Nos. 10–12 (consec.) Great Piazza
Part of sites of the Royal Opera House and the Floral
Hall
The two easternmost portico buildings in the
north range of the Piazza were demolished in
1858 for the erection of the Opera House and
the Floral Hall. The western house (No. 10–11)
had originally been built on a plot leased to George
Plucknett, scrivener, from Michaelmas 1635.
(ref. 81)
During the reign of Charles II it was occupied by
the court painter, Sir Peter Lely, and from his
period of tenure may have dated the cupola shown
on top of the house in eighteenth-century views
(Plates 26, 27a, 29a). This feature was still in
existence in 1753 when a new lessee was required
to 'make good the Boarding of the Lobby on
Top of the Leads'. (ref. 25)
This lessee was the actor and friend of John
Rich, Charles Macklin, who retired from the
stage in December 1753. Shortly before his
retirement he had obtained a licence from the
justices to conduct a coffee house which he opened
in March 1754. The coffee room was built at the
rear of the portico building and part of the premises
was fitted up as a theatre for oratory. (ref. 82)
(fn. a) Macklin
subsequently became bankrupt and returned
to the stage but he had already left the Piazza in
1755. (ref. 42)
Thereafter the premises were in two separate
tenancies until 1829, although the whole site, from
the Piazza to Hart Street, remained in the
possession of one lessee. Macklin's successor as
occupant in 1756, and later as lessee, was Richard
Maltby, a vintner, who established a hotel, probably in the portico building, and sub-let the
coffee room at the rear. (ref. 84)
The coffee house flourished after Macklin's
departure and became famous under the name of
the Piazza or Great Piazza: it was a popular
resort of the literary and stage fraternities and was
the scene of Sheridan's famous quip as he watched
the burning of Drury Lane Theatre in 1809.
The hotel is said to have been popular with
country gentlemen who desired a meal and a
bed with 'a doxy' to share them. (ref. 85)
In 1788 the proprietor of the hotel, Daniel
Brewer, was warned by the steward of the Bedford
Office that the Duke would not renew the lease
when it expired in 1792 as he intended that the
site should be added to Covent Garden Theatre. (ref. 86)
Thomas Harris and the other proprietors of the
theatre had already taken over the adjoining
house on the east side of the Piazza Hotel and
Coffee House (No. 12). (ref. 42) This, the last house in
the north range of the portico buildings, had been
erected by Richard Vesey, carpenter, who was
granted a lease in 1635. (ref. 87) Sir James Thornhill
had lived in the house from 1722 until his death
in 1734 and it was here that he had established
his famous academy and that his son-in-law,
William Hogarth, had lived until his removal in
1733 to Leicester Square. (ref. 88) The house was
occupied from 1761 until 1787 by James
Duberley, an army tailor, (ref. 89) and in 1788, being
empty, was taken over by Thomas Harris and his
associates.
In 1790 the proprietors of the Piazza Coffee
House at No. 10–11, Richard Hodgson and
Abraham Gann, were allowed to incorporate the
front part of No. 12 and connect it with the old
coffee room at No. 10–11. (ref. 90) The Piazza Hotel
continued in the premises it had always occupied
at No. 10–11 but in 1792, when the lease expired
and Daniel Brewer gave up the business, (ref. 42) the
rear portion of the site was taken over, with the
rear portion of No. 12, and added to the curtilage
of Covent Garden Theatre. In 1792–3 new
scene rooms were erected on the additional ground
thus gained, flanking a passage which led from
Hart Street to the royal saloon. New leases of the
original sites, with the two portico buildings
occupied by the Piazza Hotel and the Piazza
Coffee House and the theatre buildings at the
rear, were granted to Thomas Harris in 1806 for a
term of eighty-nine years from Christmas 1805. (ref. 91)
The buildings occupied by the hotel and coffee
house survived the fire which destroyed the
theatre in 1808 and continued under separate
managements until 1828. In the following year
the coffee house and hotel were combined when
George Cuttress or Cuttriss, the owner of the
coffee house, also became proprietor of the hotel. (ref. 42)
By the middle of the nineteenth century the
prosperity of Cuttress's concern had declined,
possibly because of a fire which destroyed part of
the premises in 1846, (ref. 92) but more probably because of the competition with its neighbours, and
in 1850 the hotel was taken over by the proprietors of the Tavistock. After the destruction
of Covent Garden Theatre in 1856, the theatre
proprietors were ejected from their tenancy by
the seventh Duke of Bedford, and the owners
of the Tavistock, as under-tenants of the theatre
proprietors, were also ejected from possession of
the Piazza Hotel. They were allowed to remain
in occupation for another year and were then
paid £2,000 in compensation for giving up the
premises. (ref. 93) In 1858 the Piazza Hotel, which by
then could have retained very little of the fabric of
the two original portico buildings, was demolished
for the erection of the Floral Hall (Plate 42b) and
the new Opera House. (ref. 94)