No. 14 Soho Square
The early history of the house on this site has
been described above with that of No. 12. The
first known occupant of No. 14 was a Mr.
Munjoy (? Mountjoy) who lived here from at
least 1691 to 1692. From 1703, or possibly
earlier, to 1709 this and the adjoining house to
the east (No. 15) were occupied as one dwelling
by Charles Coote, third Earl of Mountrath.
Later inhabitants of No. 14 include Sir Henry
Bellasis (? Belasyse), 1718–19; Lady Bellasis,
1720–7; Sir William Desse, 1777–8, and
J. C. Schwieso, harp manufacturer, 1835–7, who
had previously occupied No. 11. (ref. 33)
The ratebooks suggest that the house may have
been rebuilt in 1796 for Otto Bichner, tailor,
though it is unlikely that this involved the total
demolition of Frith's building. (ref. 33) The seventeenth-century floor levels seem to have been retained and also a closet-wing at the rear, though
the conventionally planned interior of the house
was refitted in the early nineteenth century.
There is typical plaster decoration round the
ceilings of the main rooms, where the architraves
to the door and window openings are finished with
lion-head stops but the rest of the joinery, including
the open-well staircase, is very plain. No chimneypieces of note survive and many alterations have
been made in recent years, particularly the
addition of a gabled fourth storey (Plate 71a). The
stucco-fronted storey below must, itself, have been
an addition at an earlier date and only the first
and second floors now preserve any external appearance of age, with the facing brickwork
coloured red and dressed with stucco. Iron
guards to the second-storey windows and a
decorated band above correspond with those
shown on Tallis's view of 1839.