Monmouth House
Demolished
On 17 February 1681/2 Richard Frith and his
partner Cadogan Thomas of Lambeth, timber
merchant, in association with Benjamin Hinton,
citizen and goldsmith, and William Nutt of London, merchant (the latter being a trustee of
Hinton), leased a large site on the south side of
Soho Square and the east side of Frith Street to
James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, the eldest of
Charles II's illegitimate sons. The site measured
76 feet to the square, and had a depth of 280 feet
on the east and west sides. On the west side there
was also an additional strip of ground providing a
frontage to Frith Street of 126 feet. (ref. 239)
The cash required to build the house was to be
provided in the first place by Hinton, for the
Duke paid him £400 on the day of the lease and
covenanted to pay a further £6,600 later, and
Frith and Thomas subsequently borrowed from
Hinton in connexion with the building of Monmouth House. (ref. 240)
On the same day, 17 February 1681/2, Frith
and Thomas entered into a building agreement
with the Duke of Monmouth to build him 'a fair
Messuage' and stables. Annexed to the agreement, though now missing, was a 'Modell' (i.e.,
plan) of the house, which was to be 'well and
trucly firmely and without deceipt soe built'. The
agreement also provided that Frith and Thomas
were to complete the house before the following
Christmas. In return, the Duke covenanted that
within six months of the date of the agreement
he would convey his leasehold interest in his
stables (which stood on the site of the modern
Orange Street, near his existing house at the
south end of Colman Hedge Lane) to Frith and
Thomas. He also agreed to pay them, in instalments extending to Christmas 1686, such further
sums as two persons 'indifferently chosen' should
decide. (ref. 241) It is not clear whether these payments
were additional to the £6,600 for which he had
already covenanted.
Frith and Thomas 'did make some contracts
with diverse workmen to build and finish' the
Duke's house. (ref. 242) These included Alexander
Fort, later master joiner in the Office of Works, (ref. 243)
Nicholas and John Young, masons, Alexander
Williams, bricklayer, Richard Campion and
John Heyward, carpenters, Thomas Young,
slater and carver, James Atlee, plumber, Augustine Beare, glazier, John Combes, plasterer, and
Robert Streeter and Thomas Morter, painters,
who jointly 'proceeded to build the same at their
own proper costs and charges'; (ref. 244) and in January
1682/3 a brickmaker named Allen was fined
thirty shillings by the Tylers' and Bricklayers'
Company for defective bricks which he had supplied to Frith and which had been found upon
'the Duke of Monmouths ground'. (ref. 245) Building
work had probably begun before the grant of the
lease to Monmouth, (ref. 244) who was certainly living in
part of the house in January 1683/4, (ref. 246) and had
possibly been there in the summer of 1683. (ref. 247)
He was rated for the house in April 1683 (ref. 248)
but he cannot have spent much time here in this,
the year of the Rye House Plot. Later evidence
mentioned below makes it clear that the house
was still unfinished, and his residence in it must
have been both intermittent and short, for in the
spring of 1683/4 he retired to the Netherlands
and (apart from a secret visit in November 1684)
did not return to England until the start of his
abortive rebellion in June 1685. (ref. 60)
Building work at Monmouth House probably
stopped shortly after the bankruptcy in July 1683
of Benjamin Hinton, who had advanced large
sums of money to Frith and Thomas; and by
January 1684/5 the Duke of Monmouth's estates
had been forfeited to the Crown. Frith and
Thomas had spent over £4,000 on building this
house in Soho Square, (ref. 249) but the Duke of Monmouth had only reimbursed them £1,700, probably
from his wife's money. In February 1684/5
Charles II granted the property to his old friend,
Sir Stephen Fox, who had helped him escape
after the battle of Worcester and to whom Monmouth had granted power of attorney in 1679,
and to Nicholas Fenn, sergeant of the King's
wood yard, in trust for the Duchess of Monmouth. (ref. 250) They were to hold the property until
the trustees or administrators of the estate of
Benjamin Hinton, who by now was bankrupt,
had paid £1,200 (part of the £1,700) to the
Duchess, and were then to convey it to Hinton's
administrators for the benefit of his estate. (ref. 251)
Both the Duke and Duchess's interest in the house
would thus have been ended.
Monmouth was executed on 15 July 1685, and
Frith and Thomas were subsequently described
as 'very great loosers by the misfortune of the
said Duke'. (ref. 242) In November 1686 the Duchess of
Monmouth (now usually referred to by her Scottish title of Duchess of Buccleuch) and her two
sons were living at the Duke's former house in
Colman Hedge Lane, (ref. 252) and the unfinished
house in Soho Square stood empty. After two
unsuccessful attempts had been made to sell it in
1687 (ref. 242) the Duchess, who evidently despaired of
ever being repaid her £1,200, petitioned James II
for a grant of the freehold of the house.
In his report the Deputy Surveyor General of
Crown Lands, who evidently favoured the
Duchess's request, stated that a large sum 'still
must be expended before they [the house and
ancillary buildings] can be made habitable or fit
for sale', and he did not 'see how this 1200 l.
is like ever to be raysed out of these houses, in
ye Condicon they are in' without some enlargement of the Duchess's interest. (ref. 249) In March
1687/8 James II granted her, not the freehold,
but an extension of the current lease of the house
from Michaelmas 1734 (when the Crown
leases of all Soho Fields expired) to 1786. (ref. 253)
The numerous financial claims on the property
were now so complicated that no progress was
made for several years; meanwhile the house was
'goeing into Decay'. (ref. 254) In May 1693 William
Heyward, carpenter, executor of John Heyward,
carpenter, one of the tradesmen who had worked
on the house, exhibited a bill in Chancery complaining inter alia that Frith and Thomas (who
was now dead) still owed him £779, as well as
other debts to his colleagues. Frith and Thomas
had meanwhile assigned their interest in the
property to the creditors of the bankrupt Hinton,
to whom they were heavily in debt. This assignment was subject to the payment of £1,200 to the
Duchess (who by this time had married Lord
Cornwallis) and £1,700 to the building tradesmen,
who were to share this sum according to the quantity of their respective debts. Fox and Fenn still
held the property on trust, for the Duchess insisted that she should be paid interest on the
£1,200 which was due to her under Charles II's
grant of February 1684/5. (ref. 240)
In July 1693 the Court of Chancery ordered
that the house should be sold, and that the
proceeds should be used firstly to pay the Duchess
£1,200 plus interest and secondly to pay the
building tradesmen £1,700; the remaining surplus, if any, was to be paid to Hinton's creditors. (ref. 254)
In September of the same year 'the great house
in Soho Square, known by the name of Monmouth House' was advertised in The London
Gazette as for sale, (ref. 255) but evidently no purchaser presented himself. The deadlock was not
broken until 1698, when the Duchess of Monmouth decided to buy the house herself. On 16
August all the parties concerned joined to convey
it to Huntley Bigg (or Humphrey Bigge),
scrivener, for £1,750. A declaration of trust of
the same date stated that Bigg's name had been
used in trust for the Duchess, and that she had
provided the purchase money. (ref. 254)
Although now freed from all legal entanglements, the house still remained empty for a number of years, and the only use to which it is known
to have been put between 1684 and 1713 was as a
chapel. In 1689 some small part of the house,
probably a room in one of the back buildings,
was fitted up for the use of one of the congregations
of Huguenot refugees, who were then settling in
Soho in large numbers. This chapel became
known as L'Église du Quarré, or Le Quarré
de Sohoe. In 1691 a gallery had to be erected,
after a union with three other Huguenot churches,
but in 1694 the congregations moved to another
building in Berwick Street, taking with them their
pulpit, pews and the gallery. (ref. 256) The congregation remained in Berwick Street, still known as
Le Quarré, until 1767–9, (ref. 257) when it removed to
Little Dean Street (now Bourchier Street, see
page 141).
In November 1711 the Commissioners for
Building Fifty New Churches were looking for a
site for a second church in the parish of St. Anne's
and asked the Duchess of Monmouth what interest she had in Monmouth House 'and what
price she demands for the same'. Her price of
£3,000 was rejected as excessive, and the commissioners then considered the possibility of
erecting a church in the centre of the square, for
in December they resolved that 'Sohoe Square is
the properest Scite for a Church, if there be not
a Ring of Bells or Church Yard therein'. They
decided to 'enquire who are the Proprietors of the
said Square', but the proposal was evidently
abandoned. (ref. 258)
Eighteen months later, the Duchess found a
temporary tenant for Monmouth House. This
was William Comyns of St. James's, gentleman,
who in June 1713 took the property as a yearly
tenant at the significantly small rent of £15 per
annum. The still unfinished state of the house
is indicated by a provision in his lease forbidding him from taking away any of the timber,
boards, bricks, lead, iron and other building
materials lying around the premises. He was,
however, allowed to use any of these to 'support'
the existing structure. (ref. 259) Comyns evidently
shared the premises with a Mr. Singar, whose
name appears as the ratepayer from 1714 to 1716.
According to Horace Walpole 'The collection of
pictures, by himself and others, of Mr. Comyns,
was sold by auction at Monmouth-house, Sohosquare, Feb. 5, 1717'. (ref. 260)
In February 1716/17 the Duchess of Monmouth finally disposed of the lease of Monmouth
House for £3,000. The purchaser was a City
financier, Sir James Bateman, then Lord Mayor
of London and Sub-Governor of the South Sea
Company, who bought the house with the intention of completing it for use as his own
residence. (ref. 259)
The completion of Monmouth House has
often been attributed to Thomas Archer's hand,
but no documentary evidence to this effect has
been found. It may, however, be noted that there
was some personal connexion between Bateman
and Archer. The latter's second wife was Anne
Chaplin and both the Batemans and the Chaplins
were prominent City families. In 1705 Bateman
had purchased Shobdon Court in Herefordshire
from (Sir) Robert Chaplin, an uncle of the future
Mrs. Archer. Chaplin was also left £20 for
mourning in Bateman's will and his daughter
subsequently married Bateman's second son. (ref. 261)
As well as the erection of the new façade and
the completion of the interior, Bateman's improvements included the erection of new stables
behind the house, in place of those on the east
side of Frith Street where five new houses (Nos.
6–10 consec.) were erected, in accordance with
a ground plan and elevation supplied by Bateman.
There is no evidence linking the designs for the
Frith Street houses with Thomas Archer (see
page 154). The builder of these houses was
allowed to use all the materials of the existing
buildings, with the exception of the stonework
of the 'great gateway', formerly the entrance
from Frith Street to the yard behind Monmouth
House. (ref. 259)
Work on the fabric of the main house was
under way by May 1718 but was interrupted
by the death of Sir James Bateman on 10 November. (ref. 262) Shortly before this John Ozell, a City
accountant, related that Sir James had shown him
'his magnificent House in Soho, and several
Plans and Schemes of his own Drawing in order
to the Completion of it'. (ref. 263) It is, however,
almost inconceivable that Sir James Bateman,
with no known architectural experience, could
have been responsible for the remarkable design
of the new front then being grafted on to the
original building.
On Sir James Bateman's death in November
1718 Monmouth House was inherited by his
eldest son William (later first Viscount) Bateman. (ref. 264) By the following March, the latter had
completed most of the building work and had
insured the house and new stables for £3,300 with
the Hand in Hand Insurance Company. (ref. 265)
Architectural Description
The pictorial and descriptive records of Monmouth House are few and of debatable accuracy,
but taken together they serve to build up a fairly
convincing picture of the building. To begin
with there is the well-known plan in the collection at All Souls College, Oxford (Plate 72a).
This is almost certainly not a plan for a projected
building, but a fully dimensioned survey of the
cellar storey in an existing house. That the
original carcase of Monmouth House survived is
made clear by comparing this survey with a lease
plan, dated 1769, which was drawn in the Surveyor General's office when the second Viscount
Bateman petitioned for a renewal of the 1687/8
lease (ref. 266) (Plate 72b). This shows the house in an
outline fully conforming with that of the earlier
survey, but with the new offices and houses erected
by Sir James Bateman.
The façade and forecourt are shown with a
fair degree of clarity, and in relation to the rest
of the square, in the engraving reproduced on
Plate 73a. This view of the house is amplified
by the Crowle-Pennant drawing entitled 'Lord
Bateman's House in Soho Square 1764' (ref. 267)
(Plate 73b), probably the one prepared by the
father of J. T. Smith, who engraved it for his
Antiquities of London (1791) (Plate 73c). Despite
its obvious crudities, the Crowle-Pennant drawing
appears to have been made from notes taken on
the spot, and it therefore provides the most trustworthy record of this remarkable front. As for
the interior of the house, the only evidence is a
group of designs for painted decoration by Sir
James Thornhill, and J. T. Smith's description
(quoted below), the latter, based on his recollections of a visit to the half-derelict house made at
an early age in company with Nollekens.
There seems to have been nothing remarkable
about the way in which the house was planned.
The All Souls survey shows a symmetrical
layout, with two large oblong rooms in the middle,
one facing north, the other south, placed between
two suites of four smaller rooms ranging from
north to south and forming far-projecting wings
on the south side, facing each other across an
open court and ending with closet or staircase
projections. What is interesting, however, is the
siting of the house, set well back from the
frontage line of the flanking houses in the square,
so that a deep forecourt is provided, and all the
rooms have adequate day-lighting, some from
windows overlooking the gardens behind the
flanking houses. This siting gave the house a
palatial appearance, suggesting the classical
French arrangement of the corps des gardes
pavilions flanking the recessed corps de logis. As
the plan must have been settled in the early
1680's it can certainly be regarded as the prototype
followed when Cavendish Square was laid out
around 1720, with two great houses of similar
arrangement on the west and north sides.
Although the plan of the house is so lacking in
individuality that it fails to suggest the name of
its author, the façade is so striking that it positively
attributes itself to Thomas Archer. It is not
surprising to find that Arthur Bolton and Marcus
Whiffen both name him as the architect, (ref. 268)
although the dates which they suggest for his work
are much too early. This stylistic attribution to
Archer is strengthened by his personal connexion
with Bateman (mentioned on page 109).
Recognising Smith's drawing of the front as
something of a travesty of Archer's design, it is
possible by referring to other related buildings and
designs, to reconstruct the original appearance of
Monmouth House as finished for Sir James
Bateman soon after February 1716/17. Compared with Archer's authenticated house fronts
of similar size, it comes in date about midway
between Roehampton House of 1712 and Harcourt House of about 1722, and shares its most
striking features with both. If the rusticated
ground storey of Harcourt House is subtracted
there is left an upper stage of two storeys which is
almost identical with the two-storeyed principal
stage of Monmouth House. Both designs feature
a relatively plain centre having three archheaded windows in the upper storey flanked by
slightly projecting wings each of two bays,
dressed with giant pilasters supporting a rich
bracketed entablature. In both designs the pilasters have pedestals, plain shafts, and composed
capitals, with Borromini's in-turned volutes at
Harcourt House and, according to the CrowlePennant drawing, of Ionic-Corinthian type at
Monmouth House. But whereas Harcourt
House was intended to be finished with a modest
balustrade, broken only by a lunette window
beneath a small segmental pediment, Monmouth
House surpassed in fantasy the broken skyline
designed for Roehampton, having the beginnings
of a giant triangular pediment placed above each
end bay of the attic storey and linked by short
balustrades to a heightened central attic, with
three arch-headed windows below a small and
plain triangular pediment. In this Monmouth
House was closer than Roehampton to Della
Porta's Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati, the building which must have influenced Archer in these
two houses, as well as in his designs for St.
John's Church, Smith Square. It remains to add
that the attic storey of Monmouth House was
dressed with curious pilasters resembling terminusstands, having tapered shafts and concave shoulders
decorated with fluting. The entrance doorway
was approached by a short flight of steps, leading
up to a porch having paired Composite columns
supporting a bracketed entablature, finished with a
balustrade. The All Souls plan shows the front
as a straight wall with seven openings, and as
Archer's front had the same fenestral arrangement it seems probable that he retained and refaced the existing wall, creating an illusion of
depth by dressing the two bays at each end with a
giant order of pilasters and so producing the effect
of slightly projecting wings.
The forecourt was screened from the square by
a wrought-iron clairvoyée of three bays, presumably gates hung from stone piers having panelled
shafts, the outer pair supporting urns, and the inner
pair having the Bateman crest, a Muscovy duck.
At either end of the screen was a short brick wall,
finished with stone quoins and containing a
niche over which the coping was arched.
J. T. Smith's Nollekens and his Times (first
published in 1828) contains a long description of
Monmouth House as it stood when Smith, then a
child aged seven, visited it with Nollekens in 1773.
The demolition of the house had already begun.
'It was on the south side, and occupied the site
of the houses which now stand in Bateman's
buildings; and though the workmen were employed in pulling it down, we ventured to go in.
The gate entrance was of massive iron work
supported by stone piers, surmounted by the crest
of the owner of the house; and within the gates
there was a spacious court-yard for carriages. The
hall was ascended by steps. There were eight rooms
on the ground floor: the principal one was a dining-room towards the south, the carved and gilt
panels of which had contained whole-length
pictures. At the corners of the ornamented
ceiling, which was of plaster, and over the
chimneypiece, the Duke of Monmouth's arms
were displayed.
'From a window, we descended into a paved
yard, surrounded by a red brick wall with heavy
stone copings which was, to the best of my recollection, full twenty-five feet in height. The
staircase was of oak, the steps very low, and the
landing-places were tesselated with woods of
light and dark colours, similar to those now remaining on the staircase of Lord Russell's house,
late Lowe's Hotel, Covent Garden, (fn. a) and in several rooms of the British Museum.
'As we ascended, I remember Mr. Nollekens
noticing the busts of Seneca, Caracalla, Trajan,
Adrian and several others, upon ornamented
brackets. The principal room on the first floor,
which had not been disturbed by the workmen,
was lined with blue satin, superbly decorated with
pheasants and other birds in gold. The chimneypiece was richly ornamented with fruit and foliage,
similar to the carvings which surround the altar
of St. James's Church, Piccadilly, so beautifully
executed by Grinling Gibbons. In the centre over
this chimneypiece, within a wreath of oak leaves,
there was a circular recess which evidently had
been designed for the reception of a bust. The
beads of the panels of the brown window shutters,
which were very lofty, were gilt; and the piers
between the windows, from stains upon the silk,
had probably been filled with looking-glasses.
The scaffolding, ladders, and numerous workmen, rendered it too dangerous for us to go higher,
or see more of this most interesting house.
'My father had, however, made a drawing of
the external front of it, which I engraved for my
first work, entitled Antiquities of London.' (fn. 270)
Apart from J. T. Smith's description the only
evidence relating to the interior of Monmouth
House is a small group of drawings for painted
decoration, prepared for Bateman by Sir James
Thornhill, who had had previous associations
with both Archer and Sir James Bateman.
Thornhill had worked with Archer at Roehampton House, while Bateman had been his
patron at Greenwich. (fn. 271) The most important of
these drawings is a scheme for the great staircase
compartment (Plate 74). The dimensions figured on this drawing (which is now in the Henry
E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery,
California) are 21 feet 7 inches by 24 feet 8
inches, conforming with those of the north-west
front room of the All Souls survey plan, after due
allowance is made for the difference in thickness
between the cellar-storey walls and those of the
ground floor. Thornhill's drawing shows the
staircase rising in three flights against the north,
west and south walls of the two-storeyed compartment, the east side of which is formed by an Ionic
colonnade of three bays on the ground floor, and
an arcade on the first floor. The trompe l'æil
architecture of the scheme seems to recall
Greenwich in the great elliptical arches flanked
by paired columns that frame the architectural
landscapes on the west and south walls. The north
wall, containing two first-floor windows, is
treated more formally with a long bas-relief
panel below, and pendant trophies between the
windows. In the ceiling panel, a square with
incurved corners, is a vivid illusionist scene of
Ariadne's apotheosis. While this design is almost
certainly intended for the staircase at Monmouth
House, there is no evidence of its execution. It is
not mentioned by Smith, who writes only of
Nollekens noticing the busts on ornamental
brackets, objects which would hardly fit in with
Thornhill's trompe l'œil painting.
The other related drawings by Thornhill include an allegorical group for the ceiling of a
closet, a trompe l'œil niche with a statue (Plate
75), probably for the same closet (these drawings
are now in the Art Institute of Chicago), and
two mythological scenes for painting on the glass
of sash windows to be executed by Joshua Price
(Plate 76). This drawing is now in the Museum
of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island.
The only known contemporary description of
the newly finished house dates from 1734, some
fifteen years after the improvements described
above were completed. This was by Ralph who,
in his Critical Review of the Publick Buildings In
and About London and Westminster, wrote that
'My Lord Bateman's house … is built at a good
deal of expence, and was meant for something
grand and magnificent; but I am afraid the architect had a very slender notion of what either of
them meant: there is nothing very shining in
any part of this structure; but if the lower order
could boast of beauties ever so exquisite, the upper
is so Gothique and absurd, that it would destroy
them all, and invective would get the start of
approbation'. (ref. 272)
Later History
William, first Viscount Bateman, lived at Monmouth House until 1739, (ref. b) but the ratebooks
record that from 1740 until his death in 1744
there were tenants. He was succeeded by his
son John, second Viscount, who lived here until
1756. From 1757 to 1763 the occupant (evidently another tenant) was Daniel Finch, eighth
Earl of Winchilsea, who was succeeded by the
French ambassador, 1765–6. (ref. 33) A newspaper
paragraph of April 1764 states that 'a new
chapel is erecting for the use of his Excellency the
Count de Guerchy, the French Ambassador, in
Queen-street … Soho'. This chapel stood at the
rear of Monmouth House on the north side of
Queen (now Bateman) Street and is marked on
the plan of 1769 reproduced on Plate 72b.
After the ambassador's departure it is said to have
been rented by a congregation of French Protestants. (ref. 274)
The Russian minister occupied Monmouth
House in 1768–9. The last occupant, for a few
months in 1771–2, (ref. 275) was John Reney, who in
the latter year published a prospectus entitled
Proposals for erecting an Academy on a New and
Extensive Plan in Monmouth-House, SohoSquare. (ref. 276) Reney's school was to be for one
hundred and fifty sons of gentlemen, who were
to pay one hundred guineas a year, and for thirty
sons of clergymen, who were to pay nothing.
The amenities of the school included a large chapel
and a cold bath, and each boy was to be 'taught
agreeable to his natural inclination, without being
forced'. In December 1772 Josiah Wedgwood,
whose showrooms were then in Great Newport
Street, considered taking a lease of Monmouth
House from Lord Bateman, but decided that the
rent of £400 per annum was too high. (ref. 277)
In May 1770 the second Viscount Bateman
had obtained a new Crown lease which extended
his interest to 1819. (ref. 278) Owing to the decline of
Soho Square as a place of fashionable residence
Monmouth House had by this time become a
white elephant, and in April 1773 he agreed with
Thomas Bannister of St. Clement Danes, bricklayer, and Charles Cole of Southwark, carpenter,
for the redevelopment of the whole site. Bannister and Cole covenanted to demolish Monmouth House and stables and to erect in their
place two large houses fronting on to the square
and other much smaller houses behind. They
were to use hard place bricks faced with good
grey stocks of uniform colour, Portland stone
coping-stones, Crown glass, the best Westmorland slates and the best Memel or Riga timber.
The floors of the new houses were to be of good
yellow seasoned whole deals, free of sap. In each
of the two houses fronting Soho Square there
were to be at least four marble chimneypieces
and the parlour and principal floors were to be
wainscoted. For his part Lord Bateman undertook to grant the two builders, or their nominees,
leases of the new houses as each was covered in. (ref. 254)
By June 1773 Monmouth House and its
ancillary buildings, extending from Soho Square
to Queen Street, had been demolished. (ref. 33) A new
passageway was laid out down the length of the
empty site between the two sites set aside for the
erection of houses in Soho Square, extending
back to Queen Street. The small houses flanking
the new passage and those in Queen Street were
roofed in and sub-leased by Lord Bateman in 1774
and the two larger houses (Nos. 28 and 29 Soho
Square) in 1775. By 1776 the building work was
complete and all the new houses occupied. (ref. 33)
Other tradesmen besides Bannister and Cole who
are known to have worked on Bateman's Buildings (as the new houses were collectively called)
were Thomas Gibson of St. James's, John
Stevens of Warwick Street, Golden Square, and
James Gibson of St. Anne's, all carpenters, and
Edward Hammond of St. Anne's, painter and
glazier, who were all paid for their work by the
grant of sub-leases of individual houses. (ref. 279)
Some of the little houses erected in Bateman's
Buildings were exceptionally small, about thirteen feet six inches wide and about nineteen
feet deep.