Wellington Street
Nos. 23–31 (odd) and 18–26 (even)
Wellington Street
Of the present Wellington Street only the part
north of Exeter Street lies within the area described in this volume. Of this part, only the
short section between Exeter Street and Tavistock
Street was made at the same time as the more
southerly portion leading up from the Strand:
north of Tavistock Street was an existing street
of which the name was only subsequently changed
from Charles Street to Wellington Street (see
pages 195–6).
Wellington Street from the Strand to Tavistock
Street was made in 1833–5 by the Commissioners
of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues under an
Act of Parliament of September 1831. (ref. 135) Its
construction had been made feasible by the burning down in February 1830 of the English Opera
House, which had stood athwart this line (Plate
8). The street linked the Strand, opposite the
northern approaches of Waterloo Bridge, to
Long Acre: the widening of the north end of
Bow Street was carried out by the Commissioners
at the same time (see pages 186–7). The new line
of communication was beneficial to the proprietors of Waterloo Bridge, who offered to contribute £5,000 to its cost. (ref. 136)
The property involved belonged to a number
of owners. South of a line running along the
northern boundary of the present No. 18 Wellington Street it belonged to the Marquis of Exeter,
and north of that line to the sixth Duke of
Bedford (on the west side of the street) and to
Captain Richard Clay and other individuals (on
the east side). (ref. 137) The land required for the
roadway from the Marquis of Exeter was obtained mainly by exchange for land fronting on
its west side, where the new English Opera
House or Lyceum Theatre was built by Samuel
Beazley for Lord Exeter's lessee, S. J. Arnold. (fn. a)
The Duke of Bedford's land was obtained from
him for a 'nominal sum', (ref. 138) and Captain Clay's
smaller piece of land apparently by exchange for a
piece of newly created frontage at the corner of
the intended street and York Street. (ref. 139) Most of
the remaining cost of acquiring the land was in the
purchase of the various leasehold interests. (ref. 140)
Only the minimum ground necessary for the
line of the street itself was acquired by the
Commissioners, with hardly any ground fronting
on the street. Where the properties purchased
necessarily included some of the new street
frontages these parts were almost all immediately
sold or exchanged back to the landlords, together
with any leasehold interests acquired by the
Commissioners in such parts. (ref. 141) Thus the buildings along the new street were erected under
leases from the old landlords. (fn. b)
The plan of the proposed street, by the Commissioners' architects, Thomas Chawner and
Henry Rhodes, was deposited with the Clerk
of the Peace for Westminster in December
1831. (ref. 143) Houses in the Strand were being demolished in September 1833. (ref. 144) The southern
part of the roadway was sufficiently complete
for the Lyceum Theatre to be opened in July
1834. (ref. 145) The rest of the street was opened early
in 1835. (ref. 146)
The street was at first generally called Wellington Street North (ref. 147) to distinguish it from the
existing Wellington Street (now Lancaster Place)
which extended from Waterloo Bridge to the
south side of the Strand.
In 1840, soon after the street was completed,
(Sir) James Pennethorne, one of the architects
then employed by the Commissioners of Woods
and Forests, gave evidence before a Select Committee of the House of Commons on improvements to the metropolis. He was concerned to
argue that the Commissioners should purchase
sufficient ground on both sides of the proposed
Coventry Street-Cranbourn Street extension, and
not merely the ground for the roadway itself.
The contrary policy followed in the northern
part of Wellington Street had been, he considered,
'a complete failure'. (ref. 148)
The length of time that it had taken to open the
street since the passing of the requisite Act had
certainly caused dissatisfaction. In December
1834 the Committee of Management of St.
Paul's, Covent Garden, had sent to the First
Commissioner of Works an outspoken complaint
at the slow rate of progress. Since 1830 'the
neighbourhood has been in a most deplorable
state, and many of its Inhabitants have been
severe sufferers. . . . Instances have but too recently occurred where housekeepers have been
driven to the Workhouse and the Gaol. This
picture is not overdrawn.' More recent street
improvements in the City were already completed 'whilst the short opening from Exeter
Street to Charles Street—scarcely 200 yards in
length—remains month after month and year
after year without much visible progress towards
completion'. (ref. 132) The Companion to the Almanac
for 1835 commented that 'upon the whole, this
improvement has not been carried forward with
the spirit which has marked other things of the
same kind'. (ref. 149) The need to arrange compensatory
exchanges of pieces of land did not help the work
forward, and in July 1834 Chawner and Rhodes
were attributing the delay in completing the
street northward of the Lyceum Theatre to Lord
Exeter's failure to settle the ground rents of
frontages with his lessees. (ref. 150)
Despite Pennethorne's strictures the buildings
fronting on the new street between Exeter Street
and Tavistock Street did not stand unoccupied
for an exceptionally long period. The houses on
the west side were first assessed for rates in 1835
and on the east side (except for the site of the
present No. 18) in 1836. All the houses (with
this exception) were occupied in 1836–7. (ref. 16) The
shop and factory at No. 18 was built in 1839 (see
below). Pennethorne's complaint of 'complete
failure' perhaps refers to the unsatisfactory nature
of the tenants: by 1840 nine of the houses had had
a change of occupant, and three of these occupants
had become insolvent. (ref. 16)
The degree of architectural control exercised
over this short extent of street by the Commissioners is difficult to assess. They evidently
claimed a right to approve the elevations in the
interest of visual uniformity. (ref. 151) How far their
control was effective there is insufficient evidence
to say, as four of the five houses on the west side
have been pulled down. The east side north of
No. 18, consisting of frontages belonging to
Captain Clay (Nos. 20, 22, and 24) and a corner
site (No. 26) bought from the Commissioners by a
builder, Stephen Bird of Kensington, did achieve
uniformity. (ref. 152) This is probably attributable to
Samuel Beazley, who was acting as Captain
Clay's surveyor in respect of Nos. 20, 22 and 24
(and in the rebuilding of No. 6 York Street, now
No. 32 Tavistock Street). (ref. 153) Stephen Bird, as
well as being the purchaser of the corner site,
was the Commissioners' contractor for laying
the sewers in the street, (ref. 154) and was the Duke of
Bedford's building lessee at the sites of Nos. 27, 29
and 31 on the west side. The Duke's surveyor
here was Thomas Stead. (ref. 155)
Of the three buildings erected by lessees of the
Marquis of Exeter one remains, the Old Bell
public house at the north-west corner with
Exeter Street, built in 1835. (ref. 156) The most attention, however, was attracted by the last building
to be erected in this part of the street, in 1839, at
the north-east corner with Exeter Street, on the
present site of No. 18. This was C. F. Bielefeld's
papier-mâché works, erected under a building
lease from the Marquis dated October 1839. (ref. 157)
Journalists found it 'too conspicuous and remarkable an object for us to pass it by unmentioned',
and noted the disharmony of a design that expressed the conjunction of ground-floor shop and
upper-storey workrooms in harsh brick and
stone. (ref. 158) The lofty first stage was raised above a
basement plinth and contained the ground storey
and mezzanine, lit by a series of large windows
recessed between massive piers of channeljointed stone courses. The upper face of three
storeys was of red brick, with quoins and entablature of stone. This contained one tier of
mullioned-and-transomed windows dressed with
stone in a Jacobean fashion, but over these were
two low tiers of three-light windows more suggestive of the building's function (fig. 41). The
architect was Sydney Smirke, (ref. 159) a fact provoking
Fraser's Magazine to remark that 'that gentleman
is far from being so strait-laced in his taste as his
brother'. As well as tainting the neighbourhood
with its smoke, the factory was an insufferable
nuisance by reason of the 'hordes of vagabond
boys' employed there. (ref. 160) By 1861 Bielefeld was
bankrupt and had given up the site. (ref. 161) This is
now occupied by the building lately the Victoria
Club-house.
Figure 41:
C. F. Bielefeld's papier mâché works, Wellington Street. From an engraving in C. F. Bielefeld's Improved
Papier Mâché, 1850
No. 18 Wellington Street
This building was erected in 1863–4 for the
Victoria Club, a social and sporting club which
had been founded in 1860 by a consortium of
bookmakers in Blackfriars, and it was here that
the call-over of odds before important horse-races
was conducted. The architect of the club-house
named in The Builder when the tender was
published in August 1863 was 'Mr. Parnell',
presumably Charles Octavius Parnell, architect
of the Army and Navy Club-house and Whitehall
Club-house. The builders were Jackson and
Shaw, whose tender was accepted at £7,198. (ref. 162)
The Victoria Club-house (Plate 67c) shows a
marked decline from the standard of Parnell's
earlier essays in the opulent Venetian Renaissance style. While poverty of invention is all too
evident in the street elevations, vulgar ostentation pervades the three-bay entrance feature
on the curved corner. Here the lofty arched doorway is recessed in a face dressed with a rusticated
and enriched Ionic order; the second storey expands forwards with a bowed Venetian window,
flanked by round-arched windows; the thirdstorey windows are dressed with pedimented
architraves, segmental between triangular, and
the crowning cornice is enriched with dentils and
modillions.
The entrance hall is a small rotunda, with the
doors and windows recessed in bays between
plain-shafted Doric columns. These support
entablature-blocks, providing the springing for
the groined arches of the bays, and for the enriched ribs dividing the domed ceiling into compartments. North of the rotunda is the staircase,
rising from ground to first floor in a compartment
of flat-sided oval plan. The principal rooms are
on the ground and first floors, each with a range
of windows on to Exeter Street. In both rooms
the ceilings are divided by transverse beams into
deeply recessed compartments with coved surrounds, those in the upper room retaining a
decoration of large acanthus leaves.