Hampstead and Marylebone

by G. E. Mitton

Portman Square was begun about 1764, but not completed for nearly twenty years. The centre was at first a shrubbery or wilderness, and here the Turkish Ambassador placed a summer-house or kiosk, where he used to sit when the Turkish Embassy was in this Square. Thornbury says he was then occupying Montagu House, but Smith says the Embassy was in No. 78, and Montagu House is now numbered 22. However, it is possible that the numbers have been altered. The list of the names of the present inhabitants reads like a page from the Court Guide. Among the most important are those of the Duke and Duchess of Fife at No. 15, and Viscount Portman at Montagu House.

This house was built for Mrs. Montagu, a celebrated blue-stocking of the eighteenth century. She was born at York in 1720, and came to Montagu House in 1781. Here she founded the "Blue-Stocking" Club, and gathered round her many famous men and women. On May 1 every year she gave a feast to all the chimney-sweeps of London, "so that they might enjoy one happy day in the year," an expression hardly appreciated now when the lot of chimney-sweeps is so very different from what it was then. Timbs remarks of the house: "Here Miss Burney was welcomed and Dr. Johnson grew tame." The lease reverted to the Portman family in 1874.

York Place, Baker Street, and Orchard Street form a long line cutting straight through from Marylebone Road to Oxford Street. Baker Street was named after a friend of W. H. Portman's. The combined thoroughfare is uniformly ugly, with stiff, flat houses and some shops. Nos. 8 and 9, York Place were once occupied by Cardinal Wiseman, and later by Cardinal Manning. They are now Bedford College for Ladies. The Baker Street Bazaar was originally designed for the sale of horses, and behind it, until 1861, was held the Smithfield Cattle Club Show. Later, the bazaar was the scene of Madame Tussaud's well-known waxworks.

Portman Chapel, near Adam Street, was built in 1779. Between King and George Streets is Little George Street, in which is a French chapel, built in the reign of George III. by emigrés from the French Revolution. It is a Catholic chapel, and is called "Chapelle de St. Louis de France."

Orchard Street was named after W. H. Portman, of Orchard Portman in Somerset, who bought the estate of the manor. St. Thomas's Church is the only object of note in the street; it was built by Hardwick, and consecrated July 1, 1858.

In Lower Seymour Street is the Steinway Hall, used for concerts and various entertainments. In Nos. 9, 11, 13 is the home of the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul. Two of these houses were formerly occupied by the Samaritan Eye Hospital. A statue of our Lord stands over the central doorway, and at His feet an inscription on stone announces that a night-home for girls of good character was originally started here, and was founded by public subscription in honour of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and in memory of the pilgrimage made to Paray-le-Monial on September 4, 1873, by the Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland. The Home is now for destitute children, and is on the same lines as the sister institution at Westminster. The noticeable feature of the Home is that girls who have been placed out as dressmakers, teachers, etc., and are earning their own living, may still return every evening. The Sisters are also engaged in many other charitable works.

Manchester Square was begun in 1776 by the building of Manchester House on the north side, but the house was not finished until 1788. It was built for the Duke of Manchester, but was afterwards the residence of the Spanish Ambassador. The Roman Catholic chapel in Spanish Place was built during the Embassy from designs by Bonomi. It was restored in 1832, but has been replaced by a large church in the next street, and its site is now covered by high red-brick flats. The French Embassy succeeded the Spanish, but was withdrawn at the time of the last Revolution. The Marquis of Hertford afterwards occupied the house, and called it after himself. He was succeeded by Sir Richard Wallace, who built immense picture galleries round the garden at the back, enclosing it in a quadrangle. He almost rebuilt the house, and at his death left his famous collection of pictures and curios, which were brought here from the Bethnal Green Museum, to be eventually bequeathed to the nation, which was done on the death of Lady Wallace.

North Street leads us into a network of small slums, and Paradise Street opens into a public recreation ground, laid out with trees and shrubs, where the children play among sombre altar-tombs of a past generation. This was formerly a cemetery, consecrated in 1733, and the Marylebone historian, Smith, says that more than 80,000 persons have been interred in it. Of the names he gives—country gentlemen, baronets, captains, etc.—none are now remembered. George III.'s master-cook and Princess Amelia's bedchamber woman are of little interest to us of the twentieth century. The only men here buried who can claim a faint degree of posthumous fame are Canning, father of the great statesman, and Bonomi the architect.

The cemetery on the north side of Paddington Street was consecrated much later, in 1772. In this also there is little of present interest. Stephen Riou, one of Nelson's captains, killed in action at Copenhagen, deserves mention, but the others have no public memory. The Mortuary and Coroner's Court stand near the ground, of which the greater part is attached to the workhouse for the benefit of the inmates.

Paddington Street was built about the time of the consecration of the northern graveyard. It is in the centre of a poor district, and has nothing to commend it. There is a mission-house and an Industrial Home for Destitute Boys.