CHAPTER V
Davies Street Area
Davies Street (named after Mary Davies, the heiress who
by her marriage to Sir Thomas Grosvenor in 1677 brought
the London estate into the Grosvenor family) was
developed principally as the return frontages of large
building plots which faced on to the main east-west streets.
These plots were made available to builders by several
agreements between 1720 and 1723. (ref. 1) Initially it was
envisaged that good-class houses would be built along the
street and most of the early agreements contained a long
list of restricted uses, but by 1723 these had been reduced
to only the most obnoxious trades such as brewing or
tallow melting, and even stables and coach-houses were
built on part of its frontage. (ref. 2)
Apart from the corner houses which more properly
belong to other streets, only two houses of real note were,
in fact, built along the length of Davies Street. One of
these, Bourdon House, which happily survives and is
described below, presented only a return front to the
street. The other, No. 48 (formerly No. 56), was also
situated on the east side, a short distance from the south
corner of Brook Street and adjoined the corner house. It
was built by John Barnes, bricklayer, and first occupied by
him from 1728 to 1736. (ref. 3) Originally the house appears to
have been quite small with a narrow, seventeen-foot,
frontage and a centrally placed dog-leg staircase, but it had
a large yard to one side, in the manner of builders' houses
in Green Street and, in particular, the house of James
Richards, the carver, which still survives (see page 185).
Within a short time an additional wing had been built on
the frontage, leaving only a narrow passageway as entrance
to the large courtyard, and more rooms seem to have been
added at the back, as well as stables for eight horses. A
survey of this part of the estate drawn in 1778–9 shows that
the building then had ample accommodation but a very
irregular plan (see fig. 4 in vol. XXXIX). Notable occupants
included the second Viscount Falmouth, 1737–47; Sir
William Codrington, M.P., second baronet, 1758–92; and
the Dowager Marchioness of Donegall, 1807–25. (ref. 4) In 1826
the house was taken by the hotelier James Mivart who
added it to his existing hotel in Brook Street, later
Claridge's. An engraving made shortly after its acquisition
by Mivart shows a house of rather untidy appearance with
little harmony between the original narrow front and the
addition to its right, (ref. 5) but a watercolour of later date shows
that in the course of the nineteenth century its façade was
altered and an extra storey and a Doric portico were added
(Plate 6a). It was demolished in 1894 for the rebuilding of
Claridge's.
The remaining houses, which were generally narrow
fronted with shallow plots, were mostly occupied by
tradesmen. In the mid eighteenth century about four fifths
of the householders earned their living from trade, the
majority by selling food or drink (including the publicans
of the six taverns in the street). (ref. 6) By the end of the century
this proportion had, if anything, increased, and the trades
had become more diversified. (ref. 7) <Joseph Manton, the well-known gunsmith, occupied Nos 7 and 9 (formerly No. 27) 1792-1820.> In recent years offices and
banks have been introduced, but there are still a number of
shops, many of them now dealing in luxury goods, even
Bourdon House being used as an antique shop.
The first rebuildings to take place were in furtherance of
trade. In 1785 a triangular plot at the junction of Davies
Street and South Molton Lane (now occupied by Nos. 56
and 58 Davies Street) was made available for the building
of a market to be called Grosvenor Market (Plate 19d). The
original lease of this site had been for the unusually short
term of sixty years, and when the land reverted to the
Estate in 1781 some half a dozen small houses and coachhouses and stables which had been built there were
demolished. (ref. 8) John Jenkins, architect and surveyor, of
Hanover Street, was engaged by Earl Grosvenor to prepare
a design for the market, which was carried out in 1785–6.
In the centre was to be a paved area, triangular in shape,
with a pump in the middle, and surrounded by a covered
colonnade, but whether this colonnade was actually
completed on all sides is not clear. The west and south
sides were enclosed by sixteen houses, a public house and a
slaughter-house, the latter being built in the extreme
south-east corner, while the north-east side was occupied
by fourteen small shops, each only eleven feet deep and
consisting of two storeys and a basement. The houses were
erected under Jenkins's direction by a consortium
consisting principally of building tradesmen to whom
ninety-nine-year leases were granted, but the shops and
market facilities were built at the expense of Earl
Grosvenor for some £1,500. The houses on the western
side also had frontages to Davies Street, but no shop
windows were allowed on that front. The market was
approached from Davies Street through a passageway
which was arched over at first-floor level. (ref. 9)
Grosvenor Market was intended to be primarily a food
market, but it proved a failure from the beginning.
Another market, St. George's Market, had been established at the same time between James (now Gilbert)
Street and Davies Street and had no doubt taken away
much of the hoped-for trade. In 1791 the builders and
tenants of Grosvenor Market petitioned to have this rival
market suppressed, claiming that, having spent at least
£12,000 on building the houses, they had 'been obliged to
lower the rents, the Markett is deserted, the shops half shut
and our Tenants given notice to quit'; but as St. George's
Market had been erected on land still held on a long lease
which contained few restrictive covenants, there was
nothing that the Estate could do. (ref. 10) The shops in Grosvenor
Market proved difficult to let, and those tenants who could
be persuaded to take them frequently absconded without
paying their rents. (ref. 11) By 1841 only a few retailers still had
premises there, the majority of occupants being building
workers, labourers, workers in the dress trades and
servants. (ref. 12)
Methodist meetings were held in a room above the
slaughter-house from at least 1791 until 1801 when a
nearby chapel in Weighhouse (then Chandler) Street was
adapted or rebuilt for the congregation. (ref. 13) The slaughterhouse had been leased directly to John Jenkins in 1785, and
he may have belonged to the family of Methodist preachers
and chapel architects of that name. (ref. 14) In 1858–60 the
builder John Newson demolished some of the premises in
the market and erected a small block of model dwellings.
Called Oxford House, it accommodated seven families and
was demolished with the remaining buildings in Grosvenor Market in 1889. (ref. 15)
When the first leases of other buildings in the street
expired in the early nineteenth century a number of
rebuildings took place. In c. 1802–3 three four-storey
houses with plain stock-brick façades were built at Nos.
28–32 (even), formerly Nos. 46–48 (consec.), in place of
stabling. (ref. 16) No. 46 was occupied by John Boodle of the firm
of Boodle and Partington, who were the Grosvenors'
lawyers, from 1806 to 1825. Further rebuilding followed
during the 1820's and 1830's and a number of prominent
builders were involved.
The first of these was Seth Smith, whose earliest
building venture on the Grosvenor estates took place in
Davies Street. In September 1818 he applied to the Estate
Board for the renewal terms of some houses on the west
side 'for the purpose of rebuilding a description of better
houses'. He had wanted to rebuild the whole frontage
between Brook Street and Three Kings Yard, but
eventually settled for about one hundred feet immediately
to the north of the then narrow entrance to the yard. For
this site Smith had to pay a premium of £2,000 in addition
to a ground rent of £75 per annum for sixty-two-year
leases which were granted to him in 1820. Here he built
five four-storey houses and a large two-storeyed workshop
at the rear. (ref. 17) He, himself, occupied the northernmost
house and the workshop from 1821 to 1828. (ref. 18) All these
houses were demolished in c. 1883.
In the mid 1820's Samuel Erlam, builder and surveyor,
built four houses and some stables on ground which had
formerly been occupied by the offices, stabling and garden
of No. 66 Brook Street. The houses, now Nos. 55–61
(odd), remain and are described below.
In 1838 Thomas Cubitt built a group of three narrow
four-storey houses with plain, rendered façades (now
demolished) on the west side to the south of No. 54
Grosvenor Street, which he also rebuilt at this time. (ref. 19) And
in 1839–40 Joshua Higgs, uncle of William Higgs who
helped to found the firm of Higgs and Hill, rebuilt the
Running Horse public house and Nos. 52 and 54 (all of
which survive and are described below) and workshops
and stables in the mews behind.
In 1839 Joshua Higgs, junior, who was associated with
his father in their building firm which operated from
No. 54 Davies Street for many years, submitted to the
Select Committee on Metropolis Improvements a proposal
for improving the north end of Davies Street (Plate 24a in
vol. XXXIX). Here the configuration of the estate boundary
had prevented the street being carried through to Oxford
Street in a straight line: instead it bent to the north-west
and narrowed into what was in effect a continuation of
South Molton Lane. There is no evidence that Higgs's
scheme to re-align this part of the street was ever seriously
considered, but the need for better communication here
exercised the Estate on several occasions (ref. 20) until the
building of the Central London Railway in 1898–1900
enabled the improvement to be carried out (see page 178).