Wanderings in London, Piccadilly, Mayfair, and Pall Mall

by E. Beresford Chancellor

Another great statesman also once resided in Grafton Street, in the person of Charles James Fox, who was here, in 1783, before he moved to his temporary lodging at an hotel in Berkeley Square, and afterwards to the house in which we have met him in Clarges Street. When Mrs. Fitzherbert left Upper Grosvenor Street she came to live in Grafton Street in 1796; and among other notable inhabitants of the past, the names of Admiral Earl Howe, who died here, at No. 11, in 1799; Lord Stowell, at No. 16; the Marquis Cornwallis, subsequently to his sojourn in Grosvenor-Street; and the Right Honourable George Tierney, in 1809, occur to me.

HAY HILL.

If we leave Grafton Street, where it turns at right angles and continues without break into Dover Street, we shall see on our right a sharp declivity leading into Berkeley Square; this is Hay Hill, named from a farm which once stood here—if one can possibly imagine anything of the sort in this locality, unless the trees in Lansdowne House gardens, which are seen at the bottom of the hill, are sufficient to carry our minds to anything so rural. The Tyburn flowed at the foot of Hay Hill, as we have seen, and perhaps a water mill creaked noisily where nowadays the hoofs of toiling horses grind the pavement. In any case it seems to have been a desirable possession, for I find that, in 1617, it was granted to Hector Johnstone, who afforded help, probably of a monetary character, to that unfortunate Elector Palatine of Bohemia, whose father-in-law, our own pacific James I., was so dilatory in assisting.

At a later date, in Queen Anne’s day to wit, it was granted to the Speaker of the House of Commons, who eventually sold it, and gave the £200 which he thus obtained for it to the poor. If proof were wanted of the sudden and immense increase in the value of property in the West End, we have it in the fact that, before 1759, the same estate was disposed of by the Pomfret family, into whose possession it had come, for the very respectable sum of £20,000 odd.

Hay Hill has its historical importance, for here the heads of Sir Thomas Wyatt and three of his adherents were exposed after the failure of the well-known attempt to unthrone Queen Mary in 1554; and here George, Prince of Wales, with the Duke of York, returning from one of their frequent nightly revels, was held up by a highwayman, and the combined resources of the heir to the throne and his brother amounted to just half a crown!

BERKELEY SQUARE.

At the bottom of Hay Hill, we are in Berkeley Square, in many respects the most interesting of London’s “quadrates,” as they were once termed. It was formed on portions of the grounds of Berkeley House, and Evelyn, the Diarist, helped to lay out the estate, of which it is a part. Lansdowne House, with its gardens, occupies the south side of the square. This magnificent example of Adam’s work was erected for Lord Bute, George III.’s unpopular Minister, but was sold by him, in a yet unfinished state, to the Earl of Shelburne, the ancestor of the Marquis of Lansdowne, who now occupies it. It naturally dwarfs all the other houses in the square, but many of these are also full of interest.

At No. 6 lived the second Lord Chatham, and here William Pitt sometimes stayed; close by, at No. 10, Sir Colin Campbell lived and died; and next door to his residence was the last of Horace Walpole’s homes in London, now indicated by a tablet.

Other interesting people whose names have in the past been connected with Berkeley Square include Colley Cibber, and Charles James Fox; Lord Clive, who committed suicide at No. 45, and Lord Brougham, who occupied in turn two houses here; Lord and Lady Clermont, in whose house the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire took refuge from the Gordon Rioters, and Lady Anne Lindsay, who wrote “Auld Robin Gray”; Lord Canterbury, once Speaker of the House of Commons when Mr. Manners Sutton; and Child, the banker, whose daughter ran away with Lord Westmorland, and whose house, No. 38, now rebuilt, is the residence of the Earl of Rosebery. In fact the whole square is full of memories, social, historical, and political, and clinging about almost every house are recollections of the witty, the powerful, and the illustrious, who have at one time or another dwelt within their walls.

From Berkeley Square and its adjacent streets we enter into that large district known as Mayfair, which in the next chapter we shall have all our work cut out to even superficially examine.