London House

[London House.] Next to Norfolk House is the official town residence of the Bishops of London. It was rebuilt about the year 1820.

London House, St. James's Square, was purchased for the See of London in 1771, when it was very old and dilapidated; and an Act was passed in 181 9 to enable the Bishop to borrow £10,000 to be expended in rebuilding it. The house was rebuilt from the designs of C.R. Cockerell, architect.

No. 32

... Little is known of the history of the first house built here. The site was granted by the Earl of St. Albans and Baptist May to trustees for John, first Lord Belasyse, together with the sites to the north and south of it (see page 191), on the same day in March 1669/70 on which Lord Halifax was granted his site on the west side of the square. (fn. 4) No. 32 first appears in the ratebooks in 1673, at the same time as No. 33. The only respect in which these houses seem to have differed externally from the other single-plot houses which followed them in the square was in the chimneystack which ran up the facade between them. (fn. 5)

The first occupant of No. 32 was Robert Rich, Earl of Holland and Warwick, whose widow occupied the house after him. From 1689 to 1691 the widow of Lord Belasyse, who had lived in No. 33 until his death, resided in the house while her son lived next door. From 1692 onwards, however, the house was occupied for short periods by a succession of residents, presumably as tenants of the Belasyse family.

From 1729 to 1737 the rates were paid by the Earl of Ashburnham, who died in the house. For part of this time, however, from November 1732 to September 1735, the house was tenanted by Sir Robert Walpole. (fn. 6) During Walpole's occupation of the house a high wind in January 1734/5 sufficed to cause the collapse of the kitchen buildings. (fn. 7)

In 1749–53, during the rebuilding of the neighbouring site as part of the new Norfolk House, No. 32 stood empty before Lord Montague entered into occupation of the house. (fn. 8) But no reconstruction at this period is apparent in Bowles's view published in c. 1752 (Plate 130) which shows the original seventeenth-century façade.

In 1766 the house was sold by Lord Montague to Earl Brooke, Earl of Warwick, (fn. 1) for £5000. (fn. 9) In 1770 the sale of the house to Richard Terrick, Bishop of London, as a town residence for him and his successors in the see, was negotiated. Robert Mylne surveyed the house in February, judged that it was 'strong substantial and well built', prophesied accurately that it 'would stand for Fifty Years', and valued it at £5000. Lord Warwick is nevertheless said to have spent £1000 or more repairing and refronting the house, and the sale which was finally made in January 1771 was for £6200. (fn. 10)

The construction of Waterloo Place obliged the New Street Commissioners to reconstruct part of the back premises of No. 32, and also of No. 33. (fn. 11) An arrangement was made in 1813 by which the Commissioners were to give the Bishop and the owner of No. 33, Lord Eliot, ground bought from the Duke of Norfolk, and to build stables on the reshaped back premises of the two houses. (fn. 12) From 1814 to the autumn of 1816 the Bishop's architect, Samuel Pepys Cockerell, was negotiating with John Nash, representing the Commissioners, and Soane, Lord Eliot's architect. A carriageway to the stables of No. 32 from Charles Street was provided across the back premises of No. 33, a plan approved in trial manœuvres carried out with a 'heavy coach' and an 'unskilful man' by Cockerell at Fulham and the Bishop in London. The delay in completing the arrangements was attributed by Nash to the suspicious nature of Lord Eliot (fn. 13) (see pages 207–8).

At this time Cockerell was reconstructing Fulham Palace for the Bishop, John Howley. In 1818 the alteration or rebuilding of No. 32 was taken in hand, probably facilitated by the fall in building costs following the conclusion of the war. In November of that year Cockerell informed Soane, who was extending No. 33, and with whom he had recently corresponded over the improved drainage from the two houses, that alterations at No. 32 were in contemplation but not yet settled. He again wrote to Soane in January 1819, offering to explain the proposed alterations and suggesting a discussion of the arrangement of the back premises of the Bishop's house to afford adequate lighting to No. 33. (fn. 14) In the same month he had informed the Bishop that the estimate for the alterations from the builders, David Jonathan of Beak Street, carpenter, and Joseph Drown of Broad Street, bricklayer (who was working next door at No. 33) was £200 less than he had expected, and suggested that a parliamentary Bill should be drafted seeking authority to rebuild the house out of the funds of the see. (fn. 15) By May it was found that legal opinion was adverse to the Bill, and the Bishop had then to decide whether to repair the house at his own expense or rebuild completely with money borrowed from ecclesiastical funds and repayable over a term probably longer than his own life. Cockerell thought that a thorough repair, with 'some improvement' but retaining the existing floor levels and the 'present character' of the front, would cost £4500, and recommended this rather than a complete rebuilding at about £8500. The Bishop decided, however, on the more ambitious alternative, and in July 1819 a private Act (fn. 16) was obtained which authorized the Bishop to borrow up to £10,000 for 'rebuilding wholly or in part and repairing' the house, and to mortgage property of the see to secure the loan. The Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty were empowered to advance the money. The subsequent leasing of the house was forbidden.

In August 1819 the Bishop, together with the Archbishop of Canterbury and J. H. Palmer, esquire, of Marylebone, who had been appointed under the Act to enter into contracts and make payments for the rebuilding, came to an agreement with Jonathan and Drown for the execution of the work according to detailed specifications and under the direction of S. P. and C. R. Cockerell. Jonathan and Drown agreed to do the work for £7823. This sum was later reduced to £7500, but payments for additional work by them and other workmen amounted to £3011 7s. 1d. A payment of £458 17s. was made to 'Messrs. Cockerell and Son, their Commission as Architects', and this, together with legal costs and payments to the clerk of the works, brought the sum total to £11,124 11s. 8d. The excess over the £10,000 authorized to be spent by the Act was paid by the Bishop 'out of his Lordship's private Estate'. (fn. 17) By September work had begun. The agreement had required it to be completed by December 1820 but in fact it was not finished until a year later and the final payments were made in April 1822. (fn. 17) (fn. 2)

The only known letter to Bishop Howley dealing directly with the design of the house was written in October 1819 by S. P. Cockerell's son, C. R. Cockerell, on behalf of his father. (fn. 13) The fact that he was charged with the task of explaining and commending the design to the Bishop and that plans for the rebuilding exist signed by him (fn. 18) suggest that it may have been largely his work and that The Builder of 1854 was correct in attributing the house to him and not to his father. (fn. 19) Four of the five certificates made to J. H. Palmer notifying the progress of the work were signed by C. R. Cockerell, who also seems to have been chiefly responsible for ordering the work additional to the contract. (fn. 20)

C. R. Cockerell's letter shows that the Bishop had questioned the propriety of the round-headed first-floor windows and had quoted 'authorities' critical of their juxtaposition to the more modest fenestration of Norfolk House. Cockerell, avowing his wish to satisfy the Bishop's expressed desire 'that the character of London House tho' little adorned should be distinguished from the usual order of Builders' Houses', pointed to the 'extremely awkward' width of the house, which was too great for three windows of ordinary form and too narrow for five, while four were objectionable as 'having no symmetry' and conflicting with the plan of the interior. Cockerell was particularly reluctant to reduce the intended size of the principal rooms which were 'already small', and was satisfied that the existing plan gave the best disposition of light 'which in the Drawing Room should be very chearful'. (fn. 13)

The rebuilt house was in occupation by 1821. (fn. 8)

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1. Of the Greville family, and not related to the first occupant of the house.

2. The workmen, besides Jonathan and Drown, were John Mallcott of 12 Newgate Street, mason; Richard Eaton of 5 Down Street, plumber; James Mackell, smith; William Crake of 18 Quebec Street, painter; Messrs. Robson and Hale of 214 Piccadilly, paperhangers and decorators; and Summers who provided stoves. The bricklayer Joseph Drown was responsible also for the plasterer's and slater's work, but his bill included a small sum paid to 'Gillespie for modelling the ornaments'.

4. P.R.O., C54/4287, No. 29.

5. Sutton Nicholls's view of the square of c. 1722.

6. The Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal, 25 Nov. 1732; Survey of London, vol. xiv, 1931, The Parish of St. Margaret, Westminster, Part III, p. 129 n., quoting The London Daily Post, 23 Sept. 1735; Watson's Court Calendar, 1733 and 1734.

7. H.M.C., Egmont MSS., Diary of Viscount Percival, vol. ii, 1923, p. 144.

8. R.B.

9. Deed of Prudential Assurance Co. Ltd., 10 July 1766.

10. Ibid., 18–19 Jan. 1771; A. E. Richardson, Robert Mylne, Architect and Engineer, 1955, pp. 85–6.

11. Church Commissioners, file FP 132; Soane Museum, correspondence, cupboard 2, division XIII, D.I.

12. Soane Museum, correspondence, cupboard 1, division VII, F No. 14.

13. Church Commissioners, file FP 132.

14. Soane Museum, correspondence, cupboard 2, division XIII, D.1, 59, 62.

15. For this and following see Church Commissioners, file FP 132.

16. 59 Geo. III, c. 45, private.

17. Articles of Agreement, and 'Nominees Account' in possession of Registrar of Diocese of London.

18. Plans and section in the possession of Mr. Walter Ison.

19. The Builder, 27 May 1854, p. 276.

20. Records in possession of Registrar of Diocese of London.