CHAPTER X
Golden Square Area: Gelding Close
Until its surrender to the Crown in 1536
for the formation of the Bailiwick of St.
James the site of Golden Square and the
adjacent streets (fig. 18) had formed part of
the lands belonging to the Mercers' Company,
and were then in the tenure of Thomas Raye. (ref. 1)
In 1548 this part was leased by Edward VI to Sir
Anthony Denny, (ref. 2) but in January 1559/60 it was
included in Queen Elizabeth's freehold grant of
some sixty acres in the parish of St. Martin in
the Fields (together with other lands elsewhere)
to William Dodington of London, gentleman. By
1561 the freehold of the sixty acres had come into
the possession of Thomas Wilson of St. Botolph
without Aldgate, brewer (ref. 1) (see page 24). By
1585, when the plan reproduced on Plate I was
made, the windmill from which Great Windmill
Street takes its name had been erected, and the
site of Golden Square formed part of the wide
area loosely referred to as Windmill Fields.
After Thomas Wilson's death in 1590 his lands
in St. Martin's passed to his son Richard, (ref. 3) who in
January 1618/19 sold some twenty-two acres, including the site of Golden Square, to Robert
Baker, tailor, the builder of Piccadilly Hall (ref. 4) (see
fig. 1). Baker died in 1623 (ref. 5) and prolonged
disputes over the possession of his lands ensued
(see page 37). By 1670 the two chief claimants,
John Baker, usually described as of Payhembury,
Devonshire, and James Baker of Evercreech,
Somerset, who were great-nephews of Robert
Baker, had both granted away their pretended and
mutually conflicting rights in Gelding Close (as
the part of Windmill Fields shown on fig. 18
was now known), the former to John Emlyn,
(Emlin, Emblin), brickmaker, and the latter to
James Axtell, variously described as a bricklayer or
a carpenter. (ref. 6)
Gelding Close was presumably so-called
through its use as pasture for geldings, while the
name Golden Square, which was in use before the
end of the seventeenth century, was evidently a
refined corruption. (fn. a) By 1670 it had become
valuable as building land, for houses were already
going up to the south and east of it after the extension of Sir William Pulteney's Crown lease in
1668. Moreover its freehold was privately owned,
and some of the plots or houses were therefore
granted in leases of upwards of nine hundred
years which encouraged the erection of larger
buildings on a more elaborate layout than was
possible on the adjoining Crown land, where
tenants were reluctant to build substantial houses
on the limited security of the comparatively short
leases usually granted at that time.
Both John Emlyn and James Axtell intended
to build on Gelding Close, which they considered
to be 'situate in A good Ayre and very comodious'. (ref. 9) By February 1670/1 they had settled the
rival claims which they had respectively purchased
from John and James Baker, each accepting an
undivided moiety of the whole. (ref. 10)
In the following month, March 1670/1, Sir
Christopher Wren, as Surveyor General of His
Majesty's Works, reported to the Privy Council
his concern at the number of unlicensed buildings
in 'Dog Fields, Windmill Fields and the Fields
adjoining to So Hoe', (ref. 11) and in April a proclamation against unlicensed building there was published (see page 7). (ref. 12) Shortly afterwards Emlyn
and James Long (a nominee of Axtell) addressed a
petition to the Privy Council for a building licence.
They set forth that they desired to build in Gelding Close 'such houses as might accommodate
Gentry, and not being the least Charge upon the
Parish, but be an advancement to the Poor', but
had desisted in obedience to the royal proclamation
against new buildings. They further pleaded that
they would be able to raise and pave the adjoining
highway to Tyburn (the present Warwick Street).
This, they claimed, had become impassable in
winter and market people travelling that way were
in danger of being lost in 'the great waters
perpetually lying there all the Winter Season'. In
November 1671 this petition was referred to
Wren. (ref. 13)
Their first application was unsuccessful and
after some unaccountable delay, possibly caused by
continued disputes between the two joint owners
of Gelding Close, a further petition was submitted
in 1673. This was in the names of Emlyn and of
Barnabas Holley (another nominee of Axtell),
whose name was used for reasons of 'interest and
favour', James Axtell being perhaps a relative of
Daniel Axtell, the regicide. At the same time
£200 was paid to a Mr. Wright, presumably a
Chancery official, to obtain the necessary patent. (ref. 14)
This second petition was also referred to Wren,
who was required to ascertain whether the sewers
designed by the petitioners might be built without
annoyance. This concern with drainage was
probably occasioned by fear that building in
Gelding Close might endanger the water supply
to the royal palaces of Whitehall and St. James.
Wren and his assistants viewed the ground and
found 'that the foule water of the petitioners
buildings may be carryed off Without annoyance
to the Conduits or the Publique Sewers already
made', provided that the petitioners obeyed his
directions. On 4 September 1673 the King
therefore granted to Emlyn and Holley by letters
patent licence 'to frame, erect and build' such
houses and buildings in the said close 'according
to the modell and forme … designe draught
mapp or Chart' annexed to the patent. The new
buildings were to be of brick or stone, and the
petitioners were to maintain them in repair. There
were to be 'substantial pavements' and 'sufficient
sewers', and 'noysome and offensive trades' were
forbidden. (ref. 15)
The 'modell' or plan is still in existence and
(except for the modification of the line of frontage
which was made at the north-west corner in 1930)
is identical with the present layout of Golden
Square. (ref. 16) The plan bears Wren's signature, but
the patent does not state whether it was submitted
by the petitioners or whether it originated in
Wren's office (Plate 9).
Within a few months of the grant of the licence
to build in September 1673 Axtell and Emlyn
jointly granted a parcel of Gelding Close to
William Partridge of St. Martin's, blacksmith, at
a fee farm rent of £19 16s. (ref. 17) This ground was
later occupied by Nos. 17–19 Golden Square, and
probably extended back to Brewer Street (fig. 18).
No building took place there for some years.
Shortly after the grant of the licence Emlyn's
half-share in Gelding Close passed to Isaac
Symball, another building speculator who had
advanced considerable sums of money to meet
Emlyn's debts and legal costs, including the
£200 paid to Mr. Wright, the Chancery
official. (ref. 10) Symball, variously described as a yeoman,
brickmaker or corn chandler of St. Martin's, was
a man of ingenuity and enterprise. In addition to
being involved in the development of Gelding
Close, Conduit Field and Soho he was busy at
various times between 1670 and 1675 in cowkeeping, cattle-dealing and brickmaking. (ref. 18) In
1689 he was described as a person 'of no
reputation' when he tried unsuccessfully to avoid
arrest for debt by becoming the servant of Lord
Morley who, as a Papist, was not entitled to sit
in the House of Lords, and was therefore not
privileged to protect his servants from arrest. (ref. 19)
Symball died in January 1694/5. Narcissus
Luttrell relates that 'One Mr Raneer, a gentleman
of Lincolns Inn, being at cards with one Mr
Symball, an eminent builder, at his house in So ho,
they quarrelled, and the latter was wounded in
3 places, of which he instantly dyed, and the
other made his escape'. (ref. 20)
The means by which Symball acquired a halfshare in the freehold of Gelding Close may well
have been questionable, for he based his interest
upon an indenture which he claimed to be an
outright conveyance of one undivided moiety for
£1150, but which John Emlyn had intended to be
only a mortgage. (ref. 21) Nevertheless Symball maintained his right, so that by the autumn of 1674 the
legal and actual possession of Gelding Close was
shared equally between him and James Axtell.
The exact demarcation of each share of the
area had not yet been settled and gave grounds for
fresh disputes, which were now complicated by
the liability of both parties to lay out their buildings in conformity with the 'modell'. There was
also a long-standing quarrel between them over
the damage caused by the great number of gravel
and brick-earth pits dug by Emlyn on Gelding
Close. (ref. 22)
In November 1674 Axtell brought a suit in
Chancery against Symball to force a division of
their joint property, and in December Symball
replied with a similar suit against Axtell. (ref. 22) Both
parties came to a settlement in the early months of
1675, and the various building sites into which
Gelding Close was to be divided were partitioned
between them. (ref. 23)
Each party obtained all the building land on
one of the two shorter (north or south) sides of the
intended square, half of each long (east and west)
side and also half of the land on the northern part
of the close which bordered on what was to be
Silver (now Beak) Street. Symball agreed to take
all the land on the north side of the square, the
northern half of the eastern range, the southern
half of the western range and also the eastern half
of the sites bordering the north side of Silver
Street. The remaining building sites, including
that part of the south side of the square which had
already been jointly granted to William Partridge,
fell to Axtell. The division between the two
contending parties is illustrated on fig. 18.
Figure 18:
Golden Square, layout plan showing the division in 1675 between James Axtell and Isaac Symball.Hatched plots represent Axtell's land, unhatched plots Symball's. Based on the Ordnance Survey, 1870–5
After this partition both Axtell and Symball
proceeded separately with their own plans for the
development of Gelding Close. Axtell staked and
set out his land for building but died in the autumn
of 1679 before leasing out any of his property. (ref. 24)
Symball was initially more successful, and began
by disposing of his land in the south-west corner of
Gelding Close—i.e. the sites of Nos. 19A–24
Golden Square and of the houses on the west side
of Lower John Street. The site of the present
No. 24 was 'in building' by April 1675, and in the
same month Symball granted the residue of a
thousand-year term in two adjoining sites (Nos.
22 and 23) to Cadogan Thomas of Lambeth,
merchant, who in the following October leased
them for building to Andrew Laurence of St.
Martin's, esquire. (ref. 23) By March 1674/5 John
Wells, variously described as gentleman (ref. 25) or as of
St. Giles in the Fields, cow-keeper, and possibly
one of the speculators who had previously built
houses in Wells (now Babmaes) Street, St. James's
Square, had taken a lease of some nine hundred
and ninety-nine years from Symball of the remaining two sites (Nos. 20 and 21), (ref. 26) and also (at
an unknown date) a similar lease for adjoining land
on the west side of Lower John Street. (ref. 25) Nos.
20 and 21 were built under sub-leases granted by
Wells in 1683 to William Gray. (ref. 27) These and
Nos. 22–24 were all in occupation by 1686. (ref. 28)
The unfashionableness of the neighbourhood
and the death of James Axtell in the autumn of
1679 without issue were probably the causes of
the slow progress of building. Axtell's real
property passed to two nieces, Elizabeth and
Frances, the daughters of a deceased brother and
both under age. Being minors they were unable
to grant leases of their property, which had already
been staked out for building. It lay open and unfenced, useless for any other purpose and producing no income. (ref. 29)
This difficulty was surmounted in February
1683/4. Martha Axtell, their widowed mother
and guardian, came to an agreement with four
'undertakers', Francis Batten, citizen and leatherseller, William Partridge of St. Martin's, blacksmith, Enoch Crosby of the same, bricklayer, and
Richard Tyler, of the same, brickmaker, who
jointly undertook the development of all the
Axtells' sites. Batten took up the sites on the east
side of Golden Square (Nos. 5–12) and the adjoining sites in Lower James Street, Brewer Street
and Bridle Lane; William Partridge took the
eastern part of the south side of the square (Nos.
13–16)—he already possessed the western part
where the land fronted south on Brewer Street;
Crosby took the sites on the west side of the
square (Nos. 25–31); Tyler took the parcel adjoining to the north which fronted on to Upper
John Street (excluding No. 31 Golden Square),
Silver Street and Warwick Street, together with
the Axtells' parcel on the north side of Silver
Street. Martha Axtell covenanted that when they
came of age her daughters would make good all
the building leases, which were for fifty-one years
except in the case of the ground to the north of
Silver Street. (ref. 30) During the next six months the
four 'undertakers' engaged other builders and
tradesmen to take some of the vacant sites and in
the autumn of 1684 Martha Axtell formally
leased all her daughters' property in Gelding Close
to these four or to their nominees. Crosby engaged other tradesmen for all his seven sites, and
he himself was not granted any leases.
Martha Axtell succeeded in obtaining tenants
for all her daughters' property at rents which were
higher than either those which Symball had
earlier obtained for his plots or those for which her
deceased brother-in-law, James Axtell, had
treated five years previously. Moreover her leases
were only for fifty-one years, whereas in 1675
Symball had had to grant terms in the region of a
thousand years to attract builders. Only in
Silver Street, 'a narrow back street incomodiously
situated', was she compelled to grant long leases,
for nine hundred years. (ref. 29)
After the grant of these leases there was some
acceleration in the rate of building, for houses
began to go up on the Axtells' sites on the east and
west sides of the square almost immediately. The
western range (Symball's half of which was already built) was complete by 1689, (fn. 28) but the
houses on the east side do not seem to have been
finished until some ten years later. On the south
side Nos. 15–19 were built by 1689 and the two
other houses completed by 1692.
The other sites in the square were all Isaac
Symball's property and mostly vacant. Unlike
Martha Axtell, he was unable to attract tenants so
that his property in the east range (Nos. 1–4)
remained undeveloped at his death in 1695. (ref. 31)
Here the houses (Nos. 1–4) were probably
erected around 1700, though it was not until 1706
that all four houses were occupied. The sites on
the northern range of the square (Nos. 32–38) had
been easier to let and the houses were built there
between 1685 and 1698.
By the early 1700's, the four ranges of Golden
Square were complete. They formed a slightly
irregular quadrangle measuring some 250 feet
from north to south and east to west. There were
two entering streets on the north side, responding
to two on the south, all being originally placed
some 20 feet in from the unbroken east and west
sides. The re-entrant angles thus formed made it
possible to include four houses with a narrow
entrance front towards the square, although their
main fronts faced the entering streets. All four
ranges presented a certain degree of uniformity,
but the visual consistency successfully achieved at
the same period in St. James's Square and Soho
Square was less apparent.
In the first few years little care had been taken
to achieve conformity of style. Of the first five
houses to be built in the square (Nos. 20–24, all
on Symball's land) only two (Nos. 20 and 21) had
similar fronts, probably because they were both
built under the same lease. Nos. 22 and 23, although both leased to Andrew Laurence, have
differing heights, the latter having the same
number of storeys as its other neighbour, No. 24,
which was the first house to be built in Golden
Square.
Subsequent building was more uniform. When
the four 'undertakers' agreed to take up all the
Axtells' building sites in 1683/4, they bound
themselves to erect continuous rows of dwellings
'with heights of storyes, ornaments to the fronts,
scantlings and goodness of timber and substantialness in Brickwork answerable to the buildings neere thereunto and of the second rate of
building', (ref. 32) presumably as specified in the Act of
1667 for the rebuilding of the City (see page 8).
The result was that the houses erected on the
Axtells' ground all maintained a higher degree of
uniformity than had previously been required.
This is particularly noticeable in the houses on the
south side of the square (Plate 120a,) which were
all probably built by William Partridge. The
contrasting diversity of style between the houses
built in the 1670's on Symball's land (Nos. 20–24)
and those erected five years later on the Axtells'
adjoining sites (Nos. 25–30) further underlines
this change.
Following the Axtells' example, Symball's
leases granted in 1685 to William Pye of St.
James's, carpenter, for the sites of Nos. 32–34
contained covenants binding the lessee to erect
houses 'uniform in front to the best of the houses
of [William] Gray fronting the said Square …
with a height of stories, ornaments to the front,
scantlings and goodness of timber and substantialness of brickwork answerable to the said buildings
designed for the pattern thereof'. (ref. 33) The engravings reproduced on Plate 120 show that as built
Nos. 32–34 were similar to Nos. 20 and 21, of
which William Gray was the lessee. Similar
covenants evidently also governed the erection of
Nos. 37 and 38.
Sutton Nicholls's views of the north prospect of
the square, published in 1731 and 1754, differ
from each other only in their treatment of the
layout of the centre of the square. The later
version is reproduced on Plate 120b and shows the
whole of the west, north and east sides, while a
similar engraving (ref. 34) by another artist of a view
looking east includes the south side (Plate 120a).
They show that, with a few exceptions, the houses
had typical late seventeenth-century fronts, three
storeys high and three windows wide, built of
brick with raised bandcourses between the
storeys, and a modillion eaves cornice of wood
below the steeply pitched roof. The flush-framed
sashes, which probably dated from the first erection
of the houses, were set in plain openings with flat
gauged arches, and most of the houses had doorcases with scrolled broken pediments. In the roof
of each house were three casement dormers,
finished with triangular pediments. Exceptions to
this general uniformity were Nos. 23 and 24 on
the west side, No. 36 on the north, No. 1 in the
north-east angle, and Nos. 2 and 10 on the east
side. The two lower storeys of No. 23 matched
with those of No. 22, built by 1684, but the upper
part of the four-storeyed front was probably later
and finished with a cornice and a panelled parapet
of brick, partly concealing the two dormers in the
roof. At least the front of No. 24 had been rebuilt, probably in the 1720's, for Sutton Nicholls
shows it with four storeys of segmental-arched
windows, and having a bandcourse at first-floor
level and a cornice below the attic storey which
finished with a panelled parapet. Both of these
house-fronts survive, altered and without their
original doorcases. No. 36, on the north side, was
also evidently a rebuilding or refronting of about
1720, with four storeys of segmental-arched
windows having lugged aprons. Nos. 1 and 2 were
four-storeyed houses of late seventeenth-century
date, but the fourth storey was probably added,
for No. 1 matched in all other respects the threestoreyed No. 31, at the opposite end of the north
side. Both houses had long-and-short quoins on
the outside angle, raised bandcourses between the
storeys, and a modillioned eaves cornice of wood
below the roof. The front of No. 10 also appears
to have been heightened by substituting an attic
storey for the roof garret.
The Later History of Golden Square
Golden Square had been designed to contain
'such houses as might accommodate Gentry', (ref. 35) and
for the first sixty or seventy years after its completion, this intention was fulfilled. By the time all
thirty-nine houses had been completed and occupied in 1707, there were living in the square a
duchess, six peers or future peers (including a
future duke), a bishop, six army officers and a
number of other residents of title. This was the
heyday of Golden Square as a political and social
centre. Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland,
lived at No. 7. James Brydges, the future Duke
of Chandos, but in 1707 Paymaster of the Forces,
lived at No. 20 and had his office at No. 19A.
Next to him lived Henry St. John, later Viscount
Bolingbroke, the leading Tory politician of the
day, whose house was frequently the scene of the
convivial assembly of his political and literary
associates.
With the westward expansion of London in the
eighteenth century, this social and political
distinction declined. Using the residence of the
peerage as a gauge of fashion, there were still six
peers living in Golden Square in 1720, only two
in 1730 and one in 1740. Many of the more
fashionable householders had moved to the new
houses which were going up on the Burlington
estate in the 1720's and 1730's. Lord Masham
moved from No. 21 to Cork Street in 1724–5 and
Governor Henry Worsley (from No. 7) and Lord
Middleton (from No. 21) to New Burlington
Street in 1737–8. Even so, a few baronets, knights
and their relicts continued to live in Golden
Square throughout the eighteenth century, with
an occasional Irish or Jacobite peer and widowed
peeress.
In the middle years of the eighteenth century
the foreign diplomatic envoys formed a notable
group of residents. From 1724 to 1788 there was
at least one legation in Golden Square and from
1732 to 1734 there were three simultaneously.
The Portuguese minister was the first to move
into the square. He lived at Nos. 23 and 24 from
1724 to 1747 and was followed by the Bavarian
minister who remained there until 1788. No. 19A
housed the Brunswick envoy from 1728 to 1734
and No. 30 the Genoese envoy from 1755 to
1759. It is an interesting comment on the relative
importance of Russia in western Europe at this
date, to find amongst these representatives of
minor powers the name of Prince Cantemir, the
Tsarina's envoy in London, as resident at No. 6
from 1732 to 1737.
The cosmopolitan element in Golden Square
was accentuated in the later eighteenth century
by the residence there of a number of foreign
artists. This connexion with the arts had
originated in 1710 with Anastasia Robinson, the
singer, who lived at No. 35. One of the first
foreign artists to live in Golden Square was the
dancer Elizabeth Gamberini, who lived at No. 13
from 1753 to 1763, but the most celebrated was
Angelica Kauffmann, the painter, resident at No.
16 from 1767 to 1781. Another was the singer
Caterina Gabrielli, who appeared in London for
only one season from November 1775 to May
1776 and took a house in Golden Square. Despite
the shortness of her stay she had a brass plate
marked 'Mrs. Gabrielli' put up on her street
door. (ref. 36) Native artists who were attracted to the
square included the painter Prince Hoare (at No.
16 following Angelica Kauffmann); the miniaturist Samuel Finney; (ref. 37) Andrew Plimmer, another miniaturist (who lived at No. 28 from 1789
to 1794 and at No. 8 from 1794 to 1805); and
the future President of the Royal Academy, (Sir)
Martin Archer Shee, who occupied No. 13 from
1796 to 1798. (ref. 38)
There were also a number of harpsichord and
piano makers living and working in Golden
Square—Joseph Mahoon (at No. 38), William,
Matthew and Edward Stoddart (No. 1), Rice
Jones (No. 11) and Messrs. Broadwood, who had
their offices in Great Pulteney Street and used
No. 9 Golden Square as a warehouse.
By 1839 Golden Square had become 'a great
resort of foreigners' according to Charles Dickens,
who made a dismal house there the home of
Ralph Nickleby. He went on to describe some of
the other inhabitants—'Two or three violins and
a wind instrument from the Opera band reside
within its precincts. Its boarding-houses are
musical, and the notes of pianos and harps float
in the evening time round the head of the
mournful statue, the guardian genius of a little
wilderness of shrubs, in the centre of the square.
On a summer's night, windows are thrown
open, and groups of swarthy mustachio'd men
are seen by the passer-by lounging at the
casements, and smoking fearfully. Sounds of
gruff voices practising vocal music invade the
evening's silence, and the fumes of choice tobacco
scent the air. There, snuff and cigars, and
German pipes and flutes, and violins, and violoncellos, divide the supremacy between them. It is
the region of song and smoke. Street bands are on
their mettle in Golden Square, and itinerant gleesingers quaver involuntarily as they raise their
voices within its boundaries.' (ref. 39)
To accommodate this foreign population there
were a number of hotels and boarding houses in
the square, many of them being kept by foreigners.
In the early 1860's there were as many as eight,
some of which remained in business into the early
years of this century, when the woollen trade or
demolition displaced them. In the 1870's the
French nuns of the Convent of the Blessed Sacrament occupied No. 23, while at No. 10 were the
Huguenot children of the French Protestant
school. There was also a fencing school at No. 10,
well known as the Salle Bertrand, while in later
years No. 31 was occupied by the School of
Japanese Self Defence.
Side by side with the growth of this foreign
element and with the flight of the wealthier residents to more fashionable quarters elsewhere, many
of the houses came to be occupied by professional
men and later by commercial firms. As early as
1728, there was a doctor of medicine living in
Golden Square (at No. 33). From then until the
1870's, at least one of the houses in Golden
Square was occupied by a medical man, there being
nine resident or practising there in 1840. (ref. 40) John
Hunter, the anatomist, who had lived at No. 31
from 1765 to 1768, was the most celebrated of
these medical residents. In the nineteenth century
this professional element was greatly enlarged by
the advent of solicitors, architects, engineers and
parliamentary agents. In 1870 there were sixteen
solicitors practising in the square, (ref. 40) but today only
one firm survives.
The first commercial resident seems to have
been the harpsichord maker, Joseph Mahoon, who
moved into No. 38 in 1742. In the 1770's there
was an army agent at No. 2, a tailor at No. 12 and
the firm of Jephtha Galliard and Company at No.
15. This number rapidly increased in the nineteenth century to include a wide variety of commercial enterprises so that by 1840 none of the
houses remained entirely in private occupation.
They were all lodging houses or else split up
between professional and commercial tenants.
The next half-century saw a remarkable change
in both the visual and commercial character of
Golden Square. Although a few of the houses had
been rebuilt in the eighteenth century, many of
the original late seventeenth-century buildings remained structurally little altered. It was a backwater 'not exactly in anybody's way to or from
anywhere' (ref. 39) and the houses remained brick-built,
narrow, and residential in aspect if not in occupation. But in the last quarter of the nineteenth
century Golden Square rapidly developed as the
centre in London of the woollen and worsted
trade. This change was reflected in the demolition
before 1914 of nineteen of the thirty-nine
domestic buildings in the square and in the subsequent erection of large new office and warehouse
blocks.
The woollen manufacturers and merchants had
opened offices and warehouses in Golden Square
to be near the best market for their goods—the
London tailors. Since 1777 there had been a
tailor in one or other of the houses in the square,
and there were others in the adjoining streets and
many more west of Regent Street. Gagnière's, a
French merchant house dealing in silk and wool,
had opened a London office at No. 21 as early as
1844 and in 1856 moved to larger premises on the
north side of the square.
The first firm dealing solely in wool to take
premises in the square was Messrs. Farr and Jones,
who moved into No. 12 in 1868. After 1870
the number of woollen manufacturers and
merchants with offices in Golden Square quickly
rose. By 1880 there were ten such firms, by
1890 forty and seventy by 1900. In 1914 only
four of the buildings in the square had no occupants
connected with the woollen trade, two of these
being the Throat Hospital and the Roman Catholic
Presbytery. Since then, with the coming of the
television and cinema companies, the importance
of the woollen trade in Golden Square has
declined.
Golden Square now presents a sorry contrast
with its original appearance (Plate 121). The
central area, with its anaemic paved garden, seems
much reduced in size by being enclosed by buildings that vary greatly in width, height and scale,
and affect a wide range of styles and a medley of
materials. With a few notable exceptions, they
jostle and vie with each other, and the south end, in
particular, presents a jagged skyline of ill-assorted
gables, a nightmare Grande Place effect.
The four surviving domestic buildings—Nos.
11, 21, 23 and 24 are described below under their
individual headings, as are also the three later
buildings which call for comment—Holland and
Sherry's warehouse in the south-west angle, Nos.
25–29 by Mewès and Davis, and Nos. 34–36 by
Leonard Stokes.