The former York Street
Now Nos. 11–21 (odd) and 32–42 (even)
Tavistock Street
This part of Tavistock Street, between Wellington and Catherine Streets, was laid out with the
other original Covent Garden streets in the 1630's
and was named after the infant Duke of York
(b. 1633). Until the making of the original
Tavistock Street in 1706–14 there was no
western extension of the line of York Street beyond Charles (now part of Wellington) Street,
and when Tavistock Street was made York
Street retained its name and street-numbers
(Plate 8). In 1835 three house-sites at the west
end of the south side were absorbed into Wellington Street and the former No. 7 York Street
became a corner site. In 1899–1900 the line of
York Street was continued eastward beyond
Catherine Street to Drury Lane by a street almost all of which lies outside the area described in
this volume. This street, also, was called York
Street until 1937, when it and the original York
Street were renamed and renumbered as part of
Tavistock Street.
In the parapet of Nos. 34 and 36 Tavistock
Street has been inserted at an unknown period a
stone name-tablet dating from the first years of the
street and incised with the legend 'Yorke Street
1636'. The building leases, tabulated on pages
310–11, ran from 1631 and 1632, and many of
the first inhabitants were in residence by 1636. (ref. 2)
Apart from a house on the south side near the
gate to Bedford House stables the houses did not
attract people of note. At the other end of the
south side, on the corner of Brydges Street, a
tavern existed from the first and, under the name
of the Fleece, became notorious (see page 200).
Shops or stalls were probably an early feature of
the street. An episode in the 1660's tells something of one of these rather unsubstantial erections. Since about 1647 a tailor, William Baxter
or Barkstead, had occupied a house 'at the very
Corner' of York Street and Charles Street (now
the site of No. 11 Tavistock Street and No. 28
Wellington Street). This had 'a certaine Stall,
Bulke or Shopp erected in the streete against the
said house', which he let in 1659 to a poulterer,
Mrs. Vertue, at £3 a year. Four years later
Baxter sub-let the house to one Theophilus Fitz,
gentleman. He, finding that Mrs. Vertue refused
to give a fine for the renewal of her tenancy of the
stall and paid her rent only 'by dribling somes and
in poultry', let the shop to 'an exchange woman'
at £5 a year. Mrs. Vertue took drastic countermeasures. She repaired to the Commissioners for
Highways and Sewers, established in 1662 (see
page 35), with a demand that they should
demolish the shop as an encroachment on the
highway. This they did in 1665 although,
according to Fitz, it was 'an ancient shopp' which
had, like all the other shops in the street, already
been viewed and countenanced by the Commissioners. In any event a shop was again erected at
Fitz's house by 1669. (ref. 97)
In 1714 one of the properties on the south side
was let out to ten families: (ref. 2) this particular house
had previously been licensed premises, of which
there were about five in the street in 1720. (ref. 98)
By 1763 Mortimer's Universal Director indicates that the chief tradesmen were linen drapers
or clothiers. One tradesman, however, was the
bookseller, Samuel Baker, who since 1753 had
occupied a site now taken into the roadway of
Wellington Street. (ref. 99)
(fn. a) Here he established the
first saleroom exclusively for dealing in books,
manuscripts and prints, which passed to the
partnership of his nephew John Sotheby and
George Leigh: Leigh and Sotheby remained here
until their removal to the Strand in 1804. (ref. 101) York
Street continued to be associated with booksellers
or publishers in the nineteenth century, notably
H. G. Bohn at No. 4 from 1831. (ref. 102)
Almost all of York Street had by then long
ceased to be part of the Bedford estate. The
family compact of 1640–1 had settled both sides
of the street (except the extreme western end of
the south side) on Edward Russell and by c. 1671
he had sold his property here (probably in 1663)
to John Athy, a haberdasher. (ref. 89) The rights in the
Athy property came to be divided among a number of different interests, and although Athy's
descendant, John Hemingway Athy (who lived
successively in Russell Street and Charles Street), (ref. 2)
was responsible for some rebuilding in York
Street in the 1720's and 1730's, the multiplication
of rights in the property no doubt militated against
thorough redevelopment. (ref. 103) The dispersion of
some of the freehold interest deriving from John
Athy by sales in the 1820's (ref. 104) seems to have had
a similar tendency and both sides of this part of
Tavistock Street exemplify (as does the whole
block of which the north side forms a part) the
comparatively unmodernized aspect of property
which passed from the Russell family at an early
date. On the north side No. 11 (with No. 28
Wellington Street) is probably still basically the
house built in 1752 for a wine merchant, Thomas
Langley. (ref. 105) The handsome but now vanished
shop front, which resembled that formerly at No.
62 Brewer Street, St. James's, (ref. 106) can be seen on
Plate 53
b. By 1763 the house was licensed to
Langley as the Bunch of Grapes. Some reconstruction took place in 1792 for the occupants,
licensees of the 'Wine Vaults' here. (ref. 107) The adjacent house, No. 13, was probably built in 1785. (ref. 2)
No. 15 dates from 1729 (see below), and Nos. 17
and 19 are perhaps in carcase the houses built in
1753 by a local carpenter, John Tinkler. (ref. 108) On
the south side the plain and slightly altered house
at No. 32 is contemporary with the adjacent
buildings in Wellington Street and like them was
evidently erected under the supervision of the
architect, Samuel Beazley (see page 228).
Ratepaying occupants of York Street include:
William, Viscount Monson of Castlemaine,
1635–6, member of the Long Parliament;
Francis Beale, 1636–9, ? author; Robert Scawen,
1637–43, member of the Long Parliament and
servant to the Earl of Bedford; Dr. Gibbs, 1637–
c. 1645; William Jesson, c. 1647–52, member of
the Long Parliament; Captain Maxfeilde, c. 1647;
Ulick De Burgh, fifth Earl and Marquis of
Clanricarde, 1654–6; Dr. Walter Charleton,
c. 1672–91, physician; Samuel Baker, 1753–77,
bookseller, succeeded here by George Leigh,
1778, and by George Leigh and John Sotheby,
1779–1804; Major Payler, 1775–7; Henry
George Bohn, 1831–67, bookseller and publisher;
Joseph Zaehnsdorf, 1873–86, bookbinder.
No. 15 Tavistock Street
Formerly No. 13 York Street
This house was erected in 1729 by Caleb
Waterfield, a carpenter of St. Anne's, Soho, under
a fifty-one-year building lease granted to him by
the freeholder, John Hemingway Athy. (ref. 109) It is a
conventionally planned house containing a basement and four storeys (Plate 81b). Above an
altered shop front it retains the original front of
yellow-brown brickwork, fine red brick being
used for the gauged arches of the three segmentalheaded windows evenly spaced in each storey, and
for the bandcourse of two fascias extending below
the attic. All the windows have exposed segmental-headed box-frames, dressed with mouldings and containing small-paned sashes. The
ground storey has recently been altered, the fluted
Doric pilasters flanking the house door surviving
from a four-bay shop front of early nineteenthcentury date.
The narrow passage-hall on the east side of the
shop leads to the panelled compartment containing the dog-legged staircase, which has a railing
of simply turned balusters and Doric columnnewels, rising from moulded closed strings to
support moulded handrails. The large front room
of the second storey is lined with raised-andfielded panelling in two heights, the ovolomoulded framing being finished with a moulded
dado-rail and a box-cornice. On the south side of
the chimney-breast is a cupboard, its segmentalheaded door of raised-and-fielded panels being
framed by Doric pilasters and an appropriate
entablature. The embrasures of the three windows
are furnished with panelled shutters, with matching soffits. The back room, with an angle
chimney-breast, is lined with plain rebated
panelling below a box-cornice. Similar panelling
lining the third-storey rooms is finished with a
box-cornice on the partition wall and a reduced
cornice elsewhere.
Nos. 34–38 (even) Tavistock
Street
Formerly Nos. 5–3 (consec.) York Street
These three buildings were originally erected
in 1733. (ref. 2) No. 34 appears to have been built by
one James Walker (ref. 110) although the first occupant
was Thomas Walker, in 1734–7. (ref. 2) Nos. 36 and
38 were erected by Robert Umpleby of St.
George's, Hanover Square, carpenter, under two
fifty-one-year building leases granted to him by
the freeholder, John Hemingway Athy: (ref. 111) the
first occupants were Peter Webb and Company
(1734–7) and Hannah Calbeck (1734–6) at No.
36, and Lucy Harris (1734–8) at No. 38. (ref. 2)
In the autumn of 1821 Thomas de Quincey
lodged in a room formerly behind No. 36 (then
No. 4 York Street) while writing his Confessions
of an English Opium Eater. (ref. 112) The bookseller and
publisher, H. G. Bohn, occupied No. 36 from
1831 and No. 34 also from 1839, until 1867. (ref. 2)
He was perhaps responsible for the insertion of
the matching shop fronts.
Each of the three houses, containing a basement and four storeys, is planned on conventional
lines, Nos. 34 and 36 having a mirrored
arrangement of rooms. Above the shop fronts the
houses share a plain front of yellow-brown stock
brickwork, its only ornament being the moulded
cornice of painted stone or stucco extending
below the attic (Plate 81a). Nos. 34 and 36
each has three windows to each storey and
No. 38 has two, all with sashes recessed in openings having plastered reveals and flat arches of
gauged brick, probably yellow. At Nos. 34 and
36 the attic has been largely rebuilt, the windowopenings with segmental-arched heads. A plain
sill-band of painted stone or stucco still underlines
the second-storey windows of No. 38, and the
attic windows of No. 36 are furnished with
Gothick guard-railings of cast iron.
The attractive early nineteenth-century shop
fronts of Nos. 34 and 36 are divided into four
bays by Doric pilasters supporting entablatures.
No. 36 has the least changed example, with the
house door on the left and two small-paned display windows flanking the shop door.
No. 34 has the most interesting and best preserved interior (Plates 80c, 80d, 81c). The hallpassage and dog-legged staircase are on the east side
of two rooms, now united by a wide opening
framed by a flattened elliptical arch rising from
fluted pilasters. Regency Grecian decoration
enriches the arch, an egg-and-dart moulding on the
arrises and acanthus scrollwork in the spandrels,
while above it extends a frieze modelled with
classical figures, women bringing offerings to an
altar and boys riding horses. A similar frieze
extends above the French window in the south
wall. The wooden staircase has from ground to
second-storey level a railing of turned and
twisted balusters, two to each tread, rising from
cut strings ornamented with carved scrollbrackets, to support moulded handrails terminating above plain Doric column-newels. Here the
walls of the compartment are fully lined with
plain panelling in ovolo-moulded framing, and the
staircase soffits are similarly panelled. The upper
flights are more simply treated, with moulded
closed strings, turned column-and-urn balusters,
and a dado of plain rebated panelling.
Except for the chimney-breast, the front room
on the second storey has retained its original lining
of raised-and-fielded panelling in ovolo-moulded
framing. Here an enriched plaster cornice has
replaced the wooden original, which survives
above the panelling in the back room. The
second-storey front room has been altered, but
the back room has its original plain rebated
panelling and a typical early-Georgian chimneypiece of veined white marble, its wide flat jambs
and elliptically arched head being panelled with
recessed channelling. The angled chimney-breast
has a plain rebated panel for a chimney-glass,
below a large raised panel framed with a bolection
moulding. A recess to the right of the single
window was probably the entrance to a closet, no
longer existing.