CHAPTER XXII
Warwick House Street and Carlton Mews
Warwick House Street (formerly Warwick Street) is a surviving portion of the
old road from Charing Cross to St.
James's Palace which was closed in 1661 (see page
322). On the formation of Pall Mall in that year
the eastern part of the old highway was left open
as far as the paved passage known as Stone Cutter's
Alley (or court or yard), which connected Pall
Mall with the King's garden in St. James's Park;
the site of this alley is now covered by the United
Service Club house. Houses were built along both
sides of the street, and at the end was Warwick
House, from which the street took its name. The
eastern end of the north side of the street is outside the parish of St. James.
In the early nineteenth century Stone Cutter's
Yard seems to have been a place of ill repute. In
1808 the Prince of Wales complained of 'the
nuisance caused by the resort there of numbers of
profligate and disorderly persons during the night',
so near to the entrance of Warwick House, then
the residence of his daughter, Princess Charlotte.
His attempts to persuade the St. James's vestry to
allow it to be closed at night were unsuccessful;
the passage was a public way and its closure would
have been an infringement of public rights. (ref. 1)
Warwick House
Demolished
This house was built by Sir Philip Warwick
(1609–83), the royalist memoir writer. (ref. 2) In
March 1663 he petitioned the King for leave to
build a lodging on the void ground near Spring
Garden, complaining that 'he had daily occasion to
attend Court, and is much inconvenienced by
having no lodgings near'. (ref. 3) In the following May
he obtained a sixty-year Crown lease of the site,
then described as being part of the old highway
from Charing Cross to St. James's Palace and
measuring 230 feet by 62 feet. (ref. 4)
The architect employed is unknown, but may
perhaps have been Sir Roger Pratt. The builder
was probably Maurice Emmett or Emmott,
whose 'rates to Sir Philip Warwick', dated 20
April 1664, are in Sir Roger Pratt's notebooks. (ref. 5)
The notebooks also contain 'The Carpenter Mr.
Brokenbury's Rates' for Warwick. (ref. 6) No other
documentary evidence connecting Pratt with the
building has been found.
Warwick House appears in Kip's view (fig.
67) as a Caroline Renaissance building having a
general resemblance to Ashdown House, Berkshire, being square in plan and three storeys high,
with garrets in the roof which was hipped all round
a lead flat from which rose a tall lantern-cupola
lighting the central staircase. The house was
built, presumably, of brick with stone quoins and
dressings, and had a bandcourse below the second
storey, a frieze-band below the attic, and a heavy
eaves-cornice. The west front, overlooking a formal garden, was five windows wide, with a central
doorway surmounted by what looks like a balcony
to the second-storey window.
Ackermann's view (published in volume VI of
his Repository of Arts, 1811), however, shows the
east front of Warwick House as having only two
storeys, with a central porch and, presumably,
five windows in the upper storey. The rectangular
box-sashes are exposed in a plain brick face,
finished with a narrow cornice and a stone-coped
parapet behind which rises a hipped roof containing dormers. Above the roof can be seen a conical
lantern-light, presumably the successor of the
Caroline cupola. (fn. a)
The house was probably completed by the
beginning of 1665, for on 3 January 1665 Samuel
Pepys wrote in his diary of being 'Up, and by
coach to Sir Ph. Warwicke's, . . . and found him
and Mr. Coventry walking in St. James's
Parke.' (ref. 7)
In October 1670 Sir Philip Warwick assigned
the property to Lord Fauconberg, (ref. 8) who lived
there until about 1682. The Earl of Sussex, and
later his tenants, the Duke of Bolton and Edward
Lord Russell, successively occupied the house
from 1683 to at least 1707, (ref. 9)
(fn. b) the Earl of Sussex
and his wife Anne, a daughter of Barbara Villiers
and supposedly of Charles II, (ref. 10) having obtained a
further lease in 1706. (ref. 11)
The Earl of Sussex seems to have sold the house
sometime after 1707. (ref. 9) He was at this period in
serious financial straits through 'litigation, reckless extravagance, and losses by gambling', and had
been forced to dispose of a large part of his country
estates. (ref. 10)
The purchaser was probably the Duke of
Shrewsbury. He was active in politics throughout
the reigns of William III and Anne, and was in
residence at Warwick House at least by 1711, (ref. 12) if
not earlier. He died there in February 1718, (ref. 10)
(fn. c)
leaving his leasehold interest in the property to his
widow, (ref. 13) who lived there until her death in
1726. (ref. 9)
From then until 1747 Warwick House was
occupied by Charles, Lord Bruce, later third Earl
of Ailesbury. His widow married as her second
husband Colonel (later Field-Marshal) Henry
Seymour-Conway and together they made Warwick House their London home until 1792. (ref. 14)
The house was then bought by the Prince of
Wales, who was at this time rebuilding Carlton
House in his most prodigal manner and was
anxious to buy the leases of as many of the adjoining houses as possible. He paid £12,000 for the
lease of Warwick House. Two-thirds of this sum
was lent to him upon mortgage by Mr. William
Morland of Grosvenor Street. (ref. 15)
Figure 67:
Warwick House.
Re-drawn from Kip's view, c. 1714–22
The building seems at first to have been used by
members of the royal household, for the Earl of
Jersey, Master of the Horse to the Prince of
Wales, (ref. 2) was for a time (1798–1800) responsible
for the payment of the parish rates. From 1805 to
1817 the house was the London residence of the
Prince's daughter, Princess Charlotte of Wales. (ref. 9)
Her governess, Cornelia Knight, has described the
house thus: 'Warwick House . . . was an old
moderate-sized dwelling, at that time [1813]
miserably out of repair, and almost falling to ruins.
It was situated at the extremity of a narrow lane
with a small court-yard and gates, at which two
sentinels were placed. On the ground floor was a
hall, dining-room, library, comptroller's room, and
two very small rooms, with a good staircase, and
two back staircases much the reverse. Above was
what was called the waiting-room, of very
moderate dimensions, where Princess Charlotte
took her lessons in the morning; a good drawingroom, her Royal Highness's bedroom and dressingroom, or closet off it for a maid; my sitting-room
adjoining, and my bedroom, both small, the latter
particularly so. Yet for a private family it was far
from being uncomfortable, although anything
rather than royal. The drawing-room and Princess Charlotte's bedroom, with bay windows,
looked on a small garden with a wall, and a road
which divided it from the gardens of Carlton
House, to which there was a door of communication. Nothing could more perfectly resemble a
convent than this residence, but it was a seat of
happiness to Princess Charlotte compared with the
Lower Lodge at Windsor.' (ref. 16)
The house remained the London residence of
Princess Charlotte till her death at Claremont in
1817; she was seldom allowed to live there, as her
father was jealous of her popularity, and preferred
her to live in seclusion at Windsor. None of her
short married life was spent at Warwick House, (ref. 17)
which after her death remained an appendage to
the royal establishment at Carlton House.
In March 1817 John Nash reported that 'The
main house within the four square walls comprehended under one roof is as sound as houses of that
date generally are, but if it is to be kept up it will
require a general and separate reparation within
and without.' He estimated the necessary repairs
at £1200; (ref. 18) there is no indication that these were
ever carried out. Warwick House was demolished
in 1827. The old building materials were sold for
£450 (ref. 19) and the site cleared for the erection of
Carlton Mews.
Carlton Mews
Carlton Mews was built between 1830 and
1832, (ref. 20) under the direction of the Commissioners
of Woods and Forests, to provide stables for the
occupants of the new houses in Carlton Gardens
and Carlton House Terrace. The site had been
previously occupied partly by Warwick House and
partly by earlier buildings and gardens belonging
to Carlton House.
The first designs for stables in this area were
made in the spring of 1827 by Nash as part of a
plan for a new roadway from Pall Mall to what
was to become the eastern half of Carlton House
Terrace. This road was to run parallel with
Waterloo Place and was to contain a number of
dwelling-houses and a small stable court. The
court was to be on the west side of the new
road, immediately behind the houses in Pall
Mall. (ref. 21)
By the following spring the Commissioners of
Woods and Forests had decided that more stable
accommodation was required. The scheme for a
new road was therefore abandoned and the whole
area between Warwick Street and Carlton House
Terrace was set aside for development as a mews.
This second plan was submitted to the Commissioners in December 1828 and provided for a stable
court, with buildings on all four sides, immediately
behind Warwick Street, and for other stables
between this court and Carlton House Terrace. (ref. 19)
It was at first intended to extend these stable
buildings well into the present garden behind the
United Service Club house, then in course of
erection, but because of opposition from the club,
this part of the plan was modified and ground in
Red Lion Yard (an old court behind Cockspur
Street) was taken over instead.
Early in 1829, on the suggestion of Lord Lowther, the First Commissioner of Woods and
Forests, Nash considered another modification
which would further increase the available
accommodation. This embodied a novel idea
already used by Lord Anglesey, presumably at
Uxbridge House, Burlington Gardens, and by
'Newman the Liveryman'. (fn. d) Nash's new designs,
for coach houses in the ground storey, with the
stables, approached by a ramp and gallery, in the
second storey, were submitted in October 1829.
Each lessee was to be responsible for building his
own block in accordance with the new designs.
The Office of Woods and Forests was to build the
ramp and gallery at the cost of the various
lessees. (ref. 22)
Applications for sites were quickly received and
the building of stables for William Huskisson and
Sir Robert Lawley started in the spring of 1830.
These stables were on the west side of the intended
court and still projected into what is now the
garden behind the United Service Club. The
club committee objected strongly and after a
Chancery case this side of the new stable court
was demolished in 1831. (ref. 23) By this time most of
the other lessees had started building around the
remaining three sides of the court and some had
roofed in their stables. Decimus Burton, 'Mr.'
Cubitt and George Harrison were among the
architects or builders who acted on behalf of the
various lessees. By October 1832 the buildings
around the court, together with the ramp and platform erected by the Commissioners, were complete. (ref. 24)
The mews has now been converted into garages
and dwelling-houses.
Carlton Mews (Plate 267) comprises an oblong
yard enclosed on the south and east by an L-shaped range of buildings, on the north by a single
range, and on the west by a high garden wall.
Apart from additions, the buildings are three
storeys high and originally contained coach
houses in the ground storey, stables in the second
storey, and grooms' quarters above. The wide
access gallery in front of the second storey is
reached by a dog-leg ramp built against the north
end of the L-shaped range, and the wide entrance
from Warwick House Street to the cobbled yard is
alongside. The buildings are utilitarian in character, being built in stock bricks with a stone bandcourse below the low brick parapet. Later
alterations have obscured the original fenestration
pattern of all but one house—that adjoining the
ramp—where the wide opening of the stable door
is flanked by small windows, with three small windows in the top storey, all having segmental
arches of gauged brickwork. The cast-ironwork
of the gallery is simple and elegant, with open
spandrel-brackets supporting the perforated cantilevers, these being linked by a fascia of skeleton
segmental arches, below a high railing composed
of tall standards with ball-finials, linked by two
rails, the lower openings being diagonally braced.