Somerset House, Park Lane

Large house in/near Marble Arch, existed between the 1770s and 1915.

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October
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2017
Somerset House was an 18th-century town house on the east side of Park Lane, where it meets Oxford Street, in the Mayfair area of London. It was also known as 40 Park Lane, although a renumbering means that the site is now called 140 Park Lane.

The house was built between 1769 and 1770 for John Bateman, 2nd Viscount Bateman and was designed by the master carpenter John Phillips, who was the "undertaker" for the whole north-west corner of the Grosvenor estate.

The new house was built with one side facing Park Lane, the main entrance being from a courtyard which continued the line of Hereford Street. It had four storeys above ground, with bay windows extending through the floors. One bay faced Park Lane, and two more faced the garden, which ran down to North Row. Although all surviving pictures of the house show it cased in stucco, at the outset the facades may have been bare brick, with the windows dressed in Portland stone. On the ground floor, the entrance hall was paved in Portland stone and leading from it were the dining room, the drawing room and a dressing room. The staircase rose from the hall, with stone steps and iron railings, to the second floor, which had three principal rooms, including Lady Bateman’s bedroom and her dressing-room. Of the chimneypieces in the main rooms, some cost £25 each, others £50.

At the northern end of the courtyard, where it met Oxford Street, there was a stable building, and under it with the kitchen, connected to the house by an underground passage from basement to basement.

In 1789 Bateman sold the house to Warren Hastings, a former Governor-General of India, for about £8,000, of which half was paid at once, with Hastings moving in during November 1789. This was shortly after he had been impeached, and he used the house as his London home throughout several years of a long trial which led to his acquittal in 1795. In 1797 he sold the house at auction, when it was bought by the third Earl of Rosebery for £9,450. Rosebery was offered the pictures on the walls but declined them, and Hastings later noted in his diary that they were "sold at Christie’s for nothing".

Little is known of Lord Rosebery’s eleven years of occupation. In 1808 the house was sold to the eleventh Duke of Somerset (1775-1855), when it was described as "a very good one".

The 11th Duke renamed the house "Somerset House", which Sir John Colville later called "a shade presumptuous of him, for there was another more splendid establishment bearing the name..." The house thus became the third ’Somerset House’ in London.

The Duke negotiated unsuccessfully with his neighbour Lord Grenville, who lived at Camelford House, Park Lane, as he wished to add to his new house, but enlarging it to the south would have detracted from Camelford, so in 1810 Somerset approached the second Earl Grosvenor about building in the courtyard between the house and the stables. However, there was doubt about the status of the yard, and Grosvenor thought the extension would darken Hereford Street.

In 1813 the Duke wrote to his brother, Lord Webb John Seymour, about his wife: "Charlotte is as busy as a bee upon a bank of thyme. Furnishing her house has been one occupation, and she has the fashionable predilection for old things". In 1819 the Duke again thought of building on his garden, and after negotiations with Grenville and Grosvenor a short two-storey extension close to the windows of the library at Camelford House was built, and in 1821 or 1822 a single-storey entrance corridor was added on the north side.

The Duke’s first duchess died at Somerset House in 1827, and he himself died there in 1855. After that, his second wife remained at the house until she died in 1880. The twelfth Duke made repairs, carried out by William Cubitt and Co., but after he died in 1885 the house was empty for some years.

The 12th Duke used the address "40, Park Lane". He left the house to his daughter Lady Hermione Graham, who became a widow in 1888. In 1890, she and her son Sir Richard Graham sold it to George Murray Smith, of Smith, Elder & Co., the publishers.

George Murray Smith, born in 1824, occupied the house, which became known as 40, Park Lane, until he died in 1901. The lease continued in his family until 1915, his widow remaining living there until May 1914, but in 1906, negotiations began for the redevelopment of the Somerset House site together with Camelford House. The 2nd Duke of Westminster, as freeholder, was uneasy about allowing the two demolitions, "having regard to No. 40 having historical associations", but in the end he agreed to the scheme. Camelford House was demolished in 1913. When Mrs Murray Smith left she claimed that the house possessed "vaults with chains in them", including a cell said to have been used for prisoners being taken to Tyburn, but when this was investigated by the Grosvenor estate surveyor, Edmund Wimperis, he found nothing of the kind.

In 1901, a writer in The Architectural Review complained that Park Lane’s former "casual elegance" was being replaced by a "frippery and extravagance" which looked like converting it into another Fifth Avenue. In 1905 a newspaper noted that "the thoroughfare is becoming a less popular place of residence, eight of the houses being to be let or sold". Soon, there were complaints of noise from motor buses, and by 1909 property values had fallen. These factors led to the demolition of the house in 1915, to be replaced by the first flats built in Park Lane. There was public opposition to the development, but the flats, designed by Frank Verity, were built on the site in 1915-19.


Main source: Wikipedia
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CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE LOCALITY


Justin Russ   
Added: 15 Feb 2021 20:25 GMT   

Binney Street, W1K
Binney St was previously named Thomas Street before the 1950’s. Before the 1840’s (approx.) it was named Bird St both above and below Oxford St.

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Wendy    
Added: 22 Mar 2024 15:33 GMT   

Polygon Buildings
Following the demolition of the Polygon, and prior to the construction of Oakshott Court in 1974, 4 tenement type blocks of flats were built on the site at Clarendon Sq/Phoenix Rd called Polygon Buildings. These were primarily for people working for the Midland Railway and subsequently British Rail. My family lived for 5 years in Block C in the 1950s. It seems that very few photos exist of these buildings.

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Steve   
Added: 19 Mar 2024 08:42 GMT   

Road construction and houses completed
New Charleville Circus road layout shown on Stanford’s Library Map Of London And Its Suburbs 1879 with access via West Hill only.

Plans showing street numbering were recorded in 1888 so we can concluded the houses in Charleville Circus were built by this date.

Source: Charleville Circus, Sydenham, London

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Steve   
Added: 19 Mar 2024 08:04 GMT   

Charleville Circus, Sydenham: One Place Study (OPS)
One Place Study’s (OPS) are a recent innovation to research and record historical facts/events/people focused on a single place �’ building, street, town etc.

I have created an open access OPS of Charleville Circus on WikiTree that has over a million members across the globe working on a single family tree for everyone to enjoy, for free, forever.

Source: Charleville Circus, Sydenham, London

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Charles   
Added: 8 Mar 2024 20:45 GMT   

My House
I want to know who lived in my house in the 1860’s.

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NH   
Added: 7 Mar 2024 11:41 GMT   

Telephone House
Donald Hunter House, formerly Telephone House, was the BT Offices closed in 2000

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Paul Cox   
Added: 5 Mar 2024 22:18 GMT   

War damage reinstatement plans of No’s 11 & 13 Aldine Street
Whilst clearing my elderly Mothers house of general detritus, I’ve come across original plans (one on acetate) of No’s 11 & 13 Aldine Street. Might they be of interest or should I just dispose of them? There are 4 copies seemingly from the one single acetate example. Seems a shame to just junk them as the level of detail is exquisite. No worries if of no interest, but thought I’d put it out there.

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Diana   
Added: 28 Feb 2024 13:52 GMT   

New Inn Yard, E1
My great grandparents x 6 lived in New Inn Yard. On this date, their son was baptised in nearby St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch

Source: BDM London, Cripplegate and Shoreditch registers written by church clerk.

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Vic Stanley   
Added: 24 Feb 2024 17:38 GMT   

Postcose
The postcode is SE15, NOT SE1

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LOCAL PHOTOS
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Montagu House, Portman Square
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Edgware Road
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Lisson Green
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In the neighbourhood...

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Marble Arch, 2016
Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=352348
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Speaker’s Corner, April 1987 Speakers here at this corner of Hyde Park nearest of Marble Arch may talk on any subject, as long as the police consider their speeches lawful. Contrary to popular belief, there is no immunity from the law, nor are any subjects proscribed, but in practice the police intervene only when they receive a complaint.
Credit: Wiki Commons/Michael E. Cumpston
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Montagu House, Portman Square
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A view of Tyburn (1750)
Credit: Old and New London: Volume 5. Edward Walford (1878)
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64 Baker Street, photographed in 2021.
Credit: Wiki Commons/Kyle Glover
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Connaught Square, 2004
Credit: Andrew Dunn,
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Oxford Street, 1935
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Park Lane on the Monopoly board
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Picton Place, W1 was formerly Gray Street as can be seen on a ’ghost sign’ on the corner
Credit: Simon Gunzinger
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Portman Square, W1H
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