Nos. 83–84 Pall Mall: Lady
Ranelagh's house: Christie's: Board
of Ordnance
Occupied part of the site of the Royal Automobile Club
In or about 1664 the Earl of Warwick assigned
two houses on the south side of Pall Mall to
Katherine, Lady Ranelagh, who occupied them
both. (ref. 180) Lady Ranelagh was the wife of Arthur
Jones, the second Viscount, (ref. 132) and sister of the
Hon. Robert Boyle, the philosopher and chemist. (ref. 18)
Boyle left Oxford in 1671 to live with his sister in
Pall Mall. There he was frequently visited by
Robert Hooke who had assisted him in his experiments at Oxford and with whom he had
formed a warm friendship. In 1676–7 Hooke
busied himself on a 'Designe' or 'draught' for
altering Lady Ranelagh's house, employing 'Bates'
to carry out the work, which included a laboratory
at the back for Boyle. (ref. 181)
Lady Ranelagh and her brother both died in
1691 (ref. 182) and the house was again divided into
two. (ref. 34) The pair of houses shown in Coney's
elevation (pocket, drawing B) and in an anonymous
view (Plate 50a) have an early eighteenth-century
character and must have been built, or at least refronted, at that time. Each house had a decorative
doorcase, and in each of the three upper storeys
were three tall segmental-arched windows.
Raised bandcourses marked each floor level, and
the fronts were finished with a plain parapet
ramped up at each end.
The two houses formerly occupied by Lady
Ranelagh, or two which replaced them on the
same sites, were let in 1768 by Philip Elias Turst,
the Crown lessee, to James Christie, the auctioneer. (ref. 183) It was probably in these two houses that
Christie's first connexion with St. James's began.
He had spent £1000 in altering the property, (ref. 183)
erecting in the gardens at the rear a 'spacious and
lofty' auction room (Plate 50b) which was
approached by a passage between the two houses. (ref. 138)
The easternmost house was occupied by Christie and the other was sub-let. (ref. 34) James Christie
the elder died in 1803 and was succeeded in his
business by his son. (ref. 18) In 1807 James Christie,
junior, tried to obtain a renewal of the Crown
lease of both houses, (ref. 138) but his application was unsuccessful and in 1809 the lease was surrendered
to the Crown, the premises having been purchased
by the Board of Ordnance. (ref. 172) In the following
year both houses were taken over by the Board for
use as offices, (ref. 184) although Christie was allowed to
use the auction room and the ground floor of No.
83 as an office until 1823 (see page 297).
In 1846 both houses were in a decayed state and
the Board of Ordnance offered to rebuild them if a
new lease could be obtained. (ref. 185) Both houses were
demolished in 1850, and the new office building,
designed by (Sir) James Pennethorne and built by
William Holland, was completed in 1851 (Plate
271c). (ref. 186) Of all the buildings in Pall Mall occupied by the staffs of the Board of Ordnance and the
War Office, this was the only one to be specially
built for their use.
Pennethorne's Ordnance Office had a striking
front in the Florentine Renaissance manner,
carried out in brick and stone. There were four
storeys, each strongly defined by a stringcourse and
bounded by wide straight quoins. In each storey
were three equally spaced windows, those of the
ground storey being recessed in rather squat roundarched openings framed by heavy architraves. The
stringcourse below the second storey was carved
with a fret-band, and the windows were dressed
each with a moulded architrave, plain frieze, and a
cornice resting on scroll-consoles. A moulded
cornice underlined the third-storey windows,
which were similar to those below except that the
consoles were omitted. A plain band defined the
attic storey, where the oblong windows were
framed in eared architraves, and the front was
finished with a bold cornicione having a moulded
architrave, plain frieze, and a heavy modillioned
cornice, from the front of which rose the shallowpitched roof of lead, with its secret gutter. The
front area was guarded by railings recessed between massive console-pedestals on which stood
cast-iron standards carrying lanterns of typically
Florentine design.
The Ordnance Office and its successor, the
War Office, continued to occupy this building
until 1906. (ref. 129) Between 1907 and 1910 it was
occupied by the Office of Woods, Forests and
Land Revenues whilst its new office in Whitehall
was being built. (ref. 187) It was demolished in 1911–12
to make way for the Royal Automobile Club
extension. (ref. 176) The stone balustrade which surmounted the building was sold to Lord Carrington. (ref. 188)