The records of His Grace the Duke of Bedford, however, lend no countenance whatever to the suggestion that Wren’s son occupied the house, and indeed show Stephen Wren as residing in a house, afterwards known as No. 32, on the south side of the street, in 1751, when he wrote the letters “headed Great Russell Street,” on which Elmes apparently relied in making his statement. As regards the ascription of the design of the house to Sir Christopher Wren, the Bedford Estate records afford no direct evidence.
There is, however, no doubt that these premises were originally “Thanet House,” the Earl of Thanet having taken a lease of the house for a term of 62 years from Michaelmas, 1693. It would seem, indeed, that the Earl was actually in occupation some years previously, if this was the mansion referred to in the statement that the Earl’s eldest son was born “at Thanet House in Great Russell Street, on April 29th, 1686.”[[694]]
After 1787 it was divided into two houses, and is thus shown in the illustration included in Parton’s Hospital and Parish of St. Giles, a reproduction of which is given on the next page. A further division took place about 1820.
Writing in 1823, Elmes says:[[695]] “Sir Christopher’s noble front, with its majestic cantaliver cornice, has now been taken down by a speculative builder, and common Act of Parliament fronts run up.” The present elevation corresponds to this description, and the interiors of the houses are without any noteworthy features. It is interesting to note that the “speculative builder” is shown by the Bedford Estate records to have been Thomas Cubitt.
G. Scharf. Lithog.
Thanet House. Great Russell Street.
Condition of repair.
The premises are in good repair.
Biographical notes.
Thomas Tufton, 6th Earl of Thanet, was born in 1644, and died in 1729.[[696]] Parton[[697]] mentions that the autograph of the Earl, as a vestryman of St. Giles, occurs in the parish books between the years 1684 and 1690. The death of his eldest son at “Thanet House in Great Russell Street,” in 1686 has already been referred to.