Charles II Street
Names
- Charles Street
- Charles II Street
Street/Area/District
- Charles II Street
Maps & Views
- 1720 London (Strype): Charles Street
- 1746 London, Westminster & Southwark (Rocque): Charles Street
- 1761 London (Dodsley): Charles Street
- 1799 London (Horwood): Charles Street
Descriptions
from A Topographical Dictionary of London and Its Environs, by James Elmes (1831)
Charles-St., St. James's-square, is near the middle of the east side of the square, intersecting Regent-street, and extending from Haymarket to the square.
from Lockie's Topography of London, by John Lockie (1810)
Charles-Street, St. James's-Square,—the middle of the E. side, intersecting St. Albans-street, at 14, and extending to Market-lane behind the Opera-house.
from London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions, by Henry Benjamin Wheatley and Peter Cunningham (1891)
Charles Street, St. James's Square. The western portion, built 1673, and so called in compliment to Charles II., but the portion east of Regent Street was, as late as 1720, a narrow alley called Six Bell Alley (Strype); it had, however, ceased to be in 1761 (Dodsley). Among the earliest inhabitants were—(1673) Aubrey de Vere, twentieth Earl of Oxford; Robert Rich, second Earl of Holland; John, first Lord Belasyse, and Thomas Lord Clifford. (1674) Sir Charles Lyttelton, Sir John Duncombe. Edmund Burke lived in this street for a time, and here Crabbe left his letter, and obtained the patronage and friendship of Burke. The house would have been destroyed by the mob in the Gordon Riots of 1780 if a guard of sixteen soldiers had not been furnished for its protection.1 Madame Catalani was lodging at No. 3 in 1807. John Hoppner, the portrait painter, and rival of Sir Thomas Lawrence, died at No. 18 in 1810. He was living there in 1792, and after his decease his son, L. Hoppner, continued in the same house. Canning lived at No. 4 in 1796. George Biggin, the inventor of the coffee-biggin, died here in 1803.