King's Mews

The King's Mews (Horwood, 1799) or Great Mews (Strype, 1720) or Royal Mews (Rocque, 1746) was at the western end of the Strand, immediately to the north of Charing Cross.

To the north was the Upper Mews (Horwood, 1799) or Green Mews (Strype, 1720; Rocque, 1746).

They were cleared for the National Gallery and Trafalgar Square.

Mews (or the Great Mewse) yard, on the N. side of Cha+ [Charing Cross] near the Statue, so called from a word signifying Change, and is a place where Hawks are kept while they Mue or Change their Feathers; so here the King's Hawks were formerly kept, till the 28 of Hen. 8. when the King's Stables in Blomesbury were burnt down: There were new ones built here by Edw. 6. and Queen Mary, which have been for the use of the King's Horses ever since.

Mews, the stables for the King's horses near Charing Cross, is a place of considerable antiquity, and is thus denominated from Mew, a term used among falconers, signifying to moult or cast feathers; for this place was used for the accommodation of the King's falconers and hawks, so early as the year 1377; but the King's stables at Lomesbury, since called Bloomsbury, being destroyed by fire in the year 1537, King Henry VIII. caused the hawks to be removed, and the Mews enlarged and fitted up for the reception of his Majesty's horses, where they have been kept ever since: the building going to decay, the north side was rebuilt in a magnificent manner by his present Majesty, in the year 1732.

There is something in this part of the intended building of the Mews very noble, particularly the center, which is enriched with columns and a pediment, and the continuity of the architecture preserved. The smaller pediment and rustic arch under the cupolas or lanthorns are properly subordinate, but set so close to the balustrade that its intent, as a gallery, is thereby destroyed. In the view given in the print scarce half the front is seen: and over some old houses you see the beautiful steeple and part of the portico of St. Martin's church, which has the general fate of our public buildings, to be so incumbered with houses as to have no place to view them to advantage.

Upon viewing this edifice, it is impossible not to be offended at the wretched buildings which form the other sides of the square. It is indeed much to be wished that they were made to correspond with the main building; this, if it were done, and a suitable regular entrance made from Charing Cross, would make the royal stables one of the greatest ornaments of this metropolis. Some of the finest horses in the kingdom, both for the coach and saddle, may here be seen.

King's Mews, Charing-Cross,—a few yards on R. from the Strand, towards the Haymarket, the principal entrance is op. the Phoenix Fire-office.

King's-Mews, or Meuse, Charing Cross, were formerly the stables for the king's horses, which now are kept in the royal stables at Pimlico. They derive their name from having been in ancient times the meuse, or place for keeping the king's hawks. This well-proportioned building was designed by the celebrated amateur architect the Earl of Burlington, and is now used for the exhibition-rooms of the National Repository, and for the museum of living birds and beasts that was formerly at Exeter 'Change.

Mews (The King's), Charing Cross, stood on the site of Trafalgar Square, and was "so called of the King's falcons there kept."¹ Minshew derives the word from mutare, to change; and hawks, it is said, were kept here while they mewed or changed their feathers.

Then is the Mewse, so called of the king's falcons there kept by the king's falconer, which of old time was an office of great account, as appeareth by a record of Richard II. in the first year of his reign. Sir Simon Burley, knight, was made constable for the castles of Windsor, Wigmore, and Guilford, and of the manor of Kenington, and also master of the king's falcons at the Mewse near unto Charing Cross by Westminster; but in the year of Christ 1534, the 26th of Henry VIII., the king having fair stabling at Lomsbery (a manor in the farthest west part of Oldborne), the same was fired and burnt, with many great horses and great store of hay: after which time, the forenamed house called the Mewse, by Charing Cross, was new built and prepared for stabling of the king's horses in the reign of Edward VI. and Queen Mary, and so remaineth to that use.—Stow, p. 167.

October 8, 1604.—Warrant to pay certain Sums to And. Kerwyn, for building a barn and stable at the Mews, Charing Cross, for the service of the Prince.—Cal. State Pap., 1603–1610, p. 156.

January 27, 1609.—Grant to Art. Proger of the Keeper of the Mews at Charing Cross for life.—Ibid., p. 488.

When Charles I. put down the Bowling Green in his own Spring Garden, the Lord Chamberlain (Lord Pembroke and Montgomery) encouraged a servant of his to set up a new one "in the fields behind the Meuse."

June 24, 1635.—Here is built a faire house, and two bowling greens made to entertain gamesters and bowlers, at an excessive rate; for I believe it hath cost him above four thousand pounds; a dear undertaking for a Gentleman Barber. My Lord Chamberlain much frequents that place where they bowl great matches.—Garrard to Wentworth.

1637.—The Court is now filled with the families of every mean courtier. Dwelling houses are daily erected in every corner of the Mews fit only for Stables.—Garrard, Stafford Letters, vol ii. p. 141.

After the Battle of Naseby (1645) 4500 prisoners and fifty-five captured standards were carried through Islington and down St. Martin's Lane, guarded by the Green and Yellow Regiments of the City, "and finally lodged in the Mews at Charing Cross till further orders."² Here M. St Antoine (commemorated by the pencil of Vandyck) taught the noble art of horsemanship;¹ and here, in Charles II.'s time, Rowley, the famous stallion, stood, whose name was transferred, by the wits about the Court, to his royal master at Whitehall. Addison (Freeholder, June 1, 1716) carries his Tory foxhunter from the Stocks Market to the Meuse, and represents him as "not a little edified widi the sight of those fine sets of horses which have been brought over from Hanover, and with the care that is taken of them. He made many good remarks upon this occasion, and was so pleased with the company that I had much ado to get him out of the stable." So that the first of the Hanover princes must have brought over the cream-coloured horses along with him. Gay, writing his Trivia about this time, describes it as a noted shoeblack's station—

The youth straight chose his post; the labour plied
Where branching streets from Charing Cross divide;
His treble voice resounds along the Meuse
And Whitehall echoes "Clean your Honour's shoes!"

Savage professed to have picked up his Author to be Let—which Johnson says, "Would do honour to the greatest names"—"at the Mews' Gate in my way from Charing Cross to Hedge Lane."

"Honest Tom Payne's at the Mews' Gate" was a favourite resort of bookish men about 1780. Here, and at Peter Elmsley's in the Strand, says Beloe in the Sexagenarian, "A wandering scholar in search df pabulum might be almost certain of meeting Cracherode, George Stevens, Malone, Windham, Lord Stormont, Sir John Hawkins, Lord Spencer, Porson, Burney, Thomas Grenville, Wakefield, Dean Dampier, King of Mansfield Street, Townley, Colonel Stanley, etc."

The Mews was rebuilt in 1732, William Kent, architect, and taken down in 1830. It was used in its latter days to shelter Mr. Cross's Menagerie from Exeter 'Change, and the Records of Great Britain, removed from Westminster.

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¹ Stow, p. 167.
² Markham's Fairfax, p. 227.

¹ Duchess of Newcastle's Life of the Duke, p. 142.