Clifford Street, North Side
Up to the time of writing there had been relatively
little rebuilding on this side of the street and Nos.
4–9 were all original houses, three of them, Nos.
5, 8 and 9, being buildings of exceptional architectural interest (Plate 92b, fig. 80). The other
buildings have little importance, although No. 3
is one of the better late Victorian buildings in the
area. Nos. 1 and 2 have been replaced very recently
by a utilitarian block in red brick and stone, and
No. 10 is a poor late nineteenth-century building
in Flemish Renaissance style, having a front of
red brick with stone dressings.
No. 3 is three-storeyed with a front of red
brick and terra-cotta, its main elevation being in
fact towards Old Burlington Street. The composition is asymmetrical, richly detailed in Flemish
Renaissance style but none the less distinctively
Victorian in the canted bay window projecting
from the second and third storey of each front.
The windows have moulded architraves, continued sills and cornices, and are vertically linked
by swagged aprons, while the high crowning
parapet, also decorated with swags, has in the
centre of the Clifford Street front a dormer gable
with flanking scrolls and a triangular pediment.
The ground storey has been altered.
Figure 80:
Nos. 4–9 (consec.) Clifford Street, elevations
No. 4 Clifford Street
This house, like No. 24 Old Burlington Street
to the east, and No. 5 Clifford Street to the west,
was built under a building lease dated 25 September
1719 and made to the bricklayer John Witt. (ref. 202)
In the eighteenth century it was occupied by
relatively humble inhabitants (Plate 92b, fig. 80).
It is built on a much more modest scale than the
other original houses on this side of the street,
relating in type rather to Nos. 22–24 Old Burlington Street which abut it on the north and east.
It contains a basement and four storeys, the top
storey being a later addition, and has a front of
yellow-pink brick three windows wide. Red
brick is used for the quoins, and for the jambs and
segmental gauged arches of the windows, while
above the third storey is a bandcourse of ordinary
brick. The windows contain barred sashes in
recessed box-frames, but these are not original.
In the early nineteenth century the ground storey
was stuccoed and restyled, and in very recent
times the back wall and part of the third and fourth
storeys have been rebuilt. The plan, although now
altered, was originally the common one of a single
front and back room on each floor with a closet
projecting at the back and a dog-legged staircase
beside the back room. The only original finishings
to remain are in the entrance passage, where the
walls are lined with ovolo-moulded panelling
finished with a moulded dado-rail and a boxcornice. The staircase has in its lower flights cut
strings with carved step-ends, turned balusters,
column newels and a moulded handrail, the upper
flights differing in having moulded closed strings.
Nos. 5–7 (consec.) Clifford Street
Nos. 6 and 7 demolished
No. 5
This house, though its site was leased like No.
4 to Witt in September 1719, (ref. 202) was designed and
built in the more imposing and substantial manner
of the houses to the west of it. The first occupant,
in 1722, was Francis Whitworth, Member of
Parliament, who remained here until his removal
to No. 20 Savile Row in 1737. Whitworth, a
younger brother of the diplomat, Lord Whitworth
of Galway, (ref. 122) held the sinecure post of Secretary
and Clerk of the Courts in the Island of Barbados (ref. 203) and in 1732 succeeded the first occupant of
No. 17 Clifford Street as Surveyor General of
Woods and Forests. (ref. 204) Some interest in the arts is
suggested by his having been a Governor of the
Royal Academy of Music in 1719 (ref. 205) and his
subscription to Gay's Poems of 1720.
The fourth storey had already been added in
1836. (ref. 112) In 1892 the house was leased to a silk
mercer and dressmaker who was prohibited from
exhibiting any sign other than a brass plate or
marble tablet. (ref. 206)
No. 6
In 1719, when the leases of the other sites on
the north side of the street were being settled,
Lord Burlington concluded a building agreement
relating to this site with a Mr. Fletcher, who also
had a lien on a site at the west end of the street (ref. 24)
and who was possibly Joshua Fletcher, the mason
at Burlington House. Fletcher built the carcase of
a house and sold it in 1720 to Samuel Bagenal(1)
of Barleston, Staffordshire, esquire. The price was
£2200 and a further £800 was to be paid to
Fletcher for finishing the house. Fletcher then
assigned to Bagenal his agreement, with its entitlement to the grant of a sixty-one-year building
lease from Burlington, who in the following year
made the lease to Bagenal: it was back-dated
28 September 1719 and ran from Michaelmas of
that year. (ref. 207) Bagenal appears as ratepayer in 1722
and 1723 but perhaps did not occupy the house. (ref. 208)
In July 1723 Bagenal's mortgagees leased the
house for seven years from midsummer at £200
per annum to Lady Teynham who occupied it
until 1730, latterly with her third husband. The
lease was witnessed by Thomas Knight, 'master
builder', doubtless the joiner who worked nearby. (ref. 209) For four or five years there seems to have
been no continuous tenancy; the second Earl of
Marchmont lived here in 1733. (ref. 210) In September 1734 the mortgagees who then held the
lease were allowed to surrender it to Lord
Burlington and on the payment of a 200 guinea
fine obtained a new sixty-one-year lease at the
same ground rent of £18 per annum. (ref. 211) In
January 1734/5 they let the house to the third
Duke of Beaufort, who built a laundry in the
back yard for £200 (ref. 212) but who a year or two later
was succeeded in the house by the Dutch
envoy, Baron Hop(p), who remained here until
1761. (ref. 213)
An inventory made when the house was let
to the Duke of Beaufort indicates something of its
character in 1735. There were three floors over
the basement, with garrets in the roof. The five
rooms on the second floor had deal wainscoting
and Portland stone chimneypieces. The four
rooms on the first floor and the five on the ground
floor all had deal wainscoting with oaken doors,
architraves and shutters, and chimneypieces of
marble, generally 'white veined'. The chimneypiece in the front ground-floor parlour was described a little more elaborately as 'a White and
Vain'd marble chimney piece and slab with Black
and Yallow Ionick colloms and frize statuary bace
and Capitals and Architrave and Cornice'. The
great staircase, which probably rose only to the
first floor and was probably of stone, had iron
banisters with an oak rail. The landing was
wainscoted in deal but the staircase itself in oak,
rail-high. Above, 'canvas Pannells' presumably
intended for decorative paintings were set between
oaken Ionic pilasters with entablatures. Outside,
the three ground-floor windows had shutters.
Before the house were three street-posts and a
mounting-stone. (ref. 214)
In 1836 the house was still of three storeys and
garrets. (ref. 112)
In 1849–50 it was taken by John Almond,
who a few years before had acquired the adjacent
house, No. 7, (ref. 24) and henceforward was used as
part of Almond's Hotel. In 1853 small alterations
were carried out by the surveyor, T. Bradley. (ref. 215)
In the latter part of 1883 the building was empty (ref. 24)
and alterations, for which the builder's tender was
£6340, were made to the hotel by the architect
J. T. Wimperis. (ref. 216) These were probably to unite
the house to No. 7, with which it was subsequently rated. The fourth storey was perhaps
added at this time. A lease of No. 6 to Almond's
hotel-keeper in 1911 included a covenant to shut
the openings communicating with No. 7 and to
'reinstate' the front door (now converted to a
window) if required. It also contained a covenant
not to use the premises as a brothel. (ref. 217) Almond's
Hotel continued here until the 1939–45 war.
From 1947 to 1961 No. 6 was, with No. 7,
occupied by the publishers, Messrs. Longmans
Green and Company. (ref. 218) It was demolished in
1962.
No. 7
In October 1719 Burlington's agents informed
him in Italy that they had 'lett' this site. (ref. 45) The
lease, dated 13 January 1719/20, ran from Michaelmas 1719. It was made to Moses West of St.
Mary le Savoy, joiner. (ref. 219) A fortnight later he
mortgaged the site with the house 'now in building': this mortgage was witnessed by Thomas
Bedford of St. Andrew's, Holborn, bricklayer. (ref. 220)
Six months later the mortgage was assigned to
John Newsham of Chadshunt, Warwickshire,
esquire, who finally bought out West's interest for
£3300 in May 1721. (ref. 221) A few days later, on
26–27 May, Newsham sold the house for £4775
(part of which was secured by a re-mortgage to
him), to the first occupant. (ref. 222) This was Lieutenant-General Richard Gorges, who had had a
distinguished military career including service as
Peterborough's Adjutant-General in Spain. (ref. 223)
Gorges lived here until his death in 1728.
Gorges' bank account still survives and contains
one or two entries of interest. In December 1722
he paid Sir James Thornhill £130. (ref. 224) As has
been seen, the similar house to the east, No. 6,
had a staircase prepared for decorative paintings and
the adjacent house to the west, No. 8, still has a
staircase strikingly painted in a manner very close
to Thornhill's. It is therefore very probable that
the payment by Gorges was for decorative painting here. In 1725 and 1726 he made payments of
£72 and £98 14s. to Joseph Stallwood, the bricklayer, who is known to have worked elsewhere in
the street, and in the latter year paid £40 8s. to
Henry Wise, probably the gardener. (ref. 225)
From 1783 to 1805 the house was rated successively to John and Margaret Macdonald.
Macdonald was a carpenter, sometime of Mount
Street, Grosvenor Square, and perhaps carried out
alterations of some extent. (ref. 226) The house seems to
have been empty in 1782–3 but the rateable value
was not significantly altered.
In 1836 the house already had the fourth
storey which was no doubt additional to the original structure. (ref. 112)
In 1845 William Almond acquired the house
for use as a hotel; it was empty for three quarters
in 1852–3, when the rateable value was increased
from £232 to £290. (ref. 24) From 1884 it was rated
with No. 6 which also formed part of the hotel.
Alterations had been made to the hotel, probably
uniting it to No. 6, by J. T. Wimperis in 1883. (ref. 216)
Almond's Hotel remained here until the war of
1939–45. The house was demolished in 1962.
Architectural Description of Nos. 5–7
The following description was written before
Nos. 6 and 7 were demolished in 1962
These houses (Plate 92b, fig. 80) probably had
uniform fronts originally, although later alterations
have obscured this at No. 5. They are basically
quite ordinary builder's houses, but are distinguished by the use of strongly emphasized detail
in a style apparently stemming from the Baroque
manner of Hawksmoor and Vanbrugh. Each
house contains a basement and four storeys, the
top storey being a carefully matched addition
replacing a garret. The fronts are four or, at No.
5, three windows wide and are probably of a fine,
pale yellow stock brick, although it is difficult to be
certain because No. 5 has been resurfaced a dark
grey and Nos. 6 and 7 painted red. The windows have segmental gauged arches and their
prominent sills are supported by moulded stone
brackets with recessed panels between them, the
arches, jambs and panels all being in red brick.
The basement is finished with a red brick bandcourse and above the ground storey is a bandcourse
that appears to be of painted stone. Except at the
western end of No. 7 the position of the party walls
is marked by broad pilasters with red brick quoins,
the original moulded stone capitals being placed
just above the third storey. The pilaster at the
eastern end of No. 5 also carries a short length of
entablature with a triglyphed frieze and a boldly
projecting dentilled cornice surmounted by an
urn, but it is impossible to tell whether the other
pilasters carried similar entablatures and, if so,
whether they were continued across the fronts.
In the case of a comparable building of about the
same date, No. 15 Took's Court, Holborn, the
cornice alone is continued. No. 5 still has a
cornice and frieze at this level, but they are not
original. At Nos. 6 and 7 (Plate 94b) the fourth
storeys have been redesigned to make the houses
look like a pair, a token entablature being added
beneath the windows and a stone cornice, with
quite different mouldings to the original one at
No. 5, placed below the parapet. The two
original doorcases which remain, at Nos. 5 and 6,
are not uniform. The one at No. 5 is of wood,
having square half-columns from which springs a
round arch with a moulded archivolt and keyblock,
the whole being flanked by tall pilasters carrying
an entablature with a triglyphed frieze. The
door has eight raised-and-fielded panels, and over
it is a patterned fanlight. At No. 6, where the
doorway has been converted into a window, the
doorcase is of painted stone, having attached Ionic
columns rusticated with large rectangular blocks,
and an entablature with a segmental pediment.
No. 7 has a pedimented stone porch before its
doorway, probably of mid nineteenth-century
date, although the responds could be the remains
of an earlier doorcase. The area-railings are
similar in pattern, with tasselled spearheads to the
uprights and urn finials to the standards, but
they are probably not the original ones. The
back walls of the houses have no interest, being
covered either with cement or white-wash where
they are not entirely concealed by later additions.
Internally No. 5 has the same type of plan as
No. 4 but on a slightly larger scale and with an
open well staircase instead of a dog-legged one
(fig. 81). It is possible that the original plan was
modified to accommodate this staircase, for on
the ground and second floors, as the arrangement
of the panelling shows, there was originally no
wall between the back room and the closet wing,
presumably in order to compensate the back room
for the space it had lost on the staircase side.
Moreover, the back-room chimney-breast seems
to have been placed so as to serve the closet as
well. On the first floor this layout still survives,
although the finishings are entirely nineteenthcentury. Beyond the closet is a larger wing of
two bays, added in the early or mid nineteenth
century, and on the ground floor are a number of
single-storey additions covering the former
court-yard.
The original finishings of the rooms have been
largely destroyed, but the fine entrance passage and
staircase remain in good condition. The former
is stone-paved with black dots while the walls are
panelled for three-quarters of their height,
leaving space at the top for the groin-vaulted
ceiling. The panelling is raised-and-fielded with
ovolo-moulded framing, the dado being finished
with a moulded rail and the upper panels with a
moulded cornice. At the end of the passage,
framing the entrance to the staircase compartment,
are two fluted half-columns supporting a round
arch with a panelled soffit, moulded archivolt and
scroll keyblock. On the side towards the passage
the columns have been cut back in order to add a
pair of double doors, now partly glazed, with an
early nineteenth-century reeded door-frame and a
patterned fanlight over.
Figure 81:
No. 5 Clifford Street, section and plans
The wooden staircase (Plate 93, fig. 82) is in
best quality carpenter's style, rising from ground
to third floor since there is no room for the
secondary staircase that might normally be expected to accompany it. The outer strings are
concealed so that each step appears to be an individual unit cantilevered out from the wall, the
outer end of the step being carved to resemble a
scroll-bracket at the point where it lies beneath
the step above and its soffit shaped to match the
profile of the bracket. Similarly, the moulded
nosing is carried round the end of the step and on
to the soffit. The balusters are arranged three to a
step, two twisted ones flanking a fluted one except
above the first floor where the middle baluster has
a plain turned shaft. At each turn of the stairs is a
fluted column newel with a Corinthian capital,
the moulded handrail being ramped up over it and
voluted at the foot of the stair. Above the second
floor the character of the staircase changes completely, with moulded closed strings, turned
balusters of a different pattern from those below
and square newels with rounded tops. Such
panelling as survives in the staircase compartment
is, in the first three storeys, raised-and-fielded with
ovolo-moulded framing and a moulded dado-rail.
At ground-floor level the panelling is in two
heights and almost intact, with six-panelled doors
to the front and back rooms, but the cornice is
a later replacement and so are the architraves to
the doors. There is a dado and a box-cornice at
the first-floor landing (Plate 93b), but the secondfloor landing has been completely altered. The
tall round-arched window on the half-space landing above the ground floor is modern. Between
storeys a dado reflects the line of the stair
balustrade, its rail being ramped at the landings;
above the second floor this dado becomes a little
taller and has plain sunk panels.
Figure 82:
No. 5 Clifford Street, staircase balustrade
Apart from the entrance passage and staircase
compartment the best original work to survive
is in the ground-floor back room, which still has
most of its sunk ovolo-moulded panelling, although the box-cornice has been removed. On
the second floor, where the front part is divided
into two rooms, both these and the back room
have box-cornices and there are fragments of plain
panelling. Most of the present finishings of the
rooms date from the early or mid nineteenth
century, but none is of particular note, although
there are good chimneypieces of white marble on
the first floor in the front room and the added
wing.
Nos. 6 and 7 have been drastically altered
inside, and at No. 7 no trace of original work
remains. To judge from the inventory of 1735,
however, the original plan of the houses cannot
have been greatly altered. Each has four rooms
to a floor with a small closet projecting at each end
of the back wall, both closets having been extended at a later date to link up with the former
mews building in Coach and Horses Yard. The
rooms are of equal width, two at the front and two
at the back, but the two rooms adjoining the party
wall are shallower, and between them is a large
compartment containing an open-well staircase.
On the ground floor the room immediately south
of the staircase compartment forms an entrance
hall. There is no sign of the back stairs mentioned
in the inventory, nor anything to show where they
might have been. At No. 6 only fragments of
original panelling remain, together with some of
the panelled doors and shutters. On the ground
and first floors the panels generally seem to have
been raised-and-fielded with ogee- and ovolomoulded frames, except for the first-floor east
room and the closet beyond it where the frames
have simple ovolo mouldings. On the second
floor the panels are recessed in ovolo-moulded
frames. The staircase, like that at No. 7, has been
entirely renewed, quite probably during the
alterations of 1883. Two good white marble
chimneypieces of mid nineteenth-century date
remain, in the east front room on the first and
second floors.
No. 8 Clifford Street
The leases of the houses on the north side of
the street were all dated in the ten months between March 1719 and January 1720. That of
No. 8 was one of the earlier leases, dated on 26
March, some six months before those to east or
west. (ref. 227) The site is known to have been made
over to the lessee by October, before that of No.
7 was disposed of. (ref. 45) The front of the house
differed in composition from its western neighbour and also from the apparently more-or-less
uniform group of three to its east, and seems, with
the stone quoins defining its façade, to have been
designed to close the vista up Cork Street. No
builder's name is associated with the lease which
was made to the first occupant. This was
Thomas Walker, Member of Parliament, Commissioner of Customs and later Surveyor
General of Crown Lands. Appropriate to the
latter office was his interest in architecture, indicated by his subscription to a number of architectural publications of the period. In his will he
left to a fellow-member of the Inner Temple all
his 'Books of Architecture and Prints' at his
house at Wimbledon and 'in the Book Case in my
back Parlour in Clifford Street', (ref. 228) and Vertue
records that in 1726 Walker had had Peter
Angelis paint him a representation of Inigo
Jones's Covent Garden, showing the north side
and the church. (ref. 229) He was, like another Commissioner of Customs who lived on the Burlington
estate, Bryan Fairfax, a connoisseur of paintings.
Vertue, who notes that Walker's bust was modelled
from the life by Rysbrack, (ref. 230) commends his
collection of Dutch and Italian masters. (ref. 231) More
immediately relevant to the character of the Clifford Street house is his membership of the Society
of Virtuosi of St. Luke, (ref. 232) the other members of
which (who included Burlington's secretary
Graham) recommended paintings to him. (ref. 233) For
a fellow-member was Sir James Thornhill, and
this acquaintance seems to confirm the association
of Thornhill with the most striking interior
feature of the house, the painted staircase. The
stylistic affinity with Thornhill's work is close and
the probability of Thornhill's employment here
is strengthened by the likelihood of his being
employed at the same period at the adjacent house,
No. 7.
Walker, who had a house at Wimbledon (ref. 234) and
owned another at Lambourne, Essex, (ref. 235) occupied
No. 8 Clifford Street as a town house until his
death in his eighty-fourth year in 1748. In 1732,
the year of his appointment to his Crown Lands
office, (ref. 236) he had bought the freehold from the
Pollen family. (ref. 237) The death of 'old Tom Walker'
caused some comment by reason of his great
wealth. Horace Walpole, who called him 'a kind
of toad-eater' to Sir Robert Walpole and Lord
Godolphin, (fn. a) and also 'a great frequenter of
Newmarket, and a notorious usurer', reported that
Walker had 'left vast wealth and good places'. (ref. 238)
The Marquess of Hartington, writing with the
same news to his father, said 'they have found allready [£] 260,000 & are daily finding more'. (ref. 230)
By his will Walker left the house to his nephew,
Stephen Skynner of Walthamstow, Essex, (ref. 228) who
lived here until his death in 1764. By his will he
left the house to his wife and then to his daughter
Emma Harvey on condition that her husband
entered into a bond that they would live in the
house when in town and not let it. (ref. 240) The
Harveys retained the house until 1830. Occupants included 'General Harvey' from 1772 to
1775 and Doctor Thomas Gisborne, President of
the College of Physicians and physician to George
III, from 1782 until his death in 1806. (ref. 241)
From 1808 the house was occupied by Skynner's
grandson, Admiral Sir Eliab Harvey, who had
commanded the Téméraire at Trafalgar, and lived
here until his death in 1830. (ref. 241)
Figure 83:
No. 8 Clifford Street, plans
In 1830 Harvey's trustee sold the house for
£8100 to the Earl of Rosslyn's future son-in-law
Bethell Walrond. (ref. 242) By mid-century the house
was occupied by R. Cook, tailor, (ref. 115) and in 1867
Walrond leased the house for 21 years at £400 per
annum to T. W. Cook, tailor, with the proviso
that the lessee should not insert a shop-window but
keep the front 'the same in appearance as a private
dwelling house'. (ref. 243) Cook bought the house in
1882 for £14,000. (ref. 244) By the end of the century
the house was in divided occupation. From 1914
to 1931 Andrew Russell, Limited, interior
decorators, occupied part of the premises. (ref. 115) In
1931 the house was bought by J. Lyons and
Company. (ref. 245) The greater part of the ground
floor was converted into a tea-shop and a new
ground-floor front was inserted in 1932 to the
design of their architect's department, giving
separate access to the staircase and the offices on
the upper floors. (ref. 246)
Architectural Description
Externally the house is the least altered of those
on the north side, since it has not been heightened
beyond its original three storeys and the brickwork has not suffered from painting or resurfacing (Plate 94a). The reconstructed ground
storey, however, is wholly unsympathetic to the
earlier work. Stylistically the front exhibits
similar Baroque features to those used at Nos. 5,
6 and 7, but here they are used with greater
restraint. The device of making this house into a
closing feature for Cork Street is characteristic of
the Burlington estate. The front is built of fine,
pale yellow, stock brick with four segmentalheaded windows in each of the second and third
storeys, the window at the eastern end being
slightly narrower than the rest. The jambs and
gauged arches of the windows are of red brick, and
the stone sills are moulded on the underside. The
front is bounded by quoins formed of raised stone
blocks with chamfered arrises. There is a crowning entablature of stone, the prominent cornice of
which is returned at either end and there surmounted by an urn. The urns, it may be noted,
are of a different pattern from the one at No. 5.
The windows now contain barred, double-hung
sashes, except for the eastern window in the second
storey which has a fixed sash, but all are later
replacements. It is perhaps worth remarking that
the western quoins of this front are not contiguous
with the eastern pilaster of No. 9, but are
separated from it by a narrow strip of brickwork
on to which the main cornices of both fronts are
returned; possibly this is because the houses were
built at slightly different times.
The building is strongly constructed, with a
substantial cross wall between the front and back
rooms, and a transverse wall that divides the house
into two unequal parts (fig. 83). In the wider
part to the west are two rooms, the front being
considerably deeper than the back. The east part
contains the principal staircase in front, the top-lit
service staircase in the middle, and a back room or
closet that projects to form a small north-east
wing.
The ground-floor rooms have been completely
remodelled to form a tea-shop, but this alteration
has not affected the principal staircase which is by
far the most important feature of the house
(Plates 95, 96, 97, fig. 84). The deep oblong compartment is two storeys high and the stairs rise
round a narrow oblong well, beginning with a
short flight of four risers against the north wall and
continuing with a long flight of thirteen risers
cantilevered from the east wall, then three risers
on the south wall, and seven risers with the landing gallery on the west wall. Stone is used for the
steps, which have bracket-profiled soffits, and for
the landings, the gallery alone having a panelled
soffit. The handsome wrought-iron balustrade in
Tijou's style is composed of balusters, one to every
tread, made up of a central rod flanked by vertical
bars broken into scrolls and ornamented with
acanthus and hart's-tongue leaves of repoussé
work. Paired bars form the newel-standards,
which resemble narrow open-shafted pilasters with
acanthus caps. The finely moulded handrail of
mahogany is ramped up before each turn of the
balustrade.
Below the staircase the walls of the compartment are lined with raised-and-fielded panelling in
ovolo-moulded framing, arranged in two heights
and finished with a plain skirting, simply moulded
dado-rail, and a plain box-cornice. On the west
side is the doorway that formerly led to the groundfloor front room, with a door having six raisedand-fielded panels and a central astragal, now set
flush in a doorcase composed of an enriched
moulded architrave, a slightly concave frieze that
is shaped and fluted to increase the effect of concavity, and an enriched dentilled cornice. The
other doorways, one in the north wall leading to
the service stair, and two in corresponding positions
on the first-floor landing, are simply furnished
with moulded architraves and panelled linings that
match the six-panelled doors.
Responding to the iron balustrade is a dado,
now painted but probably of oak, with long
raised-and-fielded panels extending between
newel-responds in the form of Corinthian pilasters
with fluted shafts, and a moulded capping-rail of
mahogany. Above this dado the walls are plastered,
merging with a cove into the flat ceiling, and the
entire surface is painted with trompe l'œil decoration in the manner of Sir James Thornhill, if not
actually by his hand. The scheme is basically
architectural, with grisaille panels and medallions
on a ground of ivory-coloured marble, formed into
bays by pilasters, with fluted-and-cabled shafts of
red-figured alabaster, and Composite capitals of
white marble. These pilasters support a bracketed
entablature, painted in perspective on the cove,
and the central part of the flat ceiling represents
a domical lantern with four open lunettes. The
cast wall, affording the largest field, is divided by
the Composite pilasters into three bays, wide
flanked by narrow. In the wide middle bay is a
large circular panel, a grisaille painting of Diana
watching over the sleeping Endymion, within a
gilded frame of reeding overlaid with acanthus
leaves. This frame rests on a shaped pedestal,
dressed with a swagged garland and having consoleprofiled sides ending in flattened scrolls on which
are seated herculean figures carved in the marble,
each with an arm raised to support the circular
picture frame. Putti, bearing emblems, are
introduced, one seated by each herculean figure
and one in each spandrel above the picture frame.
In each narrow side bay, on a panel of carved and
gilded ornament, is a Baroque cartouche framing
a small oval panel, painted in blue grisaille with
figures of nymphs and putti. The lower part of
the wall, up to the level of the landing gallery, is
painted with panels containing urns and acanthus
branches, between the panelled pedestals below
the Composite pilasters.
Figure 84:
No. 8 Clifford Street, staircase section and balustrade
The west wall is painted to match the east, but
the field is restricted by the rise of the stair, and
the existence of a doorway at the north end has
caused one pilaster to be omitted. Here, within
the large circular frame, is a painting of Alphaeus
pursuing Arethusa, who is about to be transformed
into a spring of water by the watchful Diana.
The lower spandrel on the left of the panel
contain two putti symbolic of sculpture. On the
east part of the north wall, between two pilasters
is painted a large shell-headed niche containing a
statue of Minerva armed and holding a spear,
whilst Diana is represented by a bust on a
bracket, painted on the pier between the two
windows in the south wall. The frieze of the
entablature is divided by fluted brackets arranged
in pairs between metopes ornamented with the
masks of men, women and lions. Each angle of
the entablature is overlaid by a cartouche, the
north-east and south-west containing the monogram T. W. for Thomas Walker, the others being
ornamented with sun-masks. The ceiling, partly
repainted after war damage, has at each end an
oblong panel decorated with a pair of putti
emerging from tails of acanthus scrollwork. The
large central panel is circular and represents a
domical lantern having on each side an open
lunette in which an urn is seen against a cloudy
sky. The lunette arches have coffered soffits and
wide moulded archivolts with keyblocks of female
masks, flanked by scrolls and surmounted by shells.
Each pendentive is decorated with a cartouche
framing a grisaille oval of a putto, and the flat
centre of the lantern is decorated with a diaper of
formal flowers.
This painted decoration has, in the past, been
generally assigned to the studio of Thornhill, and
in support of this it may be remarked that the
general design is characteristic of him. The niche
with Minerva and the large circular grisailles have
decided affinities with similar features once existing
at Stoke Edith, and the architecture and ornament
is most competently executed. The dome of the
ceiling, however, is poor in design, and while it
may seem to be derived from Ricci's staircase
ceiling at Burlington House, minus the figures, it
more closely resembles the staircase ceiling at No.
60 Carey Street.
The two principal rooms on the first floor (Plate
98b) are lined with raised-and-fielded panelling in
two heights, set in ovolo-moulded framing. The
skirting, the dado panel mouldings, and the dadorail are enriched with carved ornament, and the
elaborate cornice has dentils, three enriched
mouldings, and a soffit ornament of flowers in
coffers between the carved scroll-modillions that
support the corona. There is in each room a
narrow secondary break on either side of the
chimney-breast, and there the moulding of the tall
upper panels is carved with egg-and-dart ornament. The original chimneypieces have gone, but
the front room contains one of brown-figured
marble in the Rococo taste, probably French and
of early nineteenth-century date. In both rooms
the panelling on the dividing wall has been rearranged to allow for the introduction of a wide
door opening, framed with a simply moulded
architrave.
The second-floor rooms (Plate 98a) are also
panelled, more simply with plain panels in ovolomoulded framing, and in the east front room,
which has lost most of its panelling, is a bed
recess. The ceiling of the large back room is
painted, with a large circular panel of sky and
spandrel panels of cartouches amid foliage, but
this work is almost certainly modern and was
probably executed by the firm of decorators who
occupied part of the house early in the present
century. The so-called 'Marot Room,' originally
the first-floor closet room, and the 'Tudor' room
above it, where some genuine plasterwork has
been re-used, must have originated in the same
way.
No. 9 Clifford Street
The recipient of the building lease of this site,
in September 1719, was the prominent carpenter,
Benjamin Timbrell. (ref. 247) A year later he made a
mortgage-assignment of this lease to a tallow
chandler to secure £1575 (ref. 248) and in July 1721
Timbrell and his mortgagee assigned the site, on
which the house was by then built, (ref. 24) to Joseph
Hayes, merchant, of St. Paul's, Covent Garden,
presumably as mortgagee of the property from the
first occupant of the house who was also a party to
the transaction. (ref. 249) This was the 25-year-old Earl
of Harold, eldest son of the Duke of Kent. He
occupied the house for only two years before his
premature death in 1723, when his widow continued in occupation of the house until her second
marriage, to Lord Gower, in 1736. (ref. 122) In March
of the following year Lord and Lady Gower
assigned the lease to Sir Jacob Des Bouverie, later
created Viscount Folkestone. (ref. 250) A relation by
marriage of Sir Jacob, Bartholomew Clarke,
bought the freehold of the house from the Pollen
family in March 1741/2, (ref. 251) doubtless on behalf
of Sir Jacob, (ref. 252) who lived here until his death in
1761, when his widow continued in occupation
of the house until 1780.
It is not known whether Lord Folkestone's
interest in the arts led him to alter or embellish
the house.<But see Country Life, 26 Dec. 1931, pp. 726-7.> As will appear from the architectural
description, the plan of the staircase appears to be
inconsistent with the design of the carcase, but it
may well represent merely a change of intention
at the time of Timbrell's first building of the house.
It is not known when the present fourth or attic
storey was added; it existed in 1836. (ref. 112)
From 1809 (ref. 253) to 1816 the house was occupied
by the politician, John Calcraft the younger, (ref. 241)
who was succeeded from 1816 to 1819 by the
second Marquis of Thomond. By the second
quarter of the nineteenth century, however, the
house was in commercial occupation. (ref. 115)
After the 1939–45 war there were proposals
for the demolition of the house but a Building
Preservation Order made by the London County
Council was confirmed by the Minister of Housing and Local Government in 1956.
Architectural Description
This is the largest house on the north side of the
street and is, externally, a piece of good, plain
builder's design with none of the Baroque embellishments employed in the four houses to the
east of it (Plate 99a, fig. 85). The brick front is
five windows wide, comprising a basement and
four storeys, the topmost storey being a later
addition replacing a garret. The brick was
probably reddish in colour originally, but it was
stuccoed in the early nineteenth century, (ref. 254) and
now, the stucco having been removed, has been
resurfaced and painted a bright pink. Except in
the fourth storey the windows have segmental
gauged arches and stone sills with brick aprons, the
barred double-hung sashes within the openings
being set in concealed frames. The sashes have,
however, been altered, and the original ones must
have been like those now remaining in the basement, with thick glazing-bars and exposed frames.
An old photograph (ref. 254) showing the front when it
was stuccoed also shows continued sills in the
second storey but it is not clear whether this was
an original feature or not. The whole front is
flanked by pilaster-strips and there are bandcourses
or cornices between the storeys. The bandcourse
above the ground storey extends only as far as the
outer jambs of the end windows and is broken in
the centre by the pediment of the doorcase.
Above the second storey is a bandcourse with its
two upper courses projecting slightly, being
finished with a small stone cornice which is
returned at each end just short of the pilasterstrips. The third storey has a larger cornice, perhaps of stone but now covered with cement, and
this breaks forward over the pilaster-strips. The
doorcase is of stone, having a pair of attached
Ionic columns carrying an entablature with
pulvinated frieze and modillion cornice under a
triangular pediment, breaking forward in front of
square Ionic flanking half-columns and their
entablature. The door, deeply recessed, has two
leaves, each with four raised-and-fielded, ovolomoulded panels and its own simple iron knocker.
The area-railings, probably renewed, have urnfinials to the standards and are fitted with wroughtiron lamp-holders and S-shaped foot scrapers at
either side of the doorway. The lamps were
renewed in 1961.
In plan the main block of the house has a
single front and back room on each of the ground
and first floors with main and secondary staircases
lying, one behind the other, to the west of them
(figs. 85–6). At the back there projects along
the west side of a court-yard a wing containing
two small rooms on each floor, and having a
service staircase at the north end, immediately
adjoining which is the stable building fronting
Coach and Horses Yard. On the second floor the
plan differs in having two rooms at the front,
since the main staircase rises through only two
storeys, and two smaller back rooms, the western
one forming a kind of vestibule with a wide
opening replacing the doorway to the secondary
staircase. Some alterations have been made to the
plan in quite recent times. The court-yard has
been covered in to provide an extra room on the
ground floor, and on the first floor the back room
has been subdivided. In the wing the northerly
room on the first floor has been given a large
wooden bay window and on the second floor the
partition between the rooms has been removed.
On the ground floor the front room and the
main staircase compartment have no dividing
wall, so that they form a long narrow entrance
hall, each end of which is divided off by a screen of
columns (Plate 99b, fig. 87). The result is
highly unusual, and since the main staircase and
one of the responds of the screen, behind which it
stands, partly block two of the front windows, it
seems quite likely that the finishings for this part of
the house were designed when the carcase had
already been built, a feature which has also been
observed at No. 5. It has been suggested that
some of these finishings are later alterations or
additions, but there is no evidence of this in the
fabric itself. Moreover, two undated watercolours by C. J. Richardson, here illustrated as
Plates 99b and 100a, establish that any alteration
must have been made by 1871 (the year in which
Richardson died) at the latest, and this seems
improbable. The walls of the room have a plain
wooden dado with enriched mouldings on the
skirting and rail, but the upper 'panels' are only
applied mouldings of a much later date and there
is no indication of what they replaced. Round the
top of the walls runs an entablature with an
enriched architrave and a frieze of Vitruvian
scroll, but with only the enriched bed-mouldings of
a cornice. The windows, and the doorway to
the secondary staircase, are framed by egg-anddart mouldings, and the shutters have sunk panels
with frames similarly moulded. A plan of 1880 (ref. 255)
shows that originally the only other doorway in
the back wall was the one, now widened, opposite
the front door. The screens consist of two fluted
wooden Ionic columns and responds supporting an
entablature which is a continuation of the one
round the walls, having on its soffit sunk panels
with enriched frames. The eastern screen has,
however, been altered, and the responds now
stand at either side of a newly pierced doorway in
the back wall. The ceiling between the screens is
sub-divided by four deep ribs, two running each
way, which have the same profile as the architrave
and frieze of the screens and a double key-fret on
the soffit. The chimneypiece, now painted, is of
stone with an eared architrave, frieze and
cornice, the frieze having in its centre a blank
plaque with the cornice breaking forward above.
The main staircase, which is of wood, is
richly carved in Italianate style and compares
closely with one formerly at No. 30 Old Burlington Street, although here lack of space has given it a
rather cramped appearance (Plate 100, fig. 87). It
rises in a single flight of twelve steps through the
columns of the screen to a landing, then branches
left and right in short flights of three steps and
returns in flights of seven steps to the first-floor
gallery. The closed strings are designed to resemble entablatures with enriched architraves,
pulvinated ribboned bay-leaf friezes and a kind of
enriched cornice-moulding upon which stand the
robust carved balusters. The broad flat handrail
has enriched mouldings and is continued over very
thick square newels, the sides of which have sunk
panels with enriched frames. No decoration now
remains on the walls of the compartment except for
a band of Vitruvian scroll between the ground and
second storeys, but in the second storey the two
front windows and the unglazed opening in the
back wall have enriched architraves, while the
two doorways have eared architraves surmounted
by pulvinated bay-leaf friezes and triangular
pediments. Round the top of the walls runs a
block-cornice having below it a tall frieze of swags
suspended alternately from masks and rosettes,
these being embellished with ribbons and pendents. The ceiling is compartmented, having in the
centre an octagon with ribs running out from its
angles to the cornice. The ribs and the frame of
the octagon have key-fret on the soffit and a
rosette at each intersection, while in the centre of
the octagon, shaped like a large flower, is the highrelief boss for a chandelier. The ribs do not tie in
well either with the cornice or the frieze, but this
is probably due to the quality of the workmanship
rather than to any difference in date. The
secondary staircase is dog-legged and of commonplace design, running from basement to second
floor whence a single flight continues up to the
third floor. The moulded closed strings are fixed
into square newels having rounded tops, and the
turned balusters support a moulded handrail; the
first two flights have been altered.
Figure 85:
No. 9 Clifford Street, elevation and plans
Figure 86:
No. 9 Clifford Street, section
Figure 87:
No. 9 Clifford Street, staircase hall
The three remaining rooms on the ground and
first floors have the same type of dado as the hall
and an enriched modillion cornice, the first-floor
front room having in addition sunk ovolomoulded upper panels carved with egg-and-dart,
although these are partly concealed by modern
bolection-moulded panels. The latter room also
has a moulded plaster ceiling composed of a centre
oval with a raised key-fret border and shaped
panels with an enriched border filling each
corner. Until recently, as an old photograph in
the London County Council's collection shows,
this room also had a good white marble chimneypiece of early nineteenth-century date. The
first-floor back room has lost much of its finishings
as a result of being sub-divided, but the ceiling still
has guilloche-patterned ribs dividing it into nine
rectangular compartments. The two front rooms
on the second floor and the ground- and first-floor
rooms in the wing are more plainly finished, but
nevertheless in the style used for the better rooms
of smaller houses. The walls are lined with two
heights of ovolo-moulded panelling (raised-andfielded in the wing) finished with a moulded
dado-rail and a box-cornice, the shutters and
doors being similarly treated. The western front
room on the second floor and the southern
first-floor room in the wing both have original
white marble chimneypieces, the former with
simply moulded inner and outer edges and a
wooden cornice-shelf above, the latter with a
wooden architrave carved with egg-and-dart.
The second-floor back and wing rooms have been
altered, retaining only box-cornices. The service
stair is newly constructed in concrete, but the
plan of 1880 shows that it replaced a dog-legged
staircase.
The stable block has been much altered and
probably heightened by at least one storey. It now
contains four storeys with a rebuilt brick front to
Coach and Horses Yard, and a cement-covered
front facing the house. The ground storey of this
latter front is interesting because of its architectural
treatment, consisting of a central doorway with
shouldered architrave, pulvinated frieze and triangular pediment, flanked by pilasters which are
repeated at either end of the front. The upper
part of the pilasters is concealed by the glazed roof
which now covers the court-yard. The interior
has been completely altered, but the plan of 1880
shows that the ground floor was divided between
a large room, probably for coaches, with wide
double doors to Coach and Horses Yard, and, on
the west side, stabling for five or six horses. The
first floor was reached by a single flight of stairs
lying immediately east of the court-yard entrance.
It would appear that this latter doorway was the
only means of access from the stables to the house.