CHAPTER XVI
Ryder Street
Ryder Street (fn. a) may take its name from Captain Richard Rider (d. 1683), Master
Carpenter to Charles II. His will (ref. 1) shows
that he had been engaged in speculative building
in Russell Street and Suffolk Street, both in the
parish of St. Martin, and in Newport Street in the
parish of St. Anne; Ryder's Court, at the northeast corner of Leicester Square, probably takes its
name from him. (ref. 2)
Edward Stanton, carpenter, who was granted
leases of several plots in Ryder Street in 1671 and
1674, (ref. 3) was associated with George Plucknett the
elder, gentleman; (ref. 4) the latter may have been the
father of George Plukenett, junior, who witnessed
Rider's will. No other connexion between
Richard Rider and Ryder Street has been found. (fn. b)
All of the ground on both sides of Ryder Street
formed part of the land leased in 1661 by Henrietta Maria's trustees to the Earl of St. Albans's
trustees for thirty years; subsequent grants extended this term to 1740. 'Rider Street' first
appears in the ratebooks of St. Martin's parish in
1674, but the layout of a street there had probably
begun some years earlier, for on 1 April 1661 the
Earl of St. Albans's trustees had granted to Judith
Horseley a twenty-one-year lease of three houses
in St. James's Street and 'the north End of the
passage there leadinge to Burye Street'. On the
same day they had also granted a similar lease to
Valentine Stuckey of 'One Long Slipp of Ground
of 155 Foott in Front in the Passage goeing out of
St. James Street to Bury Street'. (ref. 5) These two
grants probably covered the whole of the ground
on the north side of the street between St. James's
Street and Bury Street. No further leases are
recorded until 1671, when six were granted; one
further lease was granted three years later. The
principal lessee was Edward Stanton of St. Martin
in the Fields, carpenter, who received four leases
of ground with a total frontage to Ryder Street of
over seventy feet. (ref. 6) He was probably a member of
the same Stanton family which produced several
prominent masons and sculptors in the seventeenth
century. (ref. 2)
The ratebooks of St. Martin's parish for 1674
list four names in Ryder Street, and in 1676
seventeen; those for the newly formed parish of
St. James record twenty-six in 1686, by which
time the building of houses along both sides of the
street had been largely completed. In 1675
representatives of the Earl of St. Albans acquired
the lease of the house standing on the south corner
of St. James's Street and Ryder Street and shortly
afterwards demolished it. Only a small part of the
site of this house appears to have been subsequently leased again by the Earl and his agents
and trustees, and it seems likely that the rest of the
site was used to widen the western extremity of the
street, which in the two leases granted in 1661
had been described as a passage. (ref. 7) The main
development of Ryder Street, which had previously hung fire, certainly dates from about
1675.
In 1738 Thomas Ripley, Comptroller of the
King's Works, was granted a forty-seven-year
Crown lease, commencing at Michaelmas 1740,
of two houses in Great Ryder Street, one on
the south side and the other directly opposite on
the north side. The houses were described by the
Surveyor General as 'in so ruinous a Condition
that they will not be of any profit . . . till pull'd
down and rebuilt', and it may therefore be presumed that Ripley did rebuild them. (ref. 8)
Like Bury Street, the freehold of the whole of
Ryder Street still belongs to the Crown, and all
the existing buildings have been erected during the
course of the last hundred years. Old photographs
in the Crown Estate Office show that the previous
buildings consisted for the most part of late
seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century terrace
houses, narrow fronted and lofty, with orderly
fronts generally four storeys high, the flushframed sash windows closely spaced in brick faces,
sometimes covered with stucco. Some Georgian
shop-fronts broke the monotony of doors and windows, there being a very fine example (fig. 56) on
the north-west corner of Ryder and Bury Streets,
with round-headed windows between Doric
pilasters, and a corner entrance between columns.
The backs, however, were a picturesque confusion
of plaster-faced gables, projecting closet wings
of brick or weather boarding, and tall irregular
chimney-stacks (fig. 57).
Figure 56:
Ryder Street (left) and Bury Street. Drawn from a photograph of 1878 in the Crown Estate Office
A list of distinguished residents and lodgers in
Ryder Street is contained in the Appendix.
Nos. 1–5 (odd) and 11 Ryder Street
And No. 43A Duke Street
The building now occupied by the Eccentric
Club at No. 11 Ryder Street (Plate 276c) was
built at three different periods between 1865 and
1911. Until 1914–15 it was the premises of
Dieudonné's Hotel. The block of shops and
residential chambers adjoining to the east, Nos.
43a Duke Street and 1, 3 and 5 Ryder Street,
were built by the proprietor of the hotel in 1902–1903.
In 1864 Christie's purchased the Crown leases
of what had been Nos. 12 and 13 Great Ryder
Street. The two houses were described at this
time as being small and old, with rebuilt fronts.
Christie's first aim in acquiring the site was to
provide a trade entrance from Ryder Street to
the back part of their King Street premises, and an
extension to their auction rooms. This scheme
was abandoned in favour of one for a single
residential building with a back entrance to
Christie's through the easternmost bay.
The architect of the new building was John
Norton of Old Bond Street. His design was for a
block of residential chambers in red and blue brick
with terra-cotta balconies and ornaments. It was
described by James Pennethorne (acting for the
Office of Woods and Forests) as being in a style
'not such as I would have proposed, but which you
may not deem it necessary to object to in a
secondary street'.
Figure 57:
Ryder Street, backs of houses on north side. Drawn from a photograph of 1880 in the Crown Estate Office
Building work began in the winter of 1864–5
and was completed by the end of 1865. (ref. 9) In 1866
Christie's received an eighty-year lease (ref. 10) and
having failed to let the new building as residential
chambers, it was opened as an hotel (ref. 9) (later known
as Dieudonné's Hotel). (ref. 11) It was taken over in
about 1895 by C. P. Guffanti, (ref. 12) who embarked on
a programme of improvement and expansion. (ref. 13) In
February 1900 he concluded a building agreement
with the Office of Woods for all the ground between his hotel and the corner of Duke Street. He
was to proceed at once with rebuilding on the site
of the old house immediately to the east of the
hotel, and to rebuild the remaining houses as soon
as the current leases (which were to expire in
1904) could be acquired. (ref. 14)
The designs for the single site adjoining the
hotel were approved by the Office of Woods in
September 1900, and the new building was completed in the summer of the following year. (ref. 15) The
architect, William Woodward of Southampton
Street, Strand, (ref. 14) carefully repeated the design of
Norton's façade, adding two further bays to the
east of the existing hotel. The ground floor
formed a large, double-arched entrance and
loading-bay for Christie's, their former doorway
being converted into a blind window. (ref. 15)
Rebuilding on the remainder of the site began in
the early part of 1902 and was completed in the
spring of the following year. William Woodward
was again the architect, and the builders in both
cases were Messrs. Lea and Grace (H. & E. Lea)
of Warwick Street, Regent Street. The façade of
the new Nos. 1, 3 and 5 Ryder Street and 43a
Duke Street was designed in a different style from
that of the adjoining hotel. There were shops on
the ground floor, with residential chambers above.
These were known as Ryder Street Chambers. (ref. 16)
Guffanti had purchased the lease of the house to
the west, then numbered 13 Ryder Street, in 1900,
and commissioned William Woodward to incorporate the existing building with the hotel. (ref. 15) He
subsequently acquired a building lease from the
Office of Woods and Forests of this and the
adjoining house, then No. 15 Ryder Street, and in
September 1909 Woodward submitted plans for a
new building as a further extension to the hotel.
After considerable delay a modified plan was
finally accepted in 1910, and the new block (now
numbered as part of No. 11), was completed early
in 1911. (ref. 17) At the same time another attic storey
was added to the roof of the main hotel building. (ref. 18)
Once again, Woodward did not duplicate Norton's
façade in his new work.
In 1914–15 Guffanti assigned his leasehold
interest in both the hotel and the adjoining Ryder
Street Chambers to the Eccentric Club, which
had formerly occupied premises in Shaftesbury
Avenue. The club had been founded in about
1890, many of its members being connected with
the arts. (ref. 19)
The building was severely damaged by enemy
action in 1941, when a large part of Christie's
adjoining premises were destroyed. The older
part of the hotel premises was completely gutted
but the brick façade survived. Post-war repairs
and restoration were completed in 1953.
Four storeys high and six bays wide, the front
(Plate 276c) is designed in a style that is best
described as 'North Italian Gothic'. The ground
storey contains two windows and a doorway with
round arches rising from granite colonnets, set in
a red brick face between the wide segmentalheaded club entrance on the west, and the twin
doorways to Christie's loading-bay on the east, the
latter being framed by straight-sided segmental
arches resting on clustered-shafted piers. A long
balcony of painted terra-cotta, its front divided
into panels pierced with two quatrefoils, projects
from the second storey where there are six roundarched windows set with plain margins in a face of
red bricks, patterned with blue bricks to form an
impost-band, decorate the arches, and diaper the
spandrels. The third storey is similarly treated,
except that each of the six windows has its separate
balcony, with a perforated front and sides of
geometrical design. Narrow bands of coloured
tiles divide the three upper storeys, the fourth
being underlined by a diaper-patterned pedestal
and having in each of its six bays a pair of small
windows, their round arches springing from
moulded terra-cotta imposts above colonnets. The
front is finished with a plain parapet resting on a
corbelled cornice.
The west extension of the club has a front of red
brick and stone, designed in a mannered Renaissance style. The ground storey is divided into
three bays, each containing a wood-framed bow
window, by rusticated Doric piers which support a
plain entablature. There are three windows in the
second storey and in the third, a canted bay of
three lights on each side of a single light, both
tiers being united by their stone setting. The
three fourth-storey windows break through the
parapet to form pedimented dormers, segmental
flanking triangular.
The east extension has shops on the ground
floor, three storeys above, and a garret in the
steeply pitched roof. The exterior, which has a
simple early Renaissance character, is of stone
except for the red brick faces adjoining the slim
octagonal corner turret, which rises an extra
storey and is finished with a conical roof. Each
storey is defined by an entablature of sorts, the
main entablature being below the fourth storey.
The red brick face to Ryder Street is plain, but
that to Duke Street contains one window to each
storey and alongside is a three-storeyed canted bay
of stone. In Ryder Street there are two such bays,
flanking a gabled and pedimented feature with a
three-light window in each storey.
No. 22 Ryder Street and No. 30 Bury Street
Formerly Nos. 18–22 (even) Ryder Street and Nos.
32–34 (consec.) Bury Street
In the spring of 1878 the Office of Woods
demolished the existing buildings at Nos. 32, 33
and 34 Bury Street and Nos. 18, 20 and 22 Ryder
Street. (ref. 20) The site was then let for a new building,
which was begun in the latter part of 1878 and
completed in the autumn of the following year.
The architect was Walter S. Witherington of
Leadenhall Street, and the builders were R. F.
Sandon and A. G. Sandon of Mark Lane. The
building was designed as a block of flats, and was
known as St. James's Palace Chambers. In 1928–
1930 the ground floor was re-arranged to provide a
range of shops in Bury Street. (ref. 21)
The building was damaged during the war of
1939–45, but by 1952 it had been fully repaired.
Since 1947 the premises have been the offices of
the Economist Newspaper Limited.
The building is fronted with brick and stone,
and comprises four storeys set upon a high semibasement. Each front is divided into five bays by
tiers of broad pilasters supporting an entablature
at each floor level, and the splayed angle forms a
further, narrower bay. Although the composition
has early Renaissance echoes, the fussy detail
which adorns the pilasters, and the weak entablatures with their over-ornate friezes are distinctively Victorian. Two-light mullioned windows
fill the bays in the ground and fourth storeys, and
in the bays of the second and third storeys are set
shallow canted bay windows, those of the second
storey having round-arched centre lights. In the
Ryder Street front emphasis is placed on the
narrower middle bay, the ground storey of which
has a heavily enriched, round-arched doorway,
while each of the upper storeys has a canted bay
window, the whole being crowned by a large
segmental pediment. Rusticated pilasters and a
fruit-filled segmental pediment frame the doorway
and the bay windows are elaborated with a curious
mesh of mullions and transoms.
No. 24 Ryder Street
When the leases of Nos. 24, 26 and 28 Ryder
Street expired in 1871, the Office of Woods and
Forests decided to demolish the existing houses and
redevelop the site. Part of the land formerly occupied by No. 28 Ryder Street was added to the
adjoining premises at Nos. 23 and 25 St. James's
Street, while the remainder of the site was divided
into two equal plots. At first it was proposed to
build two houses, but this scheme was abandoned
in favour of a larger single block of residential
chambers. Building work appears to have begun
late in 1871 and been completed by the summer of
the following year. The architect was John
Wimble of Walbrook.
During extensive alterations made in 1930 an
ornamental balustrade was removed from the
fourth floor, and the ground floor was fitted up as
the premises of the 1900 Club. (ref. 22) The building
suffered some damage during the war of 1939–45.
It is now used as offices.
Built of a yellowish stone, probably Bath, this
pleasant and well-composed front has an early
Venetian Renaissance flavour, although much
of the precisely carved detail is decidedly Victorian. The four storeys diminish in height, and
all except the ground storey have a regular pattern
of four windows evenly spaced between wide piers.
The ground storey is divided into nine equal bays
by slender panel-shafted Corinthian pilasters,
rising from a pedestal and supporting a delicately
carved entablature. The doorway is in the middle
bay, the second and third from either end contain
windows, and the rest are solid, each with a
panelled face whose incised decoration forms a
border and surrounds a central boss. The secondstorey windows are round-arched, with rich
frames composed of panelled pilasters, moulded
archivolts and panelled spandrels, all ornamented
with carving. Each intervening pier is horizontally channelled up to the level of the fretted impost-band, above which is a high-relief portrait
head projecting from a roundel dressed with festoons and pendants. This storey is finished with an
entablature, which breaks forward over each window with a carved panel in the frieze, the cornice
forming a sill for the third-storey windows. These
are rectangular and have enriched architraves,
scrolled at the feet and surmounted by triangular
pediments, rising against the panelled aprons of the
fourth-storey windows. These are also rectangular
and their enriched architraves are surmounted by
carved frieze-blocks supporting breaks in the bedmouldings of the crowning cornice. The thirdand fourth-storey piers are panelled like those in
the ground storey, but without the ornamented
bosses. The crowning cornice has dentils and
enriched modillions, and is surmounted by a low
parapet behind which rise the four luçarne dormers
in the diagonally slated roof.