CHAPTER II
The Development of Soho Fields
The area shown on fig. 2 belonged in the
Middle Ages to the Master of the Hospital
of Burton Saint Lazar as custodian of the
Hospital of St. Giles. In 1536 these lands,
described as pasture in St. Giles's Field in the
township of St. Giles, and other lands outside the
area covered by this volume, were surrendered by
the Hospital to the Crown for the formation of the
Bailiwick of St. James. (ref. 1)
On 19 July 1606 James I leased the area shown
on fig. 2 together with other lands elsewhere, to
Francis Bristowe for forty years, (ref. 2) and in 1627
Charles I, at the nomination of Robert, Earl of
Monmouth, granted the same lands to James
Elliott and William Loving for thirty-one years
from the expiry of the forty-year term. (ref. 3) The whole
of the Bailiwick of St. James was subsequently
given by Charles I to Queen Henrietta Maria as
part of her jointure, and on 27 March 1661 she
and her trustees granted the lands now under discussion, and others elsewhere within the Bailiwick, to the trustees of Henry Jermyn, Earl of
St. Albans, for twenty-one years from Michaelmas 1660. (ref. 4) In 1672 the surviving trustees of
Queen Henrietta Maria (who had died in 1669),
by authority of a warrant directed to them by
Charles II, extended St. Albans's interest for
thirty-three years from Michaelmas 1681—i.e.,
to Michaelmas 1714. In September 1674
Charles II granted St. Albans a final twentyyear extension, prolonging his term to Michaelmas 1734. The area shown on fig. 2 was then
described as twenty-two acres of land divided
into several parcels and called Kemp's Field and
Bunch's Close. (ref. 4)
(fn. a) Towards the end of the
seventeenth century the whole of the twenty-two
acres was often referred to as Soho Fields, and this
name is used hereafter.
In 1650 the area discussed in this chapter was
described as three parcels of pasture ground. No
buildings are mentioned, but one of the more
northerly pieces was dug for brick-earth. They
were valued at £60 12s. 6d. per annum. (ref. 5) No
buildings are shown on Faithorne and Newcourt's
map of 1658 (Plate 1b). (fn. b)
On 28 August 1673 St. Albans and his
trustees leased nineteen of the twenty-two acres
to Joseph Girle of St. Marylebone, described as a
brewer, for thirty-one years from 19 July 1677,
when the lease granted in 1627 to Elliott and
Loving would expire. (ref. 9) The rent reserved was
£3 8s. 6d., but Girle paid £1,500 for the lease. (ref. 10)
The remaining three acres were at the southwest corner of Soho Fields, bounded on the west
by Hedge Lane (now Wardour Street) and on the
south by the highway later King Street and now
Shaftesbury Avenue. On 1 July 1674 St. Albans
and his trustees leased the eastern part of these
three acres to trustees for the parish of St. Martin
in the Fields. (ref. 9)
In September 1674 St. Albans's own interest
in Soho Fields was extended from Michaelmas
1714 to Michaelmas 1734 (see above), and
shortly afterwards, on 29 January 1675/6, he
and his trustees extended Girle's term from 19
July 1708 to 19 July 1730. This latter grant,
for which Girle paid £833, also included the
western part of the three acres at the south-west
corner of Soho Fields. (ref. 11)
As well as his brewhouse, Joseph Girle had a
house at Westbourne Green and also owned lands
and houses in St. Marylebone. (ref. 12) Probably these
lands yielded brick-earth and Girle joined to his
other activities the supply of bricks to builders. (ref. 13)
His object in paying St. Albans two large sums
for the two leases of Soho Fields was to develop
the area for building as soon as the leases to
Elliott and Loving expired on 19 July 1677, and
on 21 November 1676 he obtained letters
patent granting him 'full and free lycence, power
and authority' to build in Soho Fields 'such and soe
many' houses and other buildings as he should
'from time to time thinke fitt'. (ref. 14) The grant, to
which a plan of the area was attached (ref. 15) (Plate
8b), stipulated that the houses should be built of
brick or stone, and that proper drainage should be
provided, but no conditions controlling the street
layout were imposed. (ref. 14)
(fn. c)
Figure 2:
Soho Fields, plan. Co-extensive with the Portland estate except for the five areas indicated. Based on the Ordnance Survey, 1869–74
On 6 April 1677 Girle granted 'the benefit and
advantage' of the letters patent to Richard Frith,
citizen and bricklayer, to whom he also on the
same day granted a lease of Soho Fields. Frith's
term was for fifty-three and a quarter years, from
Lady Day 1677 to Midsummer 1730 (i.e., for the
whole of Girle's own term save the last twenty-five days) at a rent of £300 for the first year and
thereafter at £400 per annum. There was also a
proviso that if Frith paid Girle £4,000 on 25
March 1679, plus the rent then due, Girle would
convey to Frith his rights in the rest of the rent
(thus in effect cancelling it). He would also convey
to Frith his rights in the last twenty-five days of
his term. Subsequently, on 7 August 1677, St.
Albans and his trustees leased Soho Fields direct
to Frith for three and a half years from 19 July
1730 (the date of expiry of Girle's term). (ref. 9)
On the following day, 8 August 1677, the
trustees of the parish of St. Martin in the Fields
assigned their eastern portion of the three acres at
the south-west corner of Soho Fields to Frith,
who, together with Girle, assigned in exchange to
the trustees the western portion of this ground
and a site on the west side of Hog Lane (later
Crown Street, now Charing Cross Road). (ref. 10)
The former became the site of St. Anne's Church
(described in Chapter X) and the latter the site
of the Greek Church and St. Martin's almshouses
(Chapter XI). Thus Frith was possessed of leasehold interests in the whole of Soho Fields (except
these two small sites) ending on 19 January 1733/4, but with a break of twenty-five days in 1730.
To obtain the full benefit of the final term of
three-and-a-half years and disencumber the
estate of a large rent it was therefore necessary
for Frith to raise £4,000 payable to Girle by
March 1679. (fn. d)
The four men primarily responsible for building development in Soho Fields in the years
immediately after 1677 were Frith and Cadogan
Thomas, both large-scale building entrepreneurs,
and William Pym and Benjamin Hinton, who
were concerned in the financial side of the business. Frith was a member of the Tylers' and
Bricklayers' Company and in the 1670's and
1680's carried on building operations in the
western suburbs of London on a very large scale.
In 1673 he built two houses at the corner of St.
James's Street and Cleveland Row, and between
1673 and 1675 he bought three building sites in
St. James's Square, where he had a temporary lien
on a fourth. (ref. 17) From 1677 to about 1682 he was
probably mainly engaged in the development of
Soho Fields, which was in area his largest speculation, but in the latter year he was concerned with
Cadogan Thomas in building on part of the garden of Leicester House (see page 460), and with
Thomas and Pym he was also working in the
area of Arlington and Bennet Streets. (ref. 18) Beginning in 1683 he was, again with Thomas, one of a
syndicate which redeveloped the site of Clarendon
House as Dover, Albemarle and Old Bond
Streets. (ref. 19) He also built houses in Brooke Buildings, Greville Street, Holborn, (ref. 20) held land with
Cadogan Thomas in Hampden Garden, which
formed part of the site of Downing Street, (ref. 21) and
probably worked in Bow Street. (ref. 22)
Frith appears to have been in financial difficulty as early as 1680, (ref. 9) and about that time was
said to be 'declined in his Estate'. (ref. 23) A few years
later he was in prison, probably for debt, and he
eventually died, still in debt, in 1695, and was
buried at St. Clement Danes. (ref. 24)
Cadogan Thomas is variously described as of
London, merchant, (ref. 9) or of Lambeth, timber
merchant. His association with Frith appears to
have started in the spring of 1679 when he became involved in the development of Soho Fields, (ref. 10)
and it was continued elsewhere in the early 1680's.
Thomas was described as 'a great trader and dealer
by way of merchandise in buying and selling of
timber deale boards and other commodityes for
building', and 'a great undertaker and improver
of buildings'. (ref. 25) In Soho Fields he supplied Frith
with many thousands of pounds worth of building materials on the security of a mortgage of the
estate, and he also built a number of houses there
himself, on land leased to him by Frith. (ref. 11) Like
Frith he too became involved in financial difficulty and died in debt in January 1689/90. (ref. 24)
William Pym, variously described as of St.
Martin in the Fields, St. James's, Clerkenwell, or
St. Andrew's, Holborn, gentleman, was probably
a relatively young man at the time of his association
with Frith and Thomas in Soho Fields and the
Arlington Street area, for he was married in
1679. (ref. 26) The money which he advanced to
Frith in 1677 was repaid to him in September
1681 and by the time of the bankruptcy of the
fourth member of the quartet, Benjamin Hinton,
in July 1683, Pym had ceased to have any direct
involvement with Frith and Thomas, though
retaining property in the area. (ref. 9) He seems to have
been equally wary in his dealings with them in the
Arlington Street area, and no record of his ever
having been financially embarrassed has been
found. (ref. 18) At the time of his death in 1716 he was
living at Nortonbury, Hertfordshire, and owned
lands there and in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire as well as in Arlington and Bennet
Streets. (ref. 26)
Benjamin Hinton, a goldsmith at the Flowerde-Luce in Lombard Street, who 'grew into Great
Esteeme and Creditt with very many Noblemen,
Gentlemen and others', (ref. 27) had 'very great dealeings
whereby he not onely gained great Credit . . . but
had alsoe many great and considerable debts'. (ref. 28)
Hinton's connexion with the development of
Soho Fields did not begin until 1680, when
Cadogan Thomas mortgaged ground there to him
for £16,000. (ref. 9) A little later he also advanced
money to Frith and Thomas in connexion with
their work on the site of Clarendon House. (ref. 22)
In 1682 or 1683 many of Hinton's creditors did
'suddenly and violently call in their said debts', and
although he 'did for severall monethes together
pay Ten Thousands pounds a day amongest the
said Creditors, Yet it onely served to cause
others . . . to presse the harder'. (ref. 28) At the time of
his bankruptcy in July 1683 he had interests in
property in Southgate, St. James's, Hampden
Garden, Bunhill Fields, Greenwich, Thames
Street and several other places in or near London,
as well as in Soho Fields, where his failure had
disastrous financial effects on the fortunes of
Frith, Thomas and other builders. In 1692/3
Hinton was said to be 'dyeing in the Rules of the
King's Bench prison', (ref. 29) but the proceedings in
his immensely complicated bankruptcy were still
continuing in 1729. (ref. 30)
The development of Soho Fields began immediately after Girle's lease to Frith on 6 April
1677, particularly in the east-to-west streets at
the southern end of the fields. Girle had, however, previously granted shorter leases of part of
the ground (notably Cooke's Croft and Billson's
Close or Croft, which are marked on the plan
attached to his licence of 1676, Plate 8b) to
sub-tenants for agricultural use, (fn. e) and Frith
therefore did not yet have possession of the whole
area. By February 1677/8 he had 'marked and
trenched out what part of the sayd fields was in
his present possession into streets for buildings',
and had tried to purchase the sub-leases of the
remainder of the ground. (ref. 32) One existing tenancy,
'patridges', at the north-west end of Old Compton
Street, which is marked on the plan of 1676,
seems to have been reconcilable with Frith's plans
(see page 193) but elsewhere he met difficulties.
Before the lease of Soho Fields had been granted
to Frith in April 1677, Dr. Nicholas Barbon,
the famous building speculator, had unsuccessfully negotiated with Girle for the grant of the
lease of the same land. When he saw Frith trenching out the ground for building Barbon attempted
'to crosse the designe' by purchasing the sub-leases
of Thomas Cooke and William Billson, yeomen
(in Cooke's Croft and Billson's Close) and of two
or three other sub-tenants. He found it worth
while to pay Cooke to act as his intermediary in
treating with the others. Frith had already dug
trenches across Cooke's and Billson's ground,
although he had no right to do so, but after Barbon had acquired the sub-leases Frith was compelled, for the time being at least, to 'alter all the
sayd streetes and trench and marke them to be
placed in the other part of the sayd field'. (ref. 32) The
line of the street chiefly liable to alteration from
this cause, that is, Dean Street, seems, however,
ultimately to have followed an uninterrupted
course.
The ill-fated measures to obtain financial
backing for the development of Soho Fields
began on 13 December 1677, when Frith mortgaged his lease and the building patent to William
Pym for £5,000, (ref. 33) which was subsequently
increased to £6,520. (ref. 9) In the spring of 1679
Cadogan Thomas became involved when Frith
and Pym granted him leases of eight houses,
probably still unfinished, which he had built at
the north end of the east side of Greek Street.
Thomas's capital outlay was provided by Benjamin Hinton, to whom Thomas mortgaged the
eight houses for £1,600. (ref. 10)
Meanwhile Joseph Girle, from whom, as is
noted above, Frith had leased the ground at a
substantial rent, had died on 1 November 1677.
As well as leasing the ground to Frith, Girle
had supplied him with bricks (often bad) from his
own land, and his death did not end the interest
of his heirs in this aspect of the building-up of
Soho Fields. One of his sons-in-law and executors,
Philip Harman, citizen and draper of London,
actively maintained the brick-making business,
and in September 1678 Frith and Pym arranged
(on the security of the lease of Kemp's Field)
to buy bricks from Girle's executors up to the
value of £2,000. (ref. 34) By the autumn of 1679 the
bricks had been delivered and paid for. (ref. 9) But
Pym was 'desirous to unclogg the premisses' of the
rent of £400 per annum payable to Girle's heirs. (ref. 33)
As has been seen, Girle's lease to Frith of 6 April
1677 had provided that by the payment of £4,000
the rent could be redeemed and the final twenty-five days of Girle's term from St. Albans purchased, thus providing Frith with continuity of
tenure to January 1733/4. The date for payment had been March 1679. In September,
however, Frith and Pym obtained the redemption
and purchase by the payment of this sum, partly
by the sale of the ground rents of certain houses
on the estate to Girle's executors. (ref. 35) One of these
houses was No. 2 Soho Square; the others,
which were 'called Blackmore Pyle and Cheynyes
Pile', (ref. 36) were probably in Old Compton Street and
Greek Street. (fn. f)
In 1679 and 1680 Frith and Pym granted a
number of leases to Thomas of houses which the
latter had built on the west, north and south
sides of Soho Square. (ref. 11) Frith became indebted
to Thomas for building materials supplied by
the latter, who by September 1680 had himself
become indebted to Benjamin Hinton for
£16,960. (ref. 9)
In 1679 Frith's interest in Cooke's Croft and
Billson's Close was sold to Pym's father-in-law,
Henry Crosse of St. James's, Clerkenwell,
gentleman. Crosse was acting on behalf of Pym,
to whom these parcels of ground were conveyed
in February 1682/3. (ref. 39) Pym thus obtained, like
Girle's executors, property in the area which was
to remain to him after the other early developers
had failed. (fn. g)
Pym's involvement with Frith and Thomas
ended in September 1681, when he sold his
interest as mortgagee in Soho Fields to Benjamin
Hinton for £7,165. (ref. 9) His property in Cooke's
Croft and Billson's Close was, however, excluded from this sale. (ref. 6) It is likely that Pym also
re-acquired an interest in other parts of Soho
Fields from Frith, for in 1691 the ground rents
of houses in (Old) Compton Street and Milk
(now Bourchier) Street were said to be payable
to him. (ref. 46)
On 24 March 1682/3 Pym leased the greater
part of Cooke's Croft and Billson's Close to
George Bradbury, esquire, for a term of fortysix years expiring on Lady Day 1729, at a rent of
£14 per annum. Bradbury, a lawyer of the Middle
Temple and subsequently a judge of some note,
was acting in trust for Nicholas Barbon (who had
previously possessed himself of the sub-leases),
and covenanted 'to build thereon substantially'. (ref. 47)
This estate consisted of a large parcel on the west
side of Dean Street (including almost all of
Cooke's Croft and Billson's Close on that side of
the street) and a very much smaller one on the
eastern side. It subsequently came into the
possession of the Pitt family and is described in
Chapter IX.
In 1684 Pym leased part of Cooke's Croft
and Billson's Close on the east side of Dean Street
to the building speculator, Isaac Symball, (ref. 48)
and himself retained another plot. (ref. 49) Other
property on the east side of Dean Street he had
leased back to Frith at an unknown date: it is
uncertain whether this was in Cooke's Croft
and Billson's Close or was the ground to the south
of them which by 1682 had evidently passed to
Frith's brother Matthew, also a bricklayer. (ref. 50)
In September 1681 Frith and Thomas owed
Hinton over £30,000, (ref. 9) and the latter's bankruptcy
in July 1683 involved them in ruin too. Hinton's
estate in Soho Fields passed to three of his creditors,
John Hill, Obadiah Sedgewick and George
Sittwell, all of London, merchants, who were to
administer it as trustees for the benefit of all the
creditors. On 26 December 1684 Frith and
Thomas assigned all such rights as they might
still possess in Soho Fields to Hinton's trustees. (ref. 11)
So far as is known this assignment ended Frith's
and Thomas's connexion with Soho Fields.
Their combined debts to Hinton then amounted
to £60,000. (ref. 51)
(fn. h)
At the time of Hinton's bankruptcy in July
1683 many houses in Soho Fields (probably more
than half) (ref. 54) were still in course of erection, and
in some cases building work appears to have
ceased for a time, as, for example, at Monmouth
House. Some houses were probably completed by
new building tradesmen working for new employers—No. 30 Soho Square is a case in point.
Other parts of the estate had not yet been leased
for building, and in May 1685, for instance,
the trustees of Hinton's creditors granted a lease
of a large plot at the north-west end of Dean
Street, measuring some five hundred feet from
north to south. The lessees were Edward Roydon, turner, and Job Bickerton and William
Webb, carpenters, all later described as of St.
Anne's, and the rent a peppercorn for the first
year and thereafter twenty pounds per annum. (ref. 55)
They built Carlisle House and the western part of
Carlisle Street. But Philip Harman, who (as has
been seen) had continued Girle's brick-making
business, became their mortgagee, and it was he
who was reponsible for the development of most
of this north-west corner of Soho Fields. It
may be noted that when in 1685 thirty commissioners were appointed by the Bishop of London to
complete St. Anne's Church and constitute the
first vestry of the future parish Harman was, as a
resident within its boundaries, the only one of
those who have been mentioned in this chapter
to be included in the commission.
Unfortunately the gaps and imperfections in
the series of parish ratebooks make it impossible
to follow the development of Soho Fields with
precision. Builder's work had already begun in
the summer of 1677, (ref. 13) and by the autumn of
1678 work was at a stage that made Soho Fields
serviceable as the setting, actual or fictitious, for
an infamous night's work. In Prance's narrative
of the supposed murder of Sir Edmund Berry
Godfrey his corpse was transferred from sedan
chair to horseback at the Greek Church and the
chair left concealed in 'one of the new unfinished
Houses' until the murderers' return from Primrose Hill (ref. 56) (see page 280).
The initial development began at the southern
end of the estate, and King Street, Romilly (formerly Church) Street and (Old) Compton Street
appeared in the 1679 ratebook. By 1683 Greek
Street was the most and Dean Street the least
advanced of the three main north-to-south streets.
By about 1691 almost all the area, including Soho
Square, was built, with the main exception of the
north-west end of Dean Street and the courts
off its western side, which were built (save for
Fareham Street) in the 1690's. Manette Street
and the glebe land in King Street were also built up
in the 1690's.
In 1684 the Lords of the Treasury had reported to the Crown on the condition of property
including Soho Fields, and commented on the
development there since 1679–80. Soho Fields
had at that time been only half built but now 'are
almost all built and many good Houses thereupon
and inhabited by a great many persons of good
quallity'. (ref. 57) In 1694 the Surveyor General of
Crown Lands made a valuation of the area,
together with the five-and-a-half acres of Doghouse Close in St. James's. By then about 550
houses stood on the 12,200 feet of street frontage,
of which much the greater part must have been
in St. Anne's. (ref. 58) The property was said to produce
a revenue (certainly including house rents as well
as ground rents) of £12,400 per annum. (ref. 59)
With the growing number of houses in occupation, the total rates payable in Soho Fields rose
from about £133 in 1691 to about £216 in
1697. In 1721 the total was about £295 from
about 715 houses.
The design of the layout of the area has been
attributed to Gregory King, the genealogist,
map engraver and statistician, on the sole
authority of some autobiographical notes written
by King and subsequently published in 1793. (ref. 60)
Writing in the third person, King states that 'He
also now and then was Employed in Surveying,
particularly Soho Fields whose Streets and
Square were all projected by him, and most of the
first Articles for building thereof drawn up by
him also'. (ref. 60) No other reference to King's connexion with Soho has been found. His employer
must have been Richard Frith, who as the prime
mover in the development of the area can be
assumed to have had also a decisive part in the
design of its layout. (fn. i)
Despite the difficulties and delays described
above, this layout was straightforward, with no
perceptible marks of contorted development
(fig. 2). Little if any sign of the previous field- or
property-divisions survived. On the Ordnance
Survey map of 1869–74 (Plate 6) probably only
the north-eastern, oblique boundary of Billson's
Close can be detected, in an insignificant propertydivision north of No. 21 Dean Street. The layout included no features calling for comment,
except that so far as is known no provision was
ever made for a market.
In the development of his property it appears
that Frith's usual practice, after obtaining possession of a piece of ground, was to mortgage it in
order to raise capital for the purchase of building
materials. He then parcelled it out in plots,
arranged for some of the work himself, and subcontracted the rest to other tradesmen. The latter
were either paid in cash or by the grant of leases
of sites. In Soho Square and elsewhere these often
had half-finished houses on them which probably
represented Frith's own work on the brick carcase. At least one builder, John Markham, a
carpenter, represented himself in a lawsuit as
possessing a site (probably held from Frith) upon
which he determined to build houses, and as then
making mutual agreements with Frith for the
performance of the carpenter's and bricklayer's
work respectively. His words, however, are those
of a disputant with Frith, and the doubtful history
of their transaction is discussed below. Elsewhere
Frith paid builders with the lease of completed
houses. An example of this procedure is to be
found in a Chancery suit brought in 1685 by
Nicholas Pollentine of St. Martin in the Fields,
joiner, who stated that 'haveing so undertaken the
whole worke he [Frith] did for ye Carrying on and
Compleateing the same Employ diverse other
Artificers or Workemen in their Severall Trades
different from his owne, as Carpenters Joyners
Glasiers and such like other Tradesmen as he had
occasion to make use of from tyme to tyme'. (ref. 61)
Pollentine had been thus employed to do 'divers
parcels of joiner's work in divers buildings'. At
first he had been paid in cash, but later he worked
'without any perticular Agreement or Contract
for any certaine Rate or price', and by October
1682 Frith owed him over a hundred pounds.
A written agreement was then signed whereby
Pollentine undertook to continue working to
Frith's direction until the value of his services
should 'amount unto the purchase of a Messuage
or tenement . . . in King Street', on the south side
of Soho Fields. The contract was to be concluded
by the grant of a lease of the house by Frith to
Pollentine. Some eighteen months later Frith
granted this lease, but difficulties which occasioned the lawsuit arose when his lawyer refused
to deliver the lease to Pollentine. (ref. 62)
Another suit, brought in 1682 by George
Taylor of St. Martin in the Fields, scrivener,
illustrates the scale of the 'office work' which
Frith's operations in Soho Fields entailed. In
May 1679 Frith had employed Taylor to make
engrossments of the large number of leases and
other legal documents which were required at that
stage of the development. In return for one year's
legal work Frith promised to build Taylor a house,
and in June 1679 assigned him a plot in Greek
Street for fifty years, this 'being a customary thing
with him [Frith] to pay or satisfy other tradesmen
as carpenters, Bricklayers, Painters, Joiners,
masons, Glaziers, and such other tradesmen in
such manner of payment and satisfaction by way
of Building them houses'. By November 1682
very little progress had been made in the building
of Taylor's house, (ref. 63) which was on the west side of
Greek Street, probably on the site of No. 58, and
the ratebooks record the site as still unbuilt upon
in 1697.
Only some of the building tradesmen who
worked in Soho Fields in the early years under the
aegis of Frith and his associates can be named. (fn. j)
At least some of these continued to work in Soho
Fields after Hinton's bankruptcy but other names
are then also encountered. (fn. k)
Of the builders active in the first years of
development, Richard Campion, a carpenter, and
Augustine Beare, a glazier, are found working in
a number of streets; Alexander Williams and
Martin Heatley, both bricklayers, also worked at
more than one site. Campion and Beare were the
two first churchwardens of St. Anne's parish,
and had been among the commissioners appointed
in 1685 to supervise the completion of the church.
Both had worked on its construction and it is
of interest that Campion, although his trade is
always given as carpenter, 'did performe the
greatest part of the Brick Work' at the church
(see page 259). Campion died in 1691 possessed
of a number of properties, including houses in
Soho, St. James's, and St. Martin in the Fields. (ref. 65)
(fn. l)
Campion and Beare (whose widow evidently
owned the biggest house in Greek Street) seem
to have been successful in their trades. But the
difficulties in which the builders of Soho Fields
could involve themselves are exemplified in the
troubles of the carpenter, John Markham. (ref. 67) In
February and March 1677/8 Frith leased to
Markham a house on the south side of Old Compton Street and two houses in Romilly Street, all
unfinished. The terms were fifty years from
Lady Day 1678. At an uncertain date before
April 1680 Frith also leased to Markham four
other houses in Old Compton Street, and by the
same period Markham was possessed of six houses,
identifiable as being in Romilly Street and Frith
Street, which were probably additional to those
already mentioned. The lease of the house on the
north side of Old Compton Street was at only a
peppercorn rent, but at some or all of the other
sites a ground rent was reserved.
On receiving the leases of the three houses in
February and March 1677/8 Markham entered
into commitments to William Hall, a victualler.
Markham subsequently claimed that these were
only in respect of food and drink supplied to his
workmen and himself. Hall, however, while
agreeing that he had supplied victuals, was able to
show that in the same months of 1678 Markham
had mortgaged the leases of the three houses to
him, to secure £220 needed to finish the two
houses in Romilly Street. Markham undertook
to perform this by Lady Day 1679, when the
second of the two instalments of the loan was to
be paid. A dispute arose when, as Hall claimed,
Markham failed to complete the houses or to
accept Hall's bill for victuals as partial cancellation of the loan. In the autumn of 1679 Hall had
Markham arrested. Negotiations between them
were subsequently reopened, but in the meantime
Markham became embroiled with Frith (who
called him 'a very troublesome man'). This
dispute related to the six houses in Romilly
Street and Frith Street. Probably their sites had
originally been leased to Markham by Frith or his
associates, and Markham had certainly entered
into a bond to one of these, Cadogan Thomas;
its significance is not known but was perhaps to
ensure Markham's completion of his work on the
houses by Midsummer 1680. Whatever the
circumstances of Markham's tenure, he represents
himself as being 'minded to build' six houses on
his property, and says that he and Frith then made
mutual agreements to perform the carpenter's
and bricklayer's work respectively. Frith, however, implies that Markham was merely employed
by him. In April 1680 it proved necessary for
them to go to arbitration. The award in May was
that by Midsummer Frith should provide all the
materials and do the brickwork and tiling at the
six houses, and Markham the carpenter's work;
Frith should pay Markham £35 owed to him and
should also have Markham's bond to Thomas
delivered to Markham for cancellation. In fact,
neither party performed his agreement to the
satisfaction of the other. Frith accused Markham
of preventing Frith's tiling the houses and completing the brickwork by his failure to perform
the necessary carpenter's work, and Markham
accused Frith of causing him the loss of £500 by
continued neglect of the bricklayer's work.
According to Markham, he had to employ others
to perform this, and being unable to pay them his
goods were seized.
The statements made in Chancery in the
dispute of Markham and Frith do not mention
Hall, but it was Hall who, by August 1680, had
had the bailiff of Westminster take possession of
Markham's dwelling house (probably in Old
Compton or Romilly Streets) and claimed to have
acquired his lease of the three houses by a forced
sale. The chronology of Markham's dispossession
and his whereabouts at this period do not emerge
very clearly from the conflicting accounts given
in the two suits, but it seems that in September
1680 Hall had him arrested again and imprisoned
in the Marshalsea for failing to pay for the victuals.
At about this time Markham was himself bringing
suits at common law against Frith (partly concerning another bond) and by November, seemingly
freed from forcible confinement, retired to a
grateful obscurity. In Frith's words, Markham
had 'withdrawn himselfe into places where your
Oratour [Frith] cannot without danger of his life
or the lives of others prosecute him at Law . . .
sculking and absconding himselfe amongst desperate
persons and in places which such persons conceive
are priviledged'. Markham admitted only to absconding to 'secrett places' to avoid the 'fury and
vyolence' of Frith, 'a powerfull and rich man'.
In November, the houses in Romilly and Frith
Streets being still unfinished, Frith petitioned the
Court of Chancery against Markham. By
December Markham was evidently available once
more to be arrested for the third time, which he
was, at the instance of Hall. He returned to the
Marshalsea, came out, and was again forcibly
dispossessed by Hall of his three houses in Old
Compton and Romilly Streets, in January 1680/81. In June 1681 he petitioned the Court
of Chancery against Hall, and with this our
knowledge of his affairs comes to an end. He had
been listed as a ratepayer in Romilly Street in the
ratebook for 1679 and in Old Compton Street
for 1680 and 1681, but thereafter disappears from
the lists. Perhaps significantly a William Hall
appears as ratepayer in Romilly Street in 1683 and
in Old Compton Street from 1685 onwards.
Markham's troubles show how a builder's
assumption of commitments greater than he could
discharge might leave houses standing uncompleted. Some light is incidentally thrown on
Markham's remuneration of his own workmen.
He claimed that his obligations to Hall for victuals supplied by the latter were inconsiderable 'in
as much as all or most part of the said workmen
and labourers were paid at a certain rate of soe
much a weeke . . . and were not on an allowance
of him the said John Markham'. (ref. 68)
The quality of the work done by these seventeenth-century builders was probably variable
but for the most part not high. In 1694 the
Surveyor General of Crown Lands seems to have
thought the houses in Soho Fields somewhat less
well built than in Pall Mall Field in St. James's. (ref. 69)
The search books of the Tylers' and Bricklayers'
Company contain a number of references to the
use of bad bricks and mortar by Frith and others
in Soho Fields from 1677 onwards: Girle and
Richard Tyler were often the suppliers. (ref. 70)
Perhaps for this reason little of the early work
survives. The original fabric is probably recognizable at only two or three houses in Soho Square
and at a dozen houses or so elsewhere in Soho
Fields (chiefly in Frith Street and Greek Street).
The leases which could be granted to builders
before the expiry of St. Albans's head lease from
the Crown were never very long and in those parts
of the area where development was delayed until
the 1690's were sometimes for only forty years,
and this may have occasioned perfunctory work.
With the approach of the area to completion in
the 1690's the Crown was petitioned for the
grant of reversionary interests from the expiry
of St. Albans's lease in 1734. Such a request was
made in 1690 by the Whig politician, John
Grubham Howe, vice-chamberlain to the
Queen, (ref. 71) and in 1695 by the second Duke of
Ormond, but neither was successful. (ref. 72) In 1697
and 1698, however, two separate reversionary
interests from 1734 were acquired from the
Crown. In 1697 the part of Cooke's Croft and
Billson's Close previously leased to Bradbury
and Barbon was acquired by Thomas ('Governor')
Pitt under a reversionary lease from the Crown
expiring in 1833. This part of Soho Fields, in
and adjacent to Dean Street, was almost completely rebuilt about 1734, and its history as the
Pitt estate is discussed in Chapter IX: the Crown
disposed of the freehold to various purchasers
between 1830 and 1833. In 1698 the greater part
of Soho Fields (excluding the Pitt estate and the
sites of St. Anne's Church, churchyard and
glebe, the Greek Church and St. Martin's almshouses, and Monmouth House) was granted as a
freehold in reversion from 1734 to William
Bentinck, first Earl of Portland (see fig. 1 on
page 21). The rebuilding that took place
gradually around the 1730's was neither complete
nor (seemingly) systematic, but it was extensive,
and the great majority of the pre-nineteenthcentury buildings described in Chapters IV-VIII
are rebuildings under Portland ownership of
houses originally built in Soho Fields by Frith and
his associates or supplanters. In the last years of
the eighteenth century and first years of the
nineteenth the Portland estate in Soho was broken
up and virtually all of it disposed of by sale to a
large number of purchasers. The general history
of the estate is discussed in the following chapter.