Dunraven Street
This street was laid out in the 1750's. Originally called
Norfolk Street, it was sometimes known as New Norfolk
Street in the nineteenth century and was renamed
Dunraven Street by the London County Council in 1939
after the fourth Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, a
former resident of the street, who had been a member of
the L.C.C. The principal developer here was Edmund
Rush, mason, who was a major builder on the estate
during the 1750's and 1760's. In 1756 he acquired a large
plot of ground on the south side of Green Street at the
corner of Park Lane on which he laid out the southern arm
of the new street. (ref. 94) By the end of the same year he had
granted sub-leases of all the house sites in this part of the
street, mostly to building tradesmen, but the sub-lessee of
three houses was William Kay, 'gentleman', who was
probably a solicitor. One of Kay's clerks was Edmund
Rush Wagg, presumably a relative of the builder, and Kay
may have been the essential kind of business associate who
could make the difference between success and failure for a
builder. (ref. 95)
The northern arm of the street, between Green Street
and North Row, followed on very quickly. Here the land
was held under lease by John Spencer, carpenter, (ref. 96) but
Rush was a consenting party to all the sub-leases of
individual house plots granted by Spencer in 1757–8, again
mostly to building tradesmen, (ref. 97) and in July 1758 Spencer
made over his interest in the northern part of Norfolk
Street and much of Green Street and North Row to
Rush. (ref. 98) (fn. a)
By 1761 all the houses in Norfolk Street had been
completed and occupied. Those on the west side,
overlooking the Park and having short gardens extending
to Park Lane, were generally grander than those on the east
side, and quickly attracted rich and/or fashionable
residents. Several of these houses survive, though all have
been very greatly altered, and as many are now numbered
wholly or partly in Park Lane they are described in
Chapter XV. Those on the site of the modern Avenfield
House had four main storeys (the fourth storeys perhaps
later additions) with central entrances, prominent stringcourses and neat cornices, of the kind for which an
exemplar had been provided in Isaac Ware's A Complete
Body of Architecture, first published in 1756. (fn. b) The
unsightly clutter of drainage pipes to be seen in Plate 48a
reveals the changed orientation of these houses, the
principal fronts of which latterly faced westward to Park
Lane instead of eastward to Dunraven Street.
On the east side of the street the frontages were
generally narrower, such evidence as exists suggesting that
the houses were three windows wide and had three main
storeys. (ref. 99) Their inhabitants were more varied than on the
west side, two of them in 1790 being occupied by
physicians and two by tradesmen, while two others were
used as public houses. (ref. 100) In the 1820's a house of ill-fame
here was causing the Estate some concern. (ref. 101) This side of
the street was also popular with officers of the army or
navy, for in 1796 five of the eighteen occupants here were
officers of the armed services, who continued to favour the
houses here throughout the nineteenth century, Captain
(later First Sea Lord and Admiral of the Fleet) John
Fisher, for instance, living at No. 16 (on the site of the
present No. 18 Dunraven Street) from 1887 to 1891. Mrs.
Lillie Langtry lived at No. 17 (on the site of the present
No. 19) from 1877 to 1880. James McNeill Whistler
assisted in the decoration of the house for her and provided
the drawing-room with a painted ceiling. (ref. 102)
All of the houses on the east side were rebuilt between
1897 and 1916 except No. 1, which had been 'practically
rebuilt' in 1883–4.
Other occupants of demolished houses on the east side of
Norfolk Street include: Dow. Duchess of Beaufort, wid. of 4th
Duke, 1760–3. Col. Oliver De Lancey, later general and M.P.,
1787–90. Col. James Moncrieff, military engineer, 1791–3. Sir
Lucas Pepys, physician to George III, 1816–21. Sir John Carr,
barrister and writer on travel, 1812–32. Sir Howard Elphinstone,
1st bt., commander royal engineers in Peninsular War, 1821–46.
Sir Murray Maxwell, naval capt., 1827–31. 5th Earl of Essex,
1825–8. Lord William Russell, brother of 6th Duke of Bedford,
murdered here by his valet, 1839–40. 4th Baron de Blaquiere,
1859–64. (Sir) Edward William Watkin, later 1st bt., M.P.,
railway promoter, 1864–6. Adm. (Sir) Cyprian Bridge, 1893–6.
George Thomas Kenyon, M.P., 1894–8. 5th Earl of Rosslyn, a
professional actor under the name of James Erskine, 1906–7.
Occupants of houses on the west side of the street are listed on
pages 282–5.
No. 1
No. 1, a tall, gaunt, red-brick house, is to all intents and
purposes a rebuilding of 1883–4 by John Morris, builder,
of Park Street to the designs of James Trant Smith,
although parts of the structure of the original building on
the site, the Coach and Horses public house, erected in
1756, may have been retained. Morris undertook the
rebuilding as a speculation on a twenty-year lease and was
unable to dispose of the house. His subsequent attempts to
secure a long lease failed because the Grosvenor Board
already had in mind further improvements to the whole
area, but in 1887 in view of his 'serious losses' he was
allowed to have a new lease for a slightly longer term at the
low ground rent of £10. Eventually Morris's sons, who
succeeded him in his business, were able to obtain a new
sixty-three-year extension from 1910, during the negotiations for which they commented that 'the house looks
pretentious but the interior disappoints people'. (ref. 103)
Nos. 2–6 (consec.)
Nos. 2–6 (consec.) were all built to the designs of the
speculating architect, Frederick William Foster.
Nos. 2 and 3 have the usual four main storeys of the
Green Street area and are faced with red bricks, here
decked out, however, with a good deal of stonework which
produces the effect of an unhappy compromise between
brick and stone fronts. The houses were built in 1907–8
before the general scheme for rebuilding this block had
been formulated. In 1902 Foster bought up the last years
of the leases of the existing houses on the site and obtained
extensions to 1913 from the Estate. He was able to do little
with the houses, however, and in 1905 asked for rebuilding
terms. Balfour, the estate surveyor, advised against
allowing rebuilding before the leases of other houses in
Green Street and Norfolk Street had fallen in, but two
years later the Board relented when informed that the old
houses had caused Foster 'very serious losses … and he
was quite driven into a corner by them'. (ref. 104)
No. 4 (Norwich House) was built in 1913–16 with a
rather mechanical neo-Georgian elevation loosely modelled on Lutyens' recent rebuilding of No. 7 St. James's
Square. It is a large house of six bays, and the extra storey
heights deemed necessary to get sufficient light to the
attics, and, perhaps, to give it the right proportions, raises
it above its neighbours, but the effect has been mitigated
somewhat by setting back the building line. Foster
originally intended to erect three houses on the site but
found a client in the financier Sir Courtauld Thomson
(later Baron Courtauld-Thomson) who wanted one big
house. He was closely involved in the building industry as
a director of Holloways and also helped to found the firm of
Lenygon and Morant. His role here is ambiguous,
however, for at the same time he entered into a contract to
rebuild at the corner of Park Street and Wood's Mews (not
in the event carried out), and by the end of 1914 he had
agreed to sell No. 4 to Mr. Penryn Vaughan-Morgan. In
1916 the lease was granted to Mrs. Vaughan-Morgan by
direction of Foster and Thomson, but the VaughanMorgans did not live in the house and in 1917 it was being
used as a military hospital. (ref. 105)
Nos. 5 and 6 were built in 1913–14 to a similar though
not identical design as Nos. 2 and 3. (ref. 106) Another storey was
added to No. 5 in 1931 by Frederick Etchells. (ref. 107)
Foster's builders for Nos. 4, 5 and 6, and probably for
Nos. 2 and 3 as well, were Frederick Foxley and Company
with whom he evidently had a close working relationship. (ref. 108)
Occupants include: No. 4, Sir Eric Hambro, K.B.E., banker,
1920–6. Sir James Harmet-Dunn, 1st bt., 1930–41.
Nos. 16–19 (consec.)
Nos. 16–19 (consec.) have the usual four main storeys,
basements and garrets characteristic of the Green Street
area, and are treated as one composition with the outer two
houses framing a mirrored pair in the centre. They were
erected in 1897–8 by Bywaters as a speculation to the
designs of Sidney R. J. Smith. Bywaters acquired the site
as a consequence of having been chosen as builders by
Lord Ribblesdale for his mansion at the neighbouring No.
32 Green Street, and agreed to the appointment of Smith,
who was Lord Ribblesdale's architect, as architect for
these houses also. (ref. 109) In contrast to the restraint which his
client placed on him at the more sober No. 32 Green
Street, Smith was here able to give rein to the Baroque
exuberance which marks his façade for the Tate Gallery
and produced animated if somewhat restless brick-andstone fronts for these narrow terrace houses (Plate 48b).
Occupants include: No. 16, Brig.-gen. Sir Archibald Fraser
Home, K.C.V.O., 1919–40. No. 17, Dow. Countess of Londesborough, wid. of 1st Earl, 1902–15. Marquess of Carisbrooke,
grandson of Queen Victoria, 1918–20. P. G. Wodehouse, writer,
1924–34. No. 19, Sir Charles Malcolm Barclay-Harvey,
K.C.M.G., M.P., 1927–39.