Green Street: South Side
Nos. 36–47 (consec.).
The rebuilding of the south side of
Green Street between Dunraven Street and Park Street
together with the contiguous sides of these two streets as
far as Wood's Mews was one of the major schemes of
redevelopment undertaken by the Estate under the second
Duke of Westminster, although it had been considered in
the first Duke's time. In 1910 the Grosvenor Board
decided to pull down all the existing buildings here with
the exception of Nos. 1–3 Dunraven Street and some
stabling in Wood's Mews which had relatively recently
been rebuilt. In 1914–15 Edmund Wimperis, the estate
surveyor, acting on a suggestion of his predecessor,
Eustace Balfour, laid out a large communal garden in the
centre of the block (Plate 50c: see also Plate 47b in vol.
XXXIX), by which time most of the surrounding street
frontages had been cleared and rebuilding was already
under way. (ref. 51)
Most of the houses in Green Street were erected in
1912–16 but Nos. 36–37 and 47 at each end were not
completed until the late 1920's. Nos. 36 and 37 were
originally built to the designs of Wimperis and Simpson in
c. 1924 for Sir Percy Newson, baronet, a nearby resident at
No. 45, after the speculator who had first taken the site had
been prevented from building by the war of 1914–18. Both
houses were, however, damaged during the war of
1939–45, and No. 36 was virtually rebuilt by Trehearne
and Norman, Preston and Partners in 1950–1. No. 37 was
converted into flats by Lionel Bailey and P. Russell Walker
in 1951–2, and the need to do some reinstatement of the
front may account for the botched cornice where the two
houses join. (ref. 52) Wimperis's firm also designed most of the
other houses in this range, namely Nos. 38–39 and, with a
pronounced change of emphasis after W.B. Simpson
became a partner in 1913, Nos. 41–44 and 46. Nos. 38 and
39, both stone fronted, were built for the former occupant
of No. 38 in 1912–14, Nos. 41–44, an excellent group of
houses in the manner of Queen Anne's Gate with some
original doorcase hoods and surrounds removed from old
doorways elsewhere, were erected in 1915–16, and No. 46,
an imposing five-bay neo-Georgian house, was built in
1913–15 for the Baroness Strathcona and Mount Royal
(fig. 46: see also Plate 45b in vol. XXXIX). The builders were
W.F. Blay of Dowgate Hill for Nos. 36 and 37, Foxley and
Company for Nos. 38, 39, 41 and 46, and Prestige and
Company for Nos. 42–44. (ref. 53)
No. 40, which is stone fronted, was erected by Holliday
and Greenwood to the designs of Yetts, Sturdy and Ussher
in 1913–15 for the occupant of one of the houses in this
block which had been demolished. (ref. 54) No. 45, likewise with a
stone façade, was built at the same time by Foxleys to the
designs of F.W. Foster, (ref. 55) and No. 47, a nondescript brick-and-stone affair, was built by Trollope and Colls shortly
after the war of 1914–18. (ref. 56)
No. 46, the largest house in this group, had a
particularly good interior, several features of which have
survived its conversion into offices. Much of the detail
derives from Wimperis and Simpson's original work here
including decorative plasterwork and a fine staircase with
carved step-ends, twisted balusters and fluted newels. In
1929, however, the house underwent further enrichment
to the designs of Geoffrey Lucas. An entrance vestibule
was created by taking in part of a former billiard-room to
the left of the entrance, and to give more space in the hall
the bottom flight of the staircase was returned at the side
instead of projecting at a right angle (fig. 46). Other
alterations made at this time included the addition in the
main rooms of panelling with naturalistic carving by
Laurence Turner. (ref. 57)
Figure 46:
No. 46 Green Street, elevation and plans
Occupants include: No. 37, Sir Gervase Beckett, 1st bt.,
1935–7. 13th Earl of Dundonald, 1939–45. No. 38, 3rd Earl of
Dudley, 1933–6. No. 41, Sir Frederick Mills, 1st bt., 1922. No.
45, Sir Percy Newson, 1st bt., 1924–6. No. 46, Baroness
Strathcona and Mount Royal, 1917–26: her son-in-law, 6th
Baron Congleton, 1928–32 (formerly at No. 28).
No. 48
No. 48 see page 258.
Nos. 51–54 (consec.),
Nos. 51–54 (consec.), a group of red-brick and
terracotta houses, were erected in 1882–3 on the site of St.
Mary's Chapel (see page 255) by the builder Charles Fish
as a speculation with J. T. Wimperis as his architect (Plate
49c). The corner tower with its bulbous cupola may owe
something to the Duke of Westminster's desire to have a
prominent feature here—he originally favoured an oriel
window. (ref. 58)
As the first houses to be rebuilt in Green Street under
the aegis of the first Duke this group set the pattern for the
later rebuildings of the 1880's and 1890's both in height—
four main storeys with basements and gabled attics—and
in the use of red brick as the principal facing material.
Occupants include: No. 52, 2nd Baron Castletoun of Upper
Ossory, 1902–17. No. 53, Lieut.-col. Count Aldenberg Bentinck,
1896–1903: Countess Aldenberg Bentinck, 1903–34. No. 54,
Charles E. H. A. Colston, M.P., 1900–5.
Nos. 55–59 (consec.)
Nos. 55–59 (consec.) were built in 1897–9 by William
Cubitt and Company as a speculation to the designs of
H. O. Cresswell (ref. 59) (Plate 50a, 50b).
These were the last houses to be built in Green Street
while the first Duke was alive and they provide an
instructive contrast to the neighbouring group of Nos.
51–54. While retaining the general height and line of the
earlier houses, Cresswell has moved from the hard,
uncompromising tones of J. T. Wimperis's group towards
a more cosy domesticity with small-paned windows
throughout, canted bays with a horizontal rather than a
vertical emphasis, and much use of stone dressings. The
influence of Eustace Balfour, who became estate surveyor
in 1890, may well have been instrumental in this change.
Occupants include: No. 55, 7th Earl of Lisburne, 1924–30.
No. 57 (Sir) Louis Bernhard Baron, tobacco and cigarette
manufacturer, later 1st bt., 1915–30.
Hampden House: No. 61
Hampden House: No. 61 (formerly Nos. 60 and 61)
consists of two originally quite separate houses of different
size, which are now joined together at the front by a singlestorey range and at the back by a range of full height (Plate
51a, fig. 47). The main, eastern, house is the much-altered
vestige of an apparent attempt by its architect and first
occupant, Roger Morris, to express the idiom of the
Palladian villa in the language of London street architecture. The lesser, western, house (formerly No. 60) was a
small narrow-fronted house, originally entered on its east
side from the courtyard which once separated the two
houses. The name Hampden House derives from the long
occupancy (commencing in 1756) of the main house by the
Hampden family.
In 1727 Roger Morris contracted to take 180 feet of
frontage on the south side of Green Street from Robert
Andrews and Thomas Barlow, who held the ground by
virtue of their previous building agreement with Sir
Richard Grosvenor.' Morris reserved a large plot for a new
house for himself and made the remaining ground
available to other builders, most of whom had been
associated with him in other enterprises. His own plot,
which was at the eastern end of the ground, had a frontage
of seventy-five feet to Green Street and was 150 feet in
depth to Lees Mews (now Place) at the rear. He received a
sub-lease of the site from Andrews and Barlow's executors
in 1730 (Barlow having died in 1729), when he was
modestly described as a bricklayer. (ref. 60) He was, in fact, then
one of the master bricklayers to the Office of Ordnance and
in 1735 he succeeded Sir William Ogbourne as master
carpenter. (ref. 61)
The next site to the west in Green Street, with a fiftyfoot frontage, was sub-leased to James Richards, 'carver to
his present Majesty', and beyond this another fifty feet to
Robert Umpleby, carpenter (a passage between Richards's
and Umpleby's plots accounting for the other five feet of
frontage). (ref. 62) Behind these two plots other ground fronting
on Lees Mews was sub-leased to William Gray and John
Brown, bricklayers, and to Richard Oakman, joiner. (ref. 63) All
of these craftsmen, with the exception of Brown, figure
prominently in Morris's account at Hoare's Bank as
recipients of payments over several years, (ref. 64) and it is likely
that their building operations here were a joint enterprise.
The sub-leases date from July 1730, with the exception of
that to Gray and Brown, and Morris, Richards and
Umpleby are all first entered in the ratebooks in 1730 as
occupants of the houses on their plots.
Only the houses of Morris and Richards survive. They
have undergone many changes of numbering before Nos.
61 and 60 were allotted respectively in 1884, but since 1869
the two houses have been occupied jointly.
The house built by Morris, which extends over the
whole seventy-five-foot frontage of its plot, is wider than
any originally built in Grosvenor Square and has a
spacious garden at the rear. The three-bay centre, flanked
by narrower wings set slightly back, originally had only
two square storeys surmounted either by attics or by a
pediment, and until the construction of a third square
storey (probably in 1908) it was almost certainly lower than
the wings, which always had three square storeys. A front
of this kind invites comparison with the type of Palladian
villa which had a three-bay centre flanked by taller and
narrower tower-like wings, a combination which Morris
used when he was designing Combe Bank in Kent,
probably a little earlier than his own house in Green
Street. (ref. 65)
The earliest plan of No. 61 Green Street is of 1828 and
shows the ground floor only. (ref. 66) The entrance hall then
extended across the centre of the front, as it still does, and
as is sometimes the case in Palladian villa plans. On the
west side of the hall an opening flanked by columns led into
the main open-well staircase. These stairs no longer exist
but a secondary staircase in the centre of the east wing is
shown in the plan of 1828 and still remains.
Morris lived in Green Street from 1730 until his death
in 1749, by which time he was wealthy enough to make
bequests worth upwards of £1,500 to each of his seven
surviving children. In his will he directed that his house
should be disposed of, and in 1750 his executors, who were
his son James, his 'good friend' Robert Andrews and his
'faithful servant' Richard Jennings, sold it for £1,260 to
the third Earl of Hyndford. (ref. 67)
The latter was a diplomat who two years later was
appointed Ambassador to Vienna. Although he kept up the
house in Green Street for a while, he in turn sold it in
January 1756 to the Hon. Robert Hampden. (ref. 68)
Hampden was the son of Thomas Trevor, first Baron
Trevor. His great-grandfather through the female line was
John Hampden of Ship Money fame, and in 1754 he had
taken the name of Hampden by royal licence in order to
inherit the Hampden estates. He lived in the house from
1756 to 1759, but from the latter year until 1765 he held the
office of joint Postmaster-General, a position perhaps
accompanied by an official residence, for during these
years No. 61 Green Street was occupied by Robert Lane,
M.P. (ref. 69) In 1765, however, Hampden returned to Green
Street. He had succeeded his brother as fourth Baron
Trevor in 1764 and was created Viscount Hampden in
1776.
Three years earlier he had purchased No. 60, and from
that date the two houses have been owned jointly, although
they were not to be occupied as one for many years. In
comparison with Roger Morris's large town villa, the
house built by James Richards was very modest. It had
three storeys and a basement, but with a frontage only
twenty feet wide and a depth of forty feet it was relatively
small. It was separated from Morris's house by a courtyard
thirty feet wide, and its entrance, from the courtyard, was
in the centre of the east front, where a small hallway led to a
central dog-leg staircase which survives. This courtyard
has been partially built over, the single-storey linking
corridor between the two houses having perhaps replaced a
screen wall and gates. Richards's plot did not extend to the
mews at the rear and he may have put up workshops and,
perhaps, a stable and coach-house at the south end of the
courtyard where an extension to No. 61 was later built.
The interior of No. 60, where the surviving evidence
indicates a general lack of adornment, does not reflect
Richards's distinguished position as one of the major
craftsmen of his time. In 1722 he had succeeded Grinling
Gibbons as 'Master Sculptor and Master Carver in Wood'
to the Office of Works, and had subsequently worked at
Kensington Palace and the Horse Guards, as well as being
one of the craftsmen under Morris at Marble Hill,
Twickenham. (ref. 70)
Richards died in 1759 and in 1762 the house was sold to
John Spencer, carpenter, (ref. 71) one of the most important
builders working on the Grosvenor estate in the later
stages of its development. In 1762 he was living in a house
recently built by himself at the north-west corner of Green
Street and Park Street. In 1771, however, he was declared
bankrupt, and in 1773 No. 60, described as a 'dwelling
house, large yard and workshop', was sold by his
mortgagees and creditors, the purchaser, as stated earlier,
being Robert Hampden, at that time Baron Trevor, the
occupant of No. 61. (ref. 72)
Hampden installed his agent and banker, George
Brooks, in No. 60, (ref. 73) but he, or his son, the second Viscount
Hampden, appropriated a substantial part of the original
plot leased to Richards for an extension to No. 61. This
took the form of a long east-west block two storeys high at
the rear of No. 60 and linked to No. 61 only by a small
lobby. This additional wing survives although it has twice
been heightened. The date of its building, and of that of
the single-storey linking block along the Green Street
frontage, is uncertain, but they are shown on a rough
sketch plan of 1789 (ref. 66) and are evidently the 'recent
improvement' referred to in that year by William Porden,
the estate surveyor, which, in his estimation, raised the
annual value of the house from £300 to £400. (ref. 74)
Brooks lived at No. 60 until 1797 and the house was
afterwards occupied by tenants until it was incorporated
with No. 61 in c. 1869.
Hampden died in 1783 and was succeeded as second
Viscount by his eldest son Thomas, who lived at No. 61
Green Street until his death there in 1824. (ref. 75) Two years
earlier he had obtained reversionary terms in the plots on
the north side of Lees Place originally leased to Richard
Oakman and to William Gray and John Brown, on which
six houses were then standing. (ref. 76) Part of this ground lay
behind No. 60 and here the houses were demolished and
stabling erected for No. 61 which survives in part today at
No. 23 Lees Place.
The second Viscount's widow lived at No. 61 until her
death in 1833, when her executors sold both Nos. 60 and 61
and part of the ground on the north side of Lees Place to
the eleventh Earl of Kinnoull for £17,000. (ref. 77) By this
transaction the Earl acquired a rectangular plot measuring
125 feet in frontage and 150 feet in depth, containing the
various buildings then comprising No. 61 Green Street
including its stabling in Lees Place, and No. 60 Green
Street. This plot has remained intact in all subsequent
leases and now forms the curtilage of Hampden House.
The Earl of Kinnoull lived in Green Street until 1857.
Both during his occupancy and earlier during that of the
second Viscount Hampden extensive alterations were
carried out by the architect Henry Harrison. (ref. 78) The full
extent of these alterations is not known, but between 1789
and 1869 the rear elevation of No. 61 was altered at least
twice. In the plan of the former year the wings are shown
with canted bays, but by 1828 the back of the house had
been extended and the wings given bow windows; these
bows had in turn been removed by 1869. The present rear
elevation (fig. 47) appears to be substantially the work of
Harrison with later alterations.
Figure 47:
No. 61 Green Street, plans in 1869 and garden elevation in 1978–9
After a short tenancy by the fourth Baron Dinevor, No.
61 was taken by 1859 by Alexander Haldane Oswald, a
Scottish landowner, who in 1863 purchased Nos. 60 and 61
from the Earl of Kinnoull and lived in No. 61 until his
death in 1868. (ref. 79) At that time his nephew, Lieutenant
Richard Oswald, was aide-de-camp to the recently created
Duke of Abercorn, who was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
The Duke was then having to give up his London
residence at Chesterfield House, and, prompted no doubt
by Lieutenant Oswald, he looked over No. 61 Green
Street. Finding it satisfactory he purchased the house from
Alexander Oswald's trustees in April 1869. (ref. 80)
The Duke of Abercorn had fourteen children, twelve of
whom were still alive when he moved to Green Street, and
in order to increase the space available he immediately took
over No. 60 from its yearly tenant, amalgamating the two
houses.
An incomplete set of drawings dated August to October
1869 show several alterations which were carried out for
the Duke. (ref. 81) The address on the drawings is No. 6 Stratton
Street, which was William Burn's office. Burn had already
acted for the Duke when he was looking for a new London
house (ref. 82) and was also probably the 'Mr. Burn' who applied
on behalf of Alexander Oswald to the Grosvenor Board for
an extension to the lease of Hampden House shortly before
Oswald's death in 1868, (ref. 83) but he was a very old man at this
time—he died in 1870—and it is likely that the alterations
were the work of his nephew and assistant, J. Macvicar
Anderson, who advised the Duke on structural matters at
the house in 1876. (ref. 84) The works done in 1869–70 included
the building of the present enclosed porch and the
heightening of the neo-classical wing at the rear of No. 60,
where ugly openings with pierced iron panels were
inserted in the raised walls. (Another unsightly addition to
the roof since the war of 1939–45 has further detracted
from the appearance of this wing.) The builder was George
Smith of South Street. (ref. 85) In 1880 the Duke agreed, at the
suggestion of Thomas Cundy III, to put 'plate glass
sashes' in the front windows of the house. (ref. 86)
In the 1890's the second Duke of Abercorn was
complaining to the Grosvenor Board that his house was
being adversely affected by, inter alia, the nearby
rebuildings in North Audley Street, and in 1903 he was
trying to sell it. (ref. 87) The shortness of his lease, which only had
some seventeen years to run, proved a deterrent to
prospective purchasers, however, and during part of the
prolonged negotiations with the Board (lasting from 1903
to 1909) for a substantial extension of his term he moved to
No. 35 Park Street (now part of the site of Grosvenor
House), where he lived from 1906 to 1908, Hampden
House being let furnished to Mrs. Potter Palmer of
Chicago. (ref. 88) Unexecuted plans made in 1905 for the Duke
included 'reconstruction of top storey, raising and reroofing the house'. (ref. 89) In July 1908 he was still wanting 'to
raise the height of the upper rooms', and work costing
£2,400 was in fact done immediately afterwards. (ref. 90) It was
probably at this time that the attics in the centre of the
front were converted to a full third storey. In view of his
outlay, and of the depressed state of the property market,
the Board at last agreed in 1909 to grant the Duke a sixtythree-year lease at a rent of £850 and a premium of
£10,000—a considerable reduction from its original
demand, made in 1904, for a rent of £1,000 and a premium
of £25,000. (ref. 91)
By this time the Duke was back at Hampden House,
where he continued to live until his death in 1913. In 1919
the third Duke sold it to the fifth Duke of Sutherland, (ref. 92)
who had previously been negotiating for a lease of
Grosvenor House, then in the occupancy of the Government. He remained there at Hampden House until 1940,
when he placed the house at the disposal of the
Government and its long history as a private residence
came to an end. (ref. 93) Since then it has been used by various
institutions, both official and private, and is now the
conference centre of the British Standards Institution.
Despite having been denuded of many features the
interior of Hampden House today contains some fine
eighteenth-century-revival decoration of about 1870,
presumably the work of Macvicar Anderson, and further
interest resides in the early nineteenth-century neoclassical sculpture, introduced by the first Duke of
Abercorn at the same date, which forms an integral part of
the architecture. The entrance hall retains its original
transverse form with a deep apse in the middle of the inner
side. The unusual chimneypiece with vermiculated blocks
shown in photographs of 1919 (Plate 51c) has been
replaced and the columns in the opening to the west have
been removed. The neo-Georgian stucco panels are
perhaps Edwardian and have been simplified since 1919,
but the simple moulded box cornice may be of Roger
Morris's time. The original staircase to the west was
removed in the early nineteenth century when its site was
added to the entrance hall, but this area has since been subdivided to form a cloakroom. The version of John Gibson's
marble relief of Cupid and Venus made for the Duke of
Abercorn and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1839 can
still be seen in one corner. The present main staircase in
the centre of the west wing is possibly the work of Henry
Harrison. It has an open well (now containing a lift) with a
simple cast-iron balustrade and mahogany handrail and a
square glazed lantern at the top. Set into the walls are a
number of marble plaques made in Rome in the 1840's,
including one by Pietro Tenerani of the three elder
daughters of the first Duke of Abercorn, and a pair of
roundels by Bertel Thorwaldsen, one depicting Prometheus and Minerva, the other Hercules and Hebe (Plate
51b). The subsidiary staircase occupies a similar position
in the east wing and has wall-supported stone steps and a
simple crinoline-shaped iron balustrade which is perhaps a
survivor of Morris's work. The room behind on the garden
front, formerly the boudoir, retains early eighteenthcentury raised-and-fielded panelling with egg-and-dart
and ovolo mouldings and a dentilled cornice. The late
eighteenth-century Italian marble chimneypiece is an
importation made by the Duke of Abercorn. The large
room on the garden front, formerly the library, which
together with the entrance hall fills the whole centre of the
house at ground level, also contains eighteenth-century-style panelling, now stripped. The marble chimneypiece
was introduced by the fifth Duke of Sutherland.
The dining-room on the ground floor of the wing added
by Viscount Hampden in c. 1787 is handsomely decorated
in Victorian 'Adam' taste. Originally this was two rooms
and the screen of fluted Composite columns on high
plinths probably marks the position of the dividing wall.
The marble chimneypiece is a Doric composition with a
central plaque based on a Roman painting at Pompeii of
Achilles and a satyr. Above the dining-room, the 'family'
bedroom is also decorated in Victorian 'Adam' style, its
ceiling inset with painted panels of mythological scenes.
The Italian marble chimneypiece has flanking Doric
columns and its frieze is carved with a pattern of
convolvulus.
The only room of special interest in the main block at
first-floor level is the huge former ballroom, which now
occupies the whole of the centre of the house over both the
library and the entrance hall. It was formed out of two
rooms at some date after 1919 by the removal of the central
wall and chimney-stack, which must have posed a difficult
engineering problem as it involved the diversion of the
flues from the hall and library fireplaces. The original front
room was at one time the dining-room, and the stuccoed
ceiling of the enlarged room, which has a central reeded
oval and intertwining vines, is an expanded replica of the
ceiling which formerly existed in the old dining-room. The
correspondingly rich wall decorations have, however, all
been removed.
In contrast to No. 61 the interior of No. 60 retains much
of its simple early eighteenth-century decoration, having
been used as servants' offices after its amalgamation with
Hampden House. The staircase is of sturdy timber
construction with turned balusters and a square moulded
handrail. The sash windows overlooking the former
courtyard still have thick early eighteenth-century glazing
bars, an uncommon survival in central London. The firstfloor front room has panelling and a box cornice and the
rear room a corner chimneypiece with egg-and-dartmoulded architraves.
No. 62
No. 62 see page 110.