Cork Street
One of the drawings made of Burlington House
during the alterations of 1816–17 (ref. 269) offers a view
of the west side of Cork Street, the only side on
which houses were originally intended to be
built (Plate 52a). Those that are shown appear to
be typical of the early Georgian house builder,
with no signs of any observance of the Palladian
conventions. Varying in height and number of
storeys, some have segmental-arched windows
while others have flat arches, and there is no consistency in the main cornice levels. Not one of
these houses survives to-day.
The present west side is numbered consecutively and begins at the north end with a building
comprising Nos. 2 to 4A, dated 1910. This has a
front of red brick dressed with stone, five bays
wide, with bow windows accenting the second and
fourth bays, and five storeys high, with an attic
over the centre. The style is eclectic, but
Georgian motifs predominate.
The front of No. 5–6 is four storeys high
and nine windows wide, the face above the stoneframed shop-fronts being largely of grey brick
with red dressings to the windows. Here the
Georgian style is more convincingly used, but the
central feature, consisting of the doorway and a
large heavily moulded frame enclosing the middle
windows of the first and second floors, is overscaled.
No. 7 is discussed below. No. 8 appears to date
from around 1900 and has a five-storeyed front,
three windows wide, faced with red brick and
generously dressed with stone. The details are
vaguely Georgian.
No. 9, a late nineteenth-century building, has a
five-storeyed front of red brick and terra-cotta,
Flemish early Renaissance in style. A wide
canted bay window projects from the first,
second and third floors, and the fourth contains a
three-light window set in a pedimented gable.
No. 10–12, built in 1924–5 to a design by
John Belcher and J. J. Joass, (ref. 270) has a stone front
designed in a style that probably has its basis in
the French neo-classic.
No. 13–14 is probably a rebuilding of 1881 by
R. E. Tyler, designed to house Schlette's Hotel
and the old Blue Posts public house. (ref. 271) It has a
front of red brick with terra-cotta ornament, a
larger and more ornate version of No. 9. The
ground-floor windows form an arcade of seven
bays, in stone now painted, and the upper face has
a shallow canted bay rising three storeys, with two
windows on either side. The front is finished with
a scroll-pedimented gable, flanked by pedimented
dormers.
No. 15–16 forms part of a large building including Nos. 1–5 New Bond Street erected in
1930 from designs by E. A. Stone. (ref. 272) Designed
in a non-committal 'modern' style with a curious
neo-Byzantine flavour, and completely faced in
stone, it is conspicuous for its arcaded top storey
and the corner pavilions crowned with hemispherical domes, also of stone.
The east side of the street was originally occupied only by the gardens or yards of the houses in
Old Burlington Street, and Horwood's maps of
1792 and 1819 (Plate 7) show a row of trees
down its length. This side began to be built up in
the first three decades of the nineteenth century.
Near the southern end one of these buildings
(No. 19–20, described below) survives in altered
form.
No. 21 was built about 1911 to serve as showrooms and workrooms for Lenygon and Company
who had their main premises in No, 31 Old Burlington Street. (ref. 273) The pompous pseudo-Palladian
front is in brick dressed with stucco. The lofty
ground storey has a channel-jointed face of stucco
and contains a large display window, flanked by
round-arched doorways. The upper face of brick
is four windows wide, the middle two on the first
and second floors being set in a two-bay feature
formed by Corinthian plain-shafted pilasters
supporting an entablature. Alterations were made
to the second-floor windows and upper floors by
Messrs. A. E. Richardson and E. A. S. House in
1949. (ref. 274)
North of No. 21 are the two long frontages of
modern buildings. The first is of pre-1939 date
and character, with a line of shops and the firstfloor windows set in a stone face, and three upper
storeys with long windows in a red brick face.
The recently completed building to the north of
this is the best in the street, unaffectedly modern,
with a recessed ground storey, airy and open, its
large windows set in a light framing. The upper
face, with three long windows forming horizontal
bands in a face plated with figured white marble,
is finished with a simple iron balustrade.
No. 7 Cork Street
The existing house dates from a rebuilding in
1814–16, after a fire. (ref. 24) The first occupant of the
rebuilt house, from 1816 to 1851, was the painter
and miniaturist, Samuel John Stump. (ref. 241)
The first house built on the site had been one of
those for which Burlington entered into a building
agreement in March 1718/19 with Colonel
Thomas Harrison. (ref. 275) In July 1721 Harrison
assigned this and the site of No. 4 to a number of
creditors who had probably been engaged on building the house. They were listed as Nicholas
Dubois (the architect, here described as surveyor),
John Tuffnell, joiner, Nicholas Snow, carpenter,
John Reddin, bricklayer, William Ludbey,
mason, William Dissell, painter, Daniel Dissell,
plumber, James Winch, ironmonger, David
Audsley, plasterer, George Barnes, slater, Edward
Liney, paviour, Thomas Knight, blacksmith,
John Home, glazier, John Duke, blacksmith,
Benjamin Palmer, digger, and James Home,
measurer. (ref. 276)
Colonel Harrison occurs as ratepayer in 1720–
1722. He was possibly the Brigadier-General of
that name who had served at Saragossa and
Sheriffmuir and had sold his colonelcy of the
regiment subsequently known as the 6th Foot in
1716. (ref. 277)
In 1723 the house was empty and in 1724
Harrison and his former creditors assigned the
lease to Erasmus Lewis, the friend of Swift and
Pope. (ref. 278) Lewis lived here, a few doors from his
friend Dr. Arbuthnot, until his death in 1754, (ref. 241)
although in his latter years he also occupied a
house in Cheyne Walk. (ref. 279) Pope stayed with
Lewis in Cork Street at various times in 1739–
1740. (ref. 280)
The existing house has a front of yellow brick,
plain in design, three windows wide and four
storeys high. The stucco-faced ground storey
contains an arch-headed doorway on the left of the
modern display window. There is a cast-iron
balcony at first-floor level, and all the windows
in the upper face have sashes with narrow glazingbars, recessed in plain openings with gauged flat
arches of yellow brick. The interior has been
considerably altered, but retains a dog-legged
staircase of the plainest kind.
No. 19–20 Cork Street
This building was erected in 1818 at the back
of No. 32 Old Burlington Street, then in the
occupation of Edward Howard, a conveyancer.
The occupier of that house continued to pay the
rates until the middle of the nineteenth century. (ref. 24)
In 1836 the Cork Street house was of only two
storeys. (ref. 112) Some work was done here in 1860 by
the architect Eales. (ref. 281)
It now comprises a ground-floor shop and two
low storeys above. The shop-front and flanking
doorways are divided by wide piers with moulded
caps, supporting a coarsely profiled entablature,
all of stucco. The upper face is of brick, stained
black and mock pointed, containing two tiers of
four windows recessed in plain openings with
gauged flat arches. A moulded stringcourse
marks the second-floor level and a plain coping
finishes the front. The general character of this
building suggests that it was erected to serve as a
stable block.