruction
took place after 1836 (ref. 405) and may have been connected with the building of the Army and Navy
club-house next door, but it possibly indicates a
structural weakness that had already become partially apparent when Soane was called in. In
August 1796, as his alterations were nearing completion, he examined 'cracks' somewhere in the
house with Brettingham. (ref. 462)
The house designed by Brettingham, and modified by Soane, contained a semi-basement, three
storeys, and roof-garrets. Brettingham's plans,
though less ingenious than those prepared by Soane
in June 1794, were by no means incompetent. On
the ground storey, the centrally placed front door
opened to a hall, roughly a square with rounded
angles on its west side, where the other door led to
the great staircase, contained in a large and almost
square compartment, with doors serving all the
ground-storey rooms. The north-east room was
the library, a deep oblong with two windows overlooking the square, and the north-west room was a
drawing-room, a larger deep oblong with a threelight window to the garden. The largest of the
ground-storey rooms was the south-west, an
eating-room that projected well beyond the northwest room and had a segmental bow with three
windows overlooking the garden. South of the
great staircase was the service stair, separated by
two water-closets from the small south-east
dressing-room. The ground-storey arrangement
was more or less repeated on the principal storey,
with an oblong music-room over the hall and
dressing-room, having three windows overlooking
the square; a drawing-room over the library; a
bed-chamber, dressing-room and water-closet over
the back drawing-room; and the lady's dressingroom, powdering-room and maid's room above
the eating-room.
Brettingham's design for the front (ref. 463) (Plate
191a) has three well-defined storeys, the principal
and chamber storeys each containing five evenly
spaced windows. The ground storey, raised above
the semi-basement, has five round-arched openings, two windows on each side of the doorway,
all set with plain margins in an arcade formed by
plain piers with moulded imposts, and moulded
archivolts broken by plain keystones. The doorway is approached by steps within a porch formed
by two columns, raised on plain pedestals and
having moulded bases, plain shafts, and Corinthianesque capitals, supporting a simple entablature. A rich guilloche band underlines the principal-storey windows, each of which is dressed
with a narrow moulded architrave and a cornice
resting on scroll-consoles, the middle window
being accented by the addition of plain jambs
shaped at the feet, and a triangular pediment. A
fluted bandcourse marks the chamber storey,
where the square windows are uniformly dressed
with narrow moulded architraves rising from plain
sills. The front is finished with an entablature and
a balustrade divided into bays by pedestals, the
entablature being composed of a moulded architrave, an anthemion-ornamented frieze, and a
modillioned cornice.
The front, which was built in 'white' bricks
dressed with stone, was altered in detail by Soane
(Plate 191b, fig. 34). The imposts of the ground-storey piers were simplified and the moulded
archivolts were omitted. The porch was built with
columns standing on moulded pedestals and having
plain shafts and enriched Ionic capitals, and the
sides were closed in. A balcony with a delicately
designed iron railing was added to the principal
storey, where the windows were all uniform, and
the fluted bandcourse was omitted from the
chamber storey. For Brettingham's entablature,
Soane substituted one with its cornice resting on
foliated scroll-brackets, these breaking the frieze
into the square metopes each decorated with a
flower-patera.
Figure 34:
No. 21 St. James's Square, elevation. Drawn from a photograph in Westminster Public Library
Whatever the Leeds may have thought of
Brettingham's work they were very pleased with
Soane's, and employed him also at North Mimms.
When his bill was finally presented, the Duchess,
with whom he seems mainly to have dealt and
with whom his family became friendly, wrote that
she was 'quite astonish'd to find . . . Mr. Soane's
charge for St. James's Square so very inadequate
to the immense trouble He has had, and the great
good He has done the Duke of Leeds which She is
sure will always be remembered by both the Duke
and Duchess with the warmest Gratitude'. (ref. 464)
In January 1799 the Duke of Leeds died, and
in the following year the house was put up for sale
by Christie's who in their sale catalogue of May
1800 emphasized its 'simple elegance'. (ref. 465) In
April 1802 the sixth Duke and the Dowager
Duchess, together with a mortgagee of the late
Duke, conveyed the house, perhaps in mortgage,
to William Hobson of Stamford Hill, builder, (fn. e) in
trust for John Blades, a glass manufacturer of
Ludgate Hill, (ref. 467) who later acquired an estate at
Brixton. (ref. 468) The purchase price of the house in
the square is said (ref. 469) to have been £11,500 compared with the £38,000 it supposedly cost the
Duke. (fn. f) From 1800 to 1806 inclusive the house
stood empty (ref. 6) and then from 1807 to 1815 was
occupied by George Raggett on behalf of the
Union Club. (fn. g) In 1816 the house was owned by
the Earl of Bective, subject to a mortgage interest
held by Blades; (ref. 471) during the years 1816–18 it
stood empty. (ref. 6) In February-March 1818 the Earl
of Bective and Blades sold the house to the eighth
Duke of St. Albans. (ref. 472) The eighth and ninth
Dukes occupied it until 1828. (ref. 6) During part of
1821 it was hired at 'the immense rent of £500
per month' by Lord and Lady Londonderry,
whose furnishing of the house evidently fell short
of the 'simple elegance' of the Leeds' day or
rather went beyond it in demonstrative opulence. (ref. 473)
In May 1829 the Duke of St. Albans and trustees under his father's will sold the house for
£21,750 to the Bishop of Winchester, (ref. 474) and
another element was introduced into the curiously
varied history of the site which now accommodated the town residence of the Bishops for some
forty-six years, under the name of Winchester
House.
In 1870 alterations were carried out for the
incoming Bishop, Samuel Wilberforce, by the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners, under the direction
of Ewan Christian. The work, for which the
final bill was presented in March 1872, totalled in
all some £1495. The heating, lighting and sanitation of the house were modernized and a private
chapel introduced into the upper storey of the back
premises. (ref. 475)
A few years later, in 1875, the sale of the house
by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was agreed
between them and the Bishop. The purpose of the
sale was to provide funds towards the endowment
of the new Bishopric of St. Albans, which was
being constituted by a rearrangement of the sees of
Winchester and Rochester. The Bishopric of St.
Albans Act (ref. 476) received the Royal Assent on
29 June, and in July the house was offered for
public auction. The Army and Navy Club had
made tentative enquiries about the possibility of
buying the house, and the Bishop reminded the
Commissioners that 'provision should be made for
removing the window glass full of the sacred
monogram I H S if the house is sold for a club'.
Subsequent to the auction, £45,000 was offered
for the house, but this was less than the reserved
price and no sale was made. (fn. h) It was offered for
sale a second time in May 1876. £48,000 was bid
but again no sale was made. In August of the same
year an offer of £45,000 from the Treasury on
behalf of the Commissioners of Works was
accepted and the conveyance from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was made in March 1877. (ref. 477)
The plans in the particulars of sale of 1876
show, when compared with one of 1831–6, (ref. 405)
that a major structural alteration had been made.
The back wall of the southern part of the house
had been rebuilt, shortening the back rooms by
six or seven feet.
From 1877 to 1906 the house was occupied by
the War Office and from 1908 to 1914 by the
Board of Agriculture. After the war of 1914–18
it was occupied by various government offices until
1924 when it was taken by the Centaur Club until
1927. (ref. 478)
In 1926 and 1929 the house was for sale. In
1932 its rebuilding was considered, but in July
1933 a different proposal was submitted on behalf
of the National Sporting Club by Messrs. Mewès
and Davis for the building of new club premises. (ref. 479)
This project had been initiated by LieutenantCommander E. W. B. Leake, a wealthy sportsman who wished to resuscitate the moribund club
for the promotion of boxing tournaments. The
proposed new premises, (fn. i) the work of Mr. A. J.
Davis, were said to be likely to cost over
£300,000, and would include 'gymnasium, squash
courts, card-room, banquetting room, ballroom,
club-rooms, bedrooms with private bathrooms,
etc. etc.' It was claimed that they would be 'the
most luxurious and modern in the country'. The
public were not to be admitted but the club was to
act as 'official host' to visiting teams and promote
'private tournaments'. (ref. 480)
Permission to redevelop the site was given in
July 1934 (ref. 479) by which time the old house had
been demolished. (ref. 481) It was commemorated in an
'obituary' in The Architect and Building News of
6 July, which regretted the destruction of 'this
dignified and admirable façade', and observed, 'but
what passes comprehension is that it should be
possible for a square so famous and distinguished as
St. James' to be rebuilt in the way it is—piecemeal, without regard to unity or continuity'.
By October, however, the scheme to promote
important boxing contests under the aegis of the
club had been abandoned, and despite the money
laid out on plans and demolition it was decided to
sell the site. (ref. 482) On 27 February 1935 the club
agreed to its sale to the Distillers Company, which
by January 1936 had also acquired No. 20 (see
page 165). In that month Mewès and Davis
made a further application, this time on behalf of
the company, for consent to two alternative
schemes; one giving separate façades to the two
adjacent sites and the other that actually carried out.
By this scheme No. 20 was preserved and a new
office block built on the site of No. 21 with a
façade formed by the extension of that of No. 20
(Plate 171). A mansard roof was added. In July
1936 the London County Council consented to
this scheme and the work was completed shortly
afterwards. (ref. 483)