From 1700 to 1802
During the eighteenth century there were four
Dukes of Bedford. In 1694 the fifth Earl had
been raised to the dukedom as a mark of honour
for his eldest son, William, Lord Russell, who had
been beheaded in 1683 for his supposed complicity in the Rye House Plot. The first Duke died
in 1700 and was succeeded by his grandson, Lord
Russell's son, Wriothesley, who died in 1711 and
was followed by his son, another Wriothesley.
The third Duke died without issue in 1732, and
his brother, John, became the fourth holder of the
title. His eldest son predeceased him, and he was
succeeded, in 1771, by his grandson, Francis, the
fifth Duke, who died in 1802.
In the seventeenth century Covent Garden
had been the centre of gravity of all the Russell
estates which, although managed from day to day
by resident local officers, had been governed by the
Earls' chief agents from Bedford House in the
Strand. In the first decade of the eighteenth
century all this changed, and the focus moved to
Bloomsbury. This property had been acquired
in 1669 by the marriage of William, Lord Russell,
to Rachel, daughter and co-heiress of Thomas
Wriothesley, fourth Earl of Southampton. Lord
and Lady Russell lived at Southampton House, the
mansion built on the Bloomsbury estate by her
father, to which Lord Russell's body was taken
after his execution in Lincoln's Inn Fields. In
1695, whilst still a minor, their son Wriothesley,
who as his grandfather's heir was then styled
Marquess of Tavistock (the secondary title conferred with the dukedom), was married to
Elizabeth Howland, aged thirteen, daughter and
heiress of John Howland, a successful City merchant who owned large estates in Essex and
Surrey. On the death of the first Duke in 1700
the couple became Duke and Duchess of Bedford
and took up residence, with Lady Russell, at
Southampton House. The new Duke is said to
have been 'the richest peer in England, worth
upwards of £30,000 per annum'. (ref. 180)
Soon afterwards the second Duke decided to
demolish Bedford House. A scheme was prepared
for the development of its capacious site by
speculators and for the improvement and expansion of the market which the demolition of the
house would permit. The Duke's 'proposals'
required a 'Modell or Scheme' to be made describing the intended streets, namely, a 'great
street' from the Mount in the Piazza to the
Strand, 50 feet wide, a linking street, 30 feet
wide, westwards to Maiden Lane and another,
eastwards to Charles Street, 20 feet wide. The
building plots were to be so devised as to bring in a
total annual rent of £1,100. The undertakers, or
speculators, were to give security for carrying
out the development to the Duke's satisfaction,
and, when the houses were finished or covered in,
would receive leases for terms of sixty-one years
at a peppercorn rent for the first two years. Alternatively, they would be permitted to nominate
'Responsible Tenants' to receive leases in their
stead, under the usual covenants operating elsewhere on the estate. The whole undertaking was
to be completed by midsummer 1707.
The Duke also proposed to let the existing fruit
and vegetable market in the Piazza for seven years
at an annual rent of £300, rising at a rate of £2
per annum for every £100 which he might spend
in improvements. Furthermore he undertook to
use his influence to obtain a patent for a 'new
generall Market' for 'Flesh, Fish & Fowl', which
was to stand 'in such part of the stable yard and
back ground [of Bedford House] as shall be
agreed on', and to let this new market to the undertakers for whatever period remained of the sixtyone years term at a peppercorn rent only, the
undertakers being responsible for the cost of
obtaining the necessary patent. (ref. 181)
Not all the proposals were carried out. Bedford House site was not completely cleared until
1707 (ref. 182) and, although the market shops in the
Piazza were rebuilt (see page 131), the 'Flesh,
Fish & Fowl' scheme came to nothing. Nor were
the streets built exactly as proposed. (ref. 183) Southampton Street, the designated 'great street', named
after the Duke's maternal grandfather, the Earl of
Southampton, was built 50 feet wide, but it
narrowed at the southern end, purposely to create
a bottleneck. Tavistock Street, which took its
name from the Russells' marquessate, was not
made so narrow as originally intended, its width
being 35 feet. At its eastern end it opened into
Charles Street, and on its north side was a narrow
passage 12 feet in breadth, called Tavistock Court,
which led into the Piazza (see fig. 32 on page
208).
The opening to Maiden Lane (hitherto blocked
at the east end by the west wall of Bedford
House garden) was made much narrower than at
first proposed, and narrower even than Maiden
Lane itself, being only 18 feet wide. It was
named Southampton Court. The row of houses
built along the south side of the Piazza was
thought of as a continuation of the south side of
Henrietta Street and was so called at first. Those
houses to the east of Southampton Street were
eventually renamed Tavistock Row. The new
streets were described by Macky in 1714 as being
'very Noble'. (ref. 184)
Among the first houses to be built were the
five at the north end of the east side of Southampton Street (Nos. 15–17 and 19–20 on fig. 32 on
page 208), and one in Tavistock Street (No. 24 on
fig. 32). These six were insured for £1,950 in
March 1707 (ref. 182) and five of them were let for
short terms in 1707–8. (ref. 185) They were built by
tradesmen in the employment of the Duke himself, (fn. a) at an estimated cost of £2,950. (ref. 186) The
Duke's surveyor at this time was (Sir) William
Ogborne, citizen and carpenter of London, who
supplied some of the necessary carpentry work
and certified other workmen's bills. (ref. 182) Ogborne
was a competent architect who built the almshouses at Mile End for the Corporation of Elder
Brethren of Trinity House in 1693–7. He was
assisted as surveyor by Nicholas Launce, who
measured the work performed by the builders and
in 1710 succeeded Ogborne as surveyor to the
Duke. (ref. 187) John Prince, junior, bricklayer and
speculative builder, was also employed by the
Duke to 'draw severall Designes for the New
buildings … And laying out grate part of the
ground', in particular, the 'Expeditious opening
[of] the passage into Charles Street' (i.e. Tavistock
Street). (ref. 188)
With the exception of the six houses mentioned
above, the whole of Bedford Ground, as the site
and curtilage of Bedford House was now called,
was laid out by speculators who first entered into
contracts to build and were then granted building
leases. Only one contract has survived and that,
in the form of articles of agreement, is a late one,
dated 1 March 1710/11. (ref. 189) William Long of
Marylebone, gentleman, was the speculator concerned and his plot was on the south side of the
Piazza, in what was later known as Tavistock
Row. Long contracted to build a 'uniform' house
of well burnt bricks and good mortar, to pay a
proportion of the costs of making a sewer, to pave
the street in front of the house and to set up posts
as directed by the Duke's surveyor. The materials
which he was required to use were grey stock
bricks with rubbing bricks for the returns and the
flat gauged arches to openings; the timber was to
be yellow fir throughout, but oak for sills, and the
lead was to weigh 8 lbs. to the foot. The rainwater pipes were to be square and the modillions,
cornice and other ornaments were to answer a
pattern for making the front uniform. The specified storey-heights and timber scantlings correspond very closely with those prescribed in the Act
of Parliament for rebuilding the City for houses
of the 'third sort', that is, four-storeyed houses
fronting 'the high and principal streets'. In some
particulars, however, the house which William
Long was required to build would have been
superior, the second and third storeys being,
respectively, 6 inches and 1 foot loftier than the
heights prescribed in the Act. Assuming that
Long's house was not the only one of its type, it
may be concluded that the Duke's policy was to
have a better quality of building on Bedford
Ground than elsewhere on the estate, where
houses were still being built according to the
second or lesser sort. Long's house must also
have differed from others completed before 1709,
both on Bedford Ground and on the rest of the
estate, in displaying features which had been
made obligatory in London and Westminster by
two recent Acts of Parliament. The first of these
Acts, passed in 1707, prohibited the current
practice of building timber cornices under the
eaves and required that, from 1 May 1708, the
front walls of new houses should be carried up 2½
feet above the garret floor and coped with stone. (ref. 190)
The second Act, which was passed in 1708, forbad houses built after 1 June 1709 to have their
window and door frames set closer than 4 inches
to the outside wall face. (ref. 191) As several houses on
Bedford Ground were erected before the Acts
came into force, the house fronts did not present a
uniform face (see Plate 29b). Two examples of
the earlier type are Nos. 26 and 27 Southampton
Street (Plate 76), the only survivors of the
original buildings on Bedford Ground. They
preserve some original window-frames, set nearly
flush with the wall face, and although their
attics have now been altered, they were presumably built without parapets.
Another factor which must have contributed
to a variety of styles is implied in John Prince's
statement, mentioned above, that he was engaged
to make designs for some of the new houses.
Other builders who took leases may have been
given as free a hand, within the given framework
of established storey-heights, materials and scantlings.
The first building leases were granted in
December 1706; the last, for Tavistock Row,
were dated November 1714. Thus the development begun by the second Duke continued after
his death in 1711. The majority of leases were
for sixty-one years, the first two years being
held at peppercorn rents, as originally proposed.
For slightly shorter terms (the lowest was
fifty-eight years) the period at a peppercorn
rent was reduced. Of the eighty building leases
for Bedford Ground, twenty-six were granted to
persons unconnected with the building trade,
doubtless as nominees of the undertakers who
actually built the houses. These undertakers, to
whom the remaining leases were granted, were
builders, (fn. b) some of whom had been engaged to
build the Duke's own houses in Southampton
Street. Two taverns are known to have been
built, the Bedford Head on the south corner of
Tavistock Street and Southampton Street, and the
Salutation in Tavistock Street. (ref. 192)
The covenants contained in the leases were to a
large extent stereotyped. They concerned the
making of sewers and the paving of the streets;
the Duke's, or his officers', right to view the
building to see that it was built according to
the pre-lease contract; the payment of rates; the
obligation to repair during the term, and a ban
on the practice of certain trades without the
Duke's licence. The prohibited trades mentioned
in the leases varied slightly from one lease to
another; by 1714 the complete list comprised the
trades of smith, farrier, tallow-chandler, soapboiler, butcher, baker, fruiterer, brewer, victualler, vintner, pipemaker, pipeburner, dyer,
brazier and pewterer—the last three being relatively recent additions.
When the second Duke died of smallpox in
1711 his eldest son, Wriothesley, was only three
years old, and so until he came of age in 1729 the
estates were managed by trustees, one of whom,
until her death in 1724, was his mother, the
dowager Duchess of Bedford. The trustees completed the development of Bedford Ground and
were responsible for permitting the first important
deviation from the architectural unity of the
portico buildings in the Piazza. The third Duke
was in control of Covent Garden for only three
years, for he died in 1732, but the building of the
first Covent Garden Theatre took place during
this short period.
Wriothesley's brother, John, the fourth Duke,
was in possession of Covent Garden from 1732
until 1771. He was active in politics and served
as Principal Secretary of State (Southern Department) from 1748 to 1751 and as Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland 1756–61. His careful husbanding of his
estate is reflected in the rebuilding of old and
decayed houses in accordance with detailed
specifications. A number of houses were thus
rebuilt in King Street in 1748–54 and in Russell
Street in 1759. In addition, Broad Court,
suitably named, replaced the cramped and narrow
Red Lion Court in 1745–7. Here, building
leases were granted to several craftsmen who
figured prominently in speculative building in
the more fashionable areas west of Covent
Garden. (fn. c)
A letter written in 1744 by Robert Butcher,
the Duke's steward, when Henry Flitcroft was the
estate surveyor, to William Perritt or Perrott, a
plasterer looking for work, refers to the Broad
Court scheme. Perritt was informed that 'his
Grace is come to a Resolution to employ no
Workmen but such as are his Tenants'; but as
the Duke was 'unprovided with a Plaisterer upon
the Covent Garden Estate' and 'is willing to
employ you upon Mr. Flitcrofts Recommendation', Butcher went on to suggest that Perritt
should obtain the necessary qualification by
taking some of the plots in Broad Court. Even
then, however, the Duke would not bind himself
to offer work to a particular workman except
under the same terms as those already accepted by
Mr. Spencer and Mr. Barlow, and 'so long as you
do it well, at proper Times, and for such Prises
as Mr. Flitcroft shall think reasonable, according
to the Goodness of the work'. (ref. 194) Perritt evidently
complied with these conditions, and was subsequently granted two building leases in Broad
Court (Plates 52b, 59a).
Francis, the fifth Duke, a close friend of Charles
James Fox and the Prince of Wales, succeeded his
grandfather in 1771, and died in 1802. In
Covent Garden the chief events of his time were
the renovation of St. Paul's Church in 1788–9,
its rebuilding, after a fire, in 1797–8, the rebuilding of Drury Lane Theatre in 1791–4 and
the northward extension of Bow Street to Long
Acre. His contribution to the church rebuilding
fund was made partly for a political quid pro quo
(see page 11 on.), but the Bow Street opening was
a long intended improvement which had been
much delayed.
The fifth Duke should also be remembered
for the lead which he gave in the adoption of
precautions against fire. Shortly after the burning of the Pantheon in Oxford Street in 1792 the
Association of Architects 'took into consideration
the causes of the frequent fires' in London 'and the
best means that can be adopted for preventing
the like in future.' The leader of this enquiry was
Henry Holland, the Duke's own surveyor, and in
1793 the Association published a pamphlet containing the results of their enquiries and advocating
the practice of carefully specified preventative
measures. The Duke ordered these measures to be
employed in all new houses built on his estates,
and in all houses let on repairing leases where the
repairs included the relaying of floors or the
resetting of wooden staircases. His adoption of
the Association's recommendations was prominently announced in the pamphlet in order to encourage other landlords to do likewise. (ref. 195)