Source: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vols31-2/pt2/pp367-389
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 00:56:10+00:00

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Of the present buildings of Albany the 'mansion' (or Albany House) is the former Melbourne House built by Sir William Chambers in 1771–4 for the first Lord Melbourne. Behind the mansion two ranges of chambers stretching north to Burlington Gardens were built by Henry Holland in 1802–3 when the mansion was reconstructed internally for occupation in apartments. Melbourne House was built on the site of an earlier house dating from the post-Restoration development of this part of Piccadilly.
In June 1745 Sunderland's son, the third Duke of Marlborough, together with mortgagees, sold the house for £6000 to his brother-in-law, the fourth Duke of Bedford. The conveyance was not in the form of a mortgage and was direct to the recipient and not in trust for him, but it was perhaps made to secure various debts of the Duke of Marlborough's which were mentioned as charges on the property. (fn. 24) The Duke of Marlborough continued to occupy the house until 1747 when, on 15–16 April, the Duke of Bedford sold it, again for £6000, to the First Commissioner of Trade and Plantations, Lord Monson. (fn. 25) Lord Monson died in the following year and was succeeded in the house by his son who retained it until 18–19 March 1763 when he sold it, profitably, to the Paymaster General, Henry Fox, who was about to be created Lord Holland. The price was £16,000. (fn. 26) Whether the Monsons had rebuilt or improved the house is not known, but Dasent says that the second Lord Monson had pulled down Lord Sunderland's library in 1758. (fn. 27) A comparison of Rocque's map of 1746 with Rhodes's of 1770 confirms that the library was removed between these dates.
Lord Holland's ownership lasted for eight years, and was marked by the preparation in 1764 of an elaborate and sophisticated design for a complete rebuilding by Robert Adam (fn. 28) (Plate 112a). Nothing was done in fact, perhaps because with his retirement from the House of Commons Lord Holland's interests became diverted to his villa on the Thanet coast.
On 31 March–1 April 1771 Lord Holland sold his house for £16,500 to Sir Peniston Lamb, who in the previous year had been created Lord Melbourne and who was then living at No. 28 Sackville Street. The transaction included an agreement to secure Melbourne against any claim on Lord Holland's estate by the Crown, to whom he was a debtor as Paymaster General. (fn. 29) Melbourne, twenty-six years old and two years married to an attractive and strong-willed wife, was possessed of great wealth inherited from his father (a lawyer who had at one time himself been a mortgagee of the property from the Duke of Marlborough). He now determined to pull down the old house and to build on its site the town residence which survives as the 'mansion' of Albany (Albany House). The architect he chose, on the recommendation of the second Baron Grantham, British ambassador to Spain, (fn. 30) was Sir William Chambers, to whom he became related in 1775 by the marriage of Chambers's daughter to Lady Melbourne's brother John Milbanke. Chambers's zest for the work may well have been sharpened by his knowledge of Robert Adam's very different plan for the site, of which he had a drawing made. (fn. 28) The composition and detailed design of the house developed in deliberate rivalry to the innovations in style and plan by which Adam was attracting the patronage of the fashionable world.
Chambers seems to have been responsible for paying all the workmen, including the decorative painters. The cost of the work to October 1773 had been some £22,959, of which £21,300 had been incurred under Melbourne's contract with Chambers and the rest for 'extra works' by 'plaisterers, painters, carvers etc.': of the total, some £3159 was then still owing. (fn. 54) By November 1774 the cost had risen to about £24,632, but a jotting by Chambers on the back of a letter from Melbourne suggests that by then the latter had advanced £25,102, leaving a balance in his favour against the work still outstanding. (fn. 55) This evidently proved considerably more expensive than was expected, and no prompt settlement was made. Ten years later there was still owing to Chambers, secured by a bond, the sum of £3000, on which the interest was two years in arrears. Melbourne sought apologetically to turn aside Chambers's reported wrath with the offer of a year's interest. (fn. 56) Chambers's reply is not known but the principal sum was still owing in March 1789 when it was secured by a mortgage of the house itself. (fn. 57) This was still undischarged when Melbourne disposed of the house some three years later.
Melbourne's version of the cost of the house has been recorded by Mrs. Steele, the companion of his mistress, Mrs. Baddeley, in an account of a conversation with Melbourne printed in Lady Birkenhead's Peace in Piccadilly. (fn. 58) The conversation is undated but occurred when Lady Melbourne was buying silks with which to hang her rooms. 'His Lordship declared … upon his honour, that when the house, in Piccadilly, which he was building, was finished, and the furniture in it complete, so as to sit down in it to dinner, from a just calculation, it would cost him one hundred thousand pounds. "An astonishing sum!" exclaimed I. "It is a much greater sum", continued his Lordship, "than I intended, when I first began"; for Mr. Chambers' the surveyor's estimate of the house and offices complete, did not exceed thirty thousand pounds; but, after they had gone on some way, and had made by his orders, some few alterations, it came to twenty thousand more. So that the buildings [sic] of that house came to fifty thousand pounds, beside the sixteen thousand pounds paid for the old house and ground.' (fn. 59) Melbourne seems to have been both extravagant and ingenuous in matters of finance, and this statement of his commitments may be nearer the truth than would commonly have been the case with such protestations made to Mrs. Steele by admirers of Mrs. Baddeley.
The Melbournes' tenure of the house was shorter than they had probably intended. The manner of its termination was unusual, being by an exchange with Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, for his leasehold house in Whitehall (now the Scottish Office). The agreement for the exchange was concluded on Christmas Day 1791 and is said to have resulted from Lady Melbourne's assent to a remark dropped by the Duke during a visit to Melbourne House. (fn. 63) Lady Birkenhead has surmised that a reason for the Melbournes' compliance may have been financial difficulties arising from the elaborate state maintained by them at the house, (fn. 64) which Melbourne had already mortgaged for £10,000 in 1775, (fn. 65) before charging it with the £3000 owed to Chambers.
The Duke appears as occupant of the house in the 1792 ratebook. As both the Duke's Whitehall house and Melbourne House were mortgaged the exchange was a complicated transaction, and was not completed until November of that year. By the agreement of Christmas 1791 the Duke had undertaken to pay Melbourne £23,570 as part of the exchange. On 20–21 July 1792 Chambers and Melbourne's other mortgagee, T. H. Broadhead, conveyed their interests to mortgagees of the Duke—Chambers to William Adam and John Antrobus (a partner in the banking firm of Thomas Coutts and Company), and Broadhead to Oliver and James Farrer. At the same time, on 21 July, a deed poll was executed by Melbourne and the Duke, declaring that, in addition to £13,000 plus interest paid by the latter's mortgagees, the Duke had paid £4707 10s. to Melbourne, making a total of £18,000 paid as part of the purchase money. Melbourne undertook to convey Melbourne House on payment of the residue and on the assignment to him of the lease of the Whitehall house. This the Duke in turn undertook to perform within six months. (fn. 66) The final conveyances and assignments were made on 6–7 November. The conveyance of Melbourne House was made by Adam, Antrobus and the Farrers to Edmund Antrobus, a partner in Coutts's bank. His tenure, however, was to the use of Thomas Coutts for a mortgage-term of 1000 years to secure £16,000 previously lent by Coutts to the Duke, and then to the use of the Farrers to secure the £10,000 they had paid for Broadhead's mortgage. (fn. 67) The house was also charged, together with the Duke's other property at Oatlands in Surrey, with the sum of £34,000 owed by him to the Farrers, although it was subsequently discharged of this encumbrance. (fn. 68) On 5 January 1793 the Duke charged the house with a further sum of £10,000, of which £6000 was borrowed from Coutts (making the debt to him charged on the house £22,000) and £4000 from the Farrers. (fn. 69) The interest of these mortgagees, and in particular of Thomas Coutts, in the mansion (now called York House) was to have an important influence on its history.
The Duke's personal extravagance was comparable to the Melbournes', and perhaps occasioned the decision to dispose of the house some ten years later. Nothing, however, is known of the first inception of schemes for the redevelopment of the site, which were in prospect by 1800.
With the abandonment of the proposed street York House's continuance was assured, and the next short-lived proposal contained in embryo the development actually carried out.
At this time, the end of the first quarter of 1802, the Duke ceased to be rated for York House.
Nothing is known of the discussions and deliberations by which the idea of Albany was developed, as a speculation and as architecture. In this month of March 1802 the main features of the conversion of the old house and the construction of new buildings had, however, been sufficiently settled for a number of copies of finished and coloured manuscript plans to be prepared, doubtless for submission to prospective purchasers (Plate 115). Five levels are shown, from basement to garret storey, and each is entitled a 'Design for dividing and disposing of the Mansion House and Premises lately occupied by His Royal Highness The Duke of York'. Henry Holland's authorship is shown by his inscription 'H. H. Sloane Place Mar. 1802' on some of the plans and on a pen-and-ink plan of part of the layout. (fn. 79) As well as the mansion itself, Chambers's forecourt buildings were to be retained, but four shops were to be built on the Piccadilly frontage. Behind the mansion, on each side of the former garden, two ranges of buildings were to be erected, consisting of chambers opening off staircases in the manner of a college or inn of court. The general dimensions and layout were very similar to that executed. The northern ends of the ranges were not, however, carried right up to the oblique frontage of Burlington Gardens, and the internal planning of the separate sets of chambers was different from that executed and without the simple and graceful formality actually achieved (Plate 119a, fig. 72).
A printed prospectus dated 1802 was prepared, doubtless to accompany these plans. The former idea of an hotel survived vestigially in the proposed provision of a dining-room, under the direction of a maitre d'hôtel, and of 'Hot and Cold Baths etc.', for the use of the inhabitants. But the essence of the proposal was the division of the existing and projected buildings 'into elegant and convenient Sets of independent Freehold Apartments'. They were to be sold, by Copland and the mortgagees, for prices between £350 and £800, with or without the payment to Copland and his heirs of a fee-farm rent of between £20 and £40 at the option of the purchaser. (fn. 80) In the event, the prices at which sets were first sold were sometimes considerably more than was indicated in the prospectus.
One of the sets was to be sold for £1600 or for £800 plus a rent-charge of £40 per annum and another two for £1200 each with the option of similar alternatives. (fn. 85) In February three more sets were agreed to be sold for £3600. (fn. 87) In the same month, on 28 February 1803, the four shops fronting Piccadilly were leased by the Duke, Coutts, the Farrers, Edmund Antrobus and Copland. The leases ran for 99 years from the previous Lady Day at a peppercorn for the first year, and the carcases were thus probably newly completed at the time of the leases. One of the leases was to Edward Lardner, senior, of the Strand, gentleman. The other three were to William Slade of 34 Lower Thornhaugh Street, Bedford Square, a bricklayer, who was probably the builder, (fn. 88) and who later estimated for some small repairs to stucco-work for the Trustees. (fn. 89) The first occupants of the shops were a gold and silver lace manufacturer, a druggist, a pastrycook and fruiterer, and a linen draper (Plate 116a).
At the end of August 1802 a legal opinion had been taken on the Duke's and the Farrers' title to the property, evidently in contemplation of their joining in the agreed conveyance to Copland after 29 September. (fn. 90) In fact, however, the conveyance to Copland seems never to have been made in the form proposed. He began to pay instalments of money to Coutts, in discharge of Coutts's £22,000 debt from the Duke, early in September 1802 (fn. 91) but by the end of the following September he had paid only £9500 to Coutts and £9300 to the Duke. There was thus still £12,500 owing to Coutts and £5700 to the Duke to complete the purchase. In the meantime, however, as has been seen, the disposal of parts of the premises had been going forward.
In October Robert Mylne was valuing sets of chambers for Thomas Coutts or his associates (fn. 95) and in December a number of conveyances of sets were made by the Trustees and Copland to proprietors. (fn. 96) 'Albany' first appears in the ratebooks in 1804, although only ten occupants, apart from the secretary, are shown.
On 28 February of that year articles of agreement were concluded between the seven Trustees of the first part, thirty-three other proprietors of chambers of the second part, and Copland, as proprietor of chambers and of the fee-farm rents charged on some of the other chambers, of the third part. (fn. 97) This recited the previous transactions and proceeded to lay down rules and regulations to be observed by the proprietors. Among these was the provision that 'No projection or alteration in any of the Walls, Windows, Common Staircases or Roofs nor any alteration whatever varying the present Figure of the Buildings shall be made without the consent in writing of the majority of the Trustees first obtained.' The repair of the roof, exterior walls, staircase, etc., belonging to each building was to be made under the direction of the Trustees at the expense of the proprietors of that building.
'In order to exclude improper Inhabitants' there was to be no letting or sale of chambers without the consent of the Trustees, and 'No Profession Trade or Business' was to be 'carried on in any of the Apartments or Chambers without the approbation of the majority of the Trustees in writing'.
In 1808 Smirke took a set in Albany. In 1819 the Trustees gave permission to George Basevi to practise as an architect in a ground-floor set looking on to Vigo Street. (fn. 101) A similar concession was made to the solicitor who took chambers in the eastern court-yard building formerly used as a kitchen. The limitation on the use of apartments for business or professional purposes seems not to have been applied strictly in the court-yard. Henry Angelo had a fencing school here in 1804 (fn. 102) and in 1807 the pugilist John Jackson probably used the same apartments, (fn. 103) which were subsequently occupied by the architects George and Lewis Wyatt. For a short time Jane Austen's brother Henry, of the banking firm of Austen and Maunde, also had his office in the court-yard.
The Trustees had already guarded against any failure of the hoped-for revenue from this source by reserving to themselves in the rules and regulations the power to make a rate of a shilling in the pound on the estimated value of each set. This was paid by the occupant in addition to the parish rate. The shilling rate is still made on the original valuation although it is now necessary to make such a rate nine times a quarter.
The single surviving plan of Adam's 1764 design for Lord Holland (fn. 28) (Plate 112a) holds the promise of a far more exciting building than that subsequently erected by Chambers for Lord Melbourne. Adam proposed that the house should be approached by way of a large ovoid court-yard, an idea probably inspired by the colonnade of Burlington House. This court-yard was to be enclosed by four segmental colonnades of five bays, linked on the north to south axis by large circular lobbies, and on the east to west axis by square coach-houses. Behind the southern pair of colonnades were stables, but the northern colonnades formed loggias opening to the spandrel-shaped courts before the house. This was almost square and planned with single ranges of rooms round a central court, perhaps in a deliberate attempt to recall a Roman villa. Lord Holland's private apartments occupied the whole of the western range, and the eastern was taken up by a suite of reception rooms, the middle one being an apse-ended oblong. At each end of this was a circular ante-room, that to the north leading to the apse-sided dining-room, in the middle of the garden front. The south ante-room led to the entrance hall, on the north side of which was the circular principal staircase, flanked on the east by an oval secondary stair, and on the west by the waiting-room to Lord Holland's library.
Melbourne House, the present mansion of Albany, was a well-designed and sensible building, but obviously the work of a determined adherent to the Palladian faith who was resolved to resist the new fashions introduced by his great contemporary, Robert Adam. Chambers's plans (fn. 136) show a severely rectangular entrance court, and the house had few of the interestingly shaped rooms of an Adam design (Plates 112b, 112c, 113a). Behind the screen-wall to Piccadilly were low buildings for coach-houses etc., these flanking a small square fore-court that opened, probably through a screen of columns, to the great court. This is the present Albany court-yard, around which the buildings are placed in the conventional Palladian manner, the house on the north side dominating the attendant wings on the east and west. Here, however, the relationship seems forced because the buildings are awkwardly cramped by the narrow site. The long and low east wing originally contained the great kitchen and other offices, and there were stables in the corresponding west wing.
There are various plans by Chambers that relate to Melbourne House, but none can be taken fully as evidence of what was finally built except, perhaps, for one of the principal floor, a working plan rather than one prepared for displaying to a patron. (fn. 137) But all the plans confirm the general arrangement of the house, with the rooms arranged round a central staircase compartment. The large oblong entrance hall had a fireplace in each end wall, the west flanked by doors opening south to a porter's room, and north to the private stairs. On the north side of the east fireplace was a door to the service stairs from which there were doors leading to two butler's pantries, one having a bed alcove and a silver closet. Three openings in the north wall of the hall gave access to the great staircase, contained in a large oblong compartment rising the full height of the building. West of the stair compartment was a large anteroom, with a door on its south side leading through an octagonal lobby, off which was a water-closet, to Lord Melbourne's dressing-room. North of the large ante-room was the library, a large room having an elliptical bow with three windows on to the garden. A corresponding bow formed the north end of the state dining-room, with a screened ante at its south end, entered from the stair compartment. In the centre of the north front, between the state dining-room and the library, was the common dining-room. The principal floor was similar in its general arrangement, with bedrooms and dressing-rooms on the south front, a state dressing-room over the library, the drawing-room over the common dining-room, and the great salon over the state dining-room. The fully dimensioned working plan (Plate 113a) probably shows the final arrangement of this floor, with an oval ante-room on the west side of the principal staircase. The west end of this oval room is shown contained in a splaysided bay, presumably to be built out over the area lighting the rooms below. The chamber storey seems to have been skilfully planned with alcoved bedrooms and apse-ended dressing-rooms on the south front, and a large alcoved bedroom in each bowed end of the north front. There were also several large and handsomely shaped bedrooms in the attic storey.
The Piccadilly screen and the buildings flanking the small forecourt were demolished in 1803 by Holland, but the screen is well shown in a Soane lecture diagram and in two drawings by Chambers. The dominant feature was the central entrance, formed in the manner of a grand doorcase, with a rustic archway framing a straightheaded door-opening, dressed with an architrave, a frieze carved with fluting between bucranea, and a cornice continuing the arch impost. Above the doorway, in the open tympanum of the arch, rose a poppy-head urn. Against each wide pier of the rustic arch stood an engaged Doric plainshafted column, supporting a triglyphed entablature and a triangular pediment. Chambers's drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum (fn. 35) shows the entrance to Melbourne House in a sylvan setting. The central arch and the gate piers are composed of vermiculated rustic stones, the arch keystone is adorned with a mask, and the Doric frieze has metopes of Roman urns and helmets. The elevation by Chambers in Sir John Soane's Museum (fn. 138) (Plate 114b) depicts the arch and piers in plain rustics; the keystone is plain and the metope enrichments are paterae. The lecture diagram (fn. 139) (Plate 114a) conforms with this except that the metopes are not ornamented. On either side of the arched doorway were wide openings for carriage gates, hung on rustic piers. The outer piers formed stops for the plain screen-walls, each of which had a central doorway dressed with an architrave broken by a keystone, a shortened frieze, and a cornice projecting from the plain band coping of the wall. The ironwork in front of the screen consisted of plain railings and gates between ornamental panels, and over the side doorways and above the gate piers were lyre-shaped lamp holders.
The east and west wing buildings survive, with reconstructed interiors and slightly altered fronts (Plate 111, fig. 70). Like the house, each front is a tripartite composition, with a central feature originally having three openings widely spaced in each storey, and recessed flanking faces with three openings more closely spaced. The ground-storey windows are proportioned to a double square and those above are a single square. The simple design is carried out in stock bricks, stone being used for the plinth and sill-band to the ground storey, for the architrave, pulvinofrieze and triangular pediment to the central doorway (originally a window), for the firstfloor window sills and the keystone of the central window, for the cornice framing the brick tympanum of the large triangular pediment of the central feature, and for the cornice and blockingcourse of each flanking face.
Compared with the wings, the front of the house seems huge in scale (Plate 111, fig. 70). Three storeys high above the semi-basement, and seven windows wide, it is a composition with a central feature, three windows wide and crowned with a triangular pediment, flanked by slightly recessed faces each two windows wide. The brickwork is of a finer quality and different colour to that used for the wings, and the stone dressings are appropriately more elaborate. The semi-basement, where the windows have flat arches of gauged brick with plain keystones, is finished with a stone bandcourse. The round-headed windows of the ground storey are recessed with wide margins in an arcaded face, the brick piers being finished with a cornice-impost of stone, and the brick arches having plain keystones rising to the first-floor bandcourse. A Doric porch, with plain-shafted columns and engaged antae in front and an arched opening in each side face, encloses the flight of steps rising to the central doorway, where the two-leaf door with side-lights and a radial fanlight is set in a round-arched opening. A moulded sill caps the brick die of the pedestal to the two storeyed upper face, and, before alteration, was continued unbroken below all the first-floor windows. These are dressed with stonework, the central window dominating with a moulded architrave flanked by narrow pilasters with scrolled consoles supporting a narrow frieze and a triangular pediment. The head of the architrave is ornamented with a draped bucraneum, the pulvino-frieze is broken by a plain tablet and has patera stops over the consoles, and the cornice is dentilled. The flanking windows in the central feature are similarly dressed, but are without pilasters, consoles, patera stops and pediment. The two windows in each side face are simply dressed with an architrave, frieze and cornice. Chambers's working detail for the central window has a note instructing the mason to make these simplifications when dealing with the other windows. (fn. 140) The chamber-storey windows have probably been enlarged and originally may have been nearly square, and completely framed with moulded architraves of stone. A mutuled cornice of stone finishes the front, with a plain triangular pediment over the central feature and a blocking-course above each flanking face.
The interior has suffered from change to a far greater extent than the exterior. Although the main structural walls and some of the smaller rooms were retained, the large rooms were subdivided by Holland and his successors, and much of the decorative work by Chambers and his craftsmen and artists has gone. There are, however, drawings to provide sufficient evidence to show the immense care taken to perfect the design of the principal rooms, for some of which several schemes were produced. The most impressive feature was probably the principal staircase, which can be studied in the various plans and in a very explicit section (fn. 141) (Plate 113b). The large and lofty compartment in the middle of the house was an oblong in plan, some 36 feet east to west, and 24 feet 4 inches north to south. The stone staircase began with two short flights rising against the north wall to meet at a central landing. From this point a flying branch crossed to another landing, resting on columns, in the middle of the south side. Twin branches against the south wall continued the stair to the east and west arms of the first-floor gallery. The sectional drawing, taken on a north-south line, shows that the stone steps had bracket profiles, and that the flying branch rested on a form of arch, possibly of cast iron, decorated with a moulding of cross-banded reeding. The second landing rested on Corinthian plain-shafted columns and an entablature with a frieze-tablet of griffins flanking an urn. The balustrade, which is not shown, was presumably of wrought iron.
The wall surfaces of the compartment were apparently quite plain and served as a field for the doorcases, and for the statues standing in plain niches that were placed centrally between the doorways, or flanking them. All the doorcases were similar, each with an enriched architrave, and a modillioned cornice framing a triangular pediment above a frieze, plain on the ground floor but ornamented with a Vitruvian scroll on the principal floor. (fn. 2) Below the gallery was a frieze of circular paterae between paired acanthus buds, and a narrow enriched cornice. The principal-floor stage was finished with a frieze of anthemion ornament, and a mutuled cornice. Above this a plain attic rose to a simply-coffered flat ceiling with a central lantern light of oval plan and conical form, its low drum treated as an entablature with a frieze decoration of festoons and pendants.
Although much of the original decoration was destroyed or mutilated in the course of Holland's reconstruction, one fine ceiling survives entire, that of the north-west room on the first floor, originally the state dressing-room. Chambers's drawing for this survives, (fn. 142) and shows the design composed round a large circular panel containing a central motif surrounded by acanthus scrollwork, overlaid by the deep loops of a festooned garland. An ornamental band of interlacing oak garlands encircles this panel, and a similar but more closely interlaced band surrounds the segmental panel in the bowed end of the ceiling. The spandrel panels around the large circle are filled with arabesques of acanthus scrolls sprouting from urns.
The salon, at the east end of the north front, was probably a splendid room, with freestanding columns placed in each corner of the oblong body, flanking the bowed north and south walls, but no drawings of the decoration appear to have survived. There are, on the other hand, several schemes relating to the screened recess at the south end of the state dining-room, but nothing to indicate which design was executed.
Holland's twin ranges extend from south to north and front to the Ropewalk, as the covered passage between them is called. They comprise a basement, three storeys of equal height containing the sets of chambers, and a garret storey. The basement contains kitchens etc., belonging to the ground-floor sets, and in front extends a passage by which servants and tradesmen can reach the various staircases. The garret contains the kitchens for the sets on the upper floors, and rooms originally intended as servants' bedrooms (figs. 71–3).
Both ranges are composed of four identical units, each storey having one set of chambers on either side of a staircase, and there is a single unit, larger in scale, at the north end. Holland's drawing of March 1802 (fn. 137) shows the intended plan of a standard set, and the very light construction proposed for the internal walls. There were to be two good rooms in front, both above 15 feet in width, each having a large window of three lights, wide between narrow, towards the Ropewalk. The first room was a parlour, 22 feet 6 inches deep, the second was a bedroom, 18 feet deep, and their fireplaces were placed back to back in the dividing wall. There were two small rooms at the back, the first being an entrance lobby, 12 feet by 9 feet, with a corner fireplace, and the second a small bed-or dressing-room of the same size but without a fireplace. Between this room and the front bedroom was a small lobby and a cupboard, and opening out of the bedroom was a watercloset. This, like the back rooms and staircase landings, derived daylight from one of the small areas recessed into the back wall.
It is doubtful whether any part of the buildings was finished exactly to this plan, for those sets which it has been possible to inspect show important variations. Generally, the two front rooms are linked by a wide two-leaf door, centrally placed opposite the chimney-breasts which project from the staircase wall and the wall dividing the sets (Plate 119a). The entrance lobbies have generally been made smaller than was first intended, so that the second back room is large enough to be used as the bedroom.
The stucco-faced fronts towards the Ropewalk are very simple in design (Plate 118a), merely a well ordered pattern of large-paned windows, those lighting the rooms being divided by narrow mullions into three lights, wide between narrow, set with slight recession in plain segmentalheaded openings, those on the first floor being furnished with iron balconies of vertical bars. The entrance doorways are set in round-arched openings, and the fronts are finished with a simply moulded parapet.
The buildings at the north end, fronting to Vigo Street and Burlington Gardens, are designed on a large scale and finished in stock brick (Plate 117a). Each has a simply detailed front, on the inner side of which projects a wide segmental bow, rising through the lofty ground and first floors, with a stone-framed window of three lights in each storey. At first-floor level is an iron-railed balcony, embracing the bow and extending across the flat flanking face, which is one window wide. In the ground storey of the west building is a doorway, with narrow side-lights and a fan-ornamented tympanum of stucco, framed in a plain brick arch, designed in Holland's style but possibly a later alteration. Above it, but to the left of its centre, is an oblong window lighting a mezzanine. There are two superimposed windows in the firstfloor face, the square upper light also serving a mezzanine. The second floor has two windows, the wide one above the bowed projection being divided into three lights. Reference has already been made to the altered ground storey of the east building's front, part of which is canted back to conform with the frontage line of Vigo Street.
The tall and large-scaled fronts of the end blocks are in complete contrast with the tiny pavilion-like shops that flank the Ropewalk entrance (Plate 117). This feature remains much as Holland designed it, although the shopfronts have been altered and the charming 'Chinese' colouring has not been perpetuated. The drawing in Sir John Soane's Museum (fn. 144) (Plate 116b) shows the two shops, each with an oblong window divided by glazing-bars and framed by wide piers painted with green panels having yellow borders on a grey ground, the slightly recessed stallboard being similarly decorated, and the fascia painted with blue and green panels between yellow frets. At the extremities of each shop-front are slender colonnets, supporting a tent roof that slopes back to the low gable end of the Ropewalk, and to the stucco-faced upper storey of each shop, containing a single window and finishing with a low pyramid roof of lead. The covered way of the Ropewalk, with its tentshaped ceiling of narrow boarding, its bracketended fascias and simple diagonally braced 'Chinese' railings extending between the widely spaced posts, all glossily painted, gives to this part of Albany the atmosphere of a perpetual garden party (Plate 118b).
To flank the entrance from Piccadilly to the court-yard, Holland designed matching buildings containing shops with a mezzanine floor, and two storeys of living accommodation (Plate 116a). Each building had two wide shop-fronts facing to Piccadilly, divided and flanked by three narrow piers with panelled shafts, projecting to carry, at the level of the mezzanine windows, finely-modelled spread eagles of Coade stone. (fn. 3) These eagles appeared to support a continued balcony of stone, having an iron railing of vertical bars topped with a key-fret border. The upper part of the front was faced with stock bricks and contained two tiers of four evenly spaced windows set in plain openings. The tall casements of the first floor opened to the balcony, and there was a narrow sill-band extending beneath the sash windows of the attic. The return front of each building was four bays wide, with shop-windows in the ground storey and blind recesses in the floors above. Both fronts were finished with a cornice of bold projection and a plain parapet. It is regrettable that these handsome matching buildings have been replaced by two architecturally unrelated structures.
MacKenzie, James Young, Foreign Office official, 1949–53.
1. In addition to Elkins the following worked on the library: Barnes, slater; Bolton, joiner; Booth, smith; Richard Chapman, 'stone cutter'; John Deane, painter; Williams Ludb(e)y, mason; Ludb(e)y, carpenter; Oadsley, plasterer; Pearshouse, smith; Ravenhill, smith; Rugsby, plumber; Wincles, smith; Woodall, mason.
2. It is probable that three of these doorcases have been re-used in the present main hall of Albany, but without their pediments (Plate ).
3. Two of the eagles now serve as ornaments in the small gardens at the south end of the Ropewalk.
4. A complete list of those who paid the parish rates for rooms in Albany up to 1901 (compiled by W. H. Manchée) has already been published in Paradise in Piccadilly (1925) by Harry Furniss. With the aid of later ratebooks and Post Office Directories it has been possible to extend the list to 1961. In this completed form it includes nearly fifteen hundred names. The list of residents printed above comprises, with some few exceptions, only those whose names appear in the Dictionary of National Biography and Who's Who. It excludes (like Manchée's list) occupants of premises in the court-yard, but includes some residents listed in Boyle's Court Guide who did not pay rates. The period of residence is sometimes only approximate.
5. Deeds of Albany Trustees, 20 Nov. 1668.
6. W.P.L., ratebooks of St. Martin's parish; H.M.C., MSS.of Lord Kenyon, 1894, p. 89.
9. H.M.C., 7th Report, Appendix, part I, Earl of Denbigh's MSS., 1879, p. 199b.
11. H.M.C., Ormonde MSS., N.S., vol. VI, 1911, p. 249.
12. Ibid., 7th Report, Appendix, part I, ut supra, pp. 199b, 209a; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1690–1691, pp. 32, 35; 1694–1695, p. 11.
13. E. Hatton, A New View of London, 1708, vol. II, p. 624.
14. Deeds of Albany Trustees, 20–21 Jan. 1709/10.
15. Blenheim MSS., in box XVI (56).
17. H. B. Wheatley, Round About Piccadilly and Pall Mall, 1870, p. 26.
18. Blenheim MSS., loc. cit.; M.L.R. 1717/6/33.
19. J. Macky, A Journey Through England, 1st. ed., 1714, vol. I, p. 125.
20. Blenheim MSS., items in G1 (2) and XVI (56).
21. Macky, op. cit., 3rd ed., 1723, vol. I, p. 175.
22. H.M.C., 8th Report, Appendix, part 1, 1881, re-issued 1907, p. 13b.
23. Transcript of Blenheim MS. F1 (56), kindly supplied by Earl Spencer.
24. Deeds of Albany Trustees, 18–19 June 1745.
25. Ibid., 15–16 April 1747.
26. Ibid., 18–19 March 1763.
27. A. I. Dasent, Piccadilly in Three Centuries, 1920, p. 60.
28. Soane Museum, drawer 43, set 3, no. 1.
29. Deeds of Albany Trustees, 31 March–1 April 1771.
30. B.M., Add. MS. 41134, ff. 33–4; 41 135, f. 21.
31. Deeds of Albany Trustees, 22 July 1771.
32. B. M., Add. MS. 41133, f. 65 v.
33. M.C.R.O., register of building affidavits, vol. 11, no. 300.
34. B. M., Add. MS. 41133, f. 76 v.
35. Victoria and Albert Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, 3432 A 229.
36. B.M., Add. MS. 411 33, f. 114 v.
37. Ibid., Add. MS. 41135, f. 21 v.; R.B.
38. R.I.B.A. Library, Melbourne to Chambers, 13 Nov. 1774, quoted by Sheila Birkenhead, Peace in Piccadilly, 1958, pp. 9–10.
39. B. M., Add. MS. 41 133, f. 65.
40. Ibid., Add. MS. 41133, f. 97 v.; R.I.B.A. Library, Melbourne to Chambers, 13 Nov. 1774.
41. B.M., Add. MS. 41133, f. 109 v.; 41134, ff. 34V.–35.
42. Ibid., Add. MS. 41133, ff. 97 v., 107, 114v.
43. Ibid., Add. MS. 41133, f. 80.
44. W. M. Torrens, Memoirs of the Right Honourable William Second Viscount Melbourne, 1878, vol. 1, p. 18.
45. B.M., Add. MS. 41133, ff. 114v., 116v.; James Paine, Plans, Elevations and Sections of Noblemen and Gentlemen's Houses, vol. II, 1783, plates and .
46. B.M., Add. MS. 41135, f. 8.
47. Ibid., Add. MS. 41133, f. 107.
48. Ibid., Add. MS. 41135, f. 50 v.
49. Ibid., Add. MS. 41134, f. 34.
50. Ibid., Add. MS. 41135, f. 51.
51. Ibid., Add. MS. 41135, f. 21 v.
52. Ibid., Add. MS. 41135, f. 52 v.
53. Ibid., Add. MS. 41135, f. 21.
54. Ibid., Add. MS. 41133, f. 114 v.
55. R.I.B.A. Library, Melbourne to Chambers, 13 Nov. 1774.
56. Ibid., 16 Nov. 1784, quoted in Birkenhead, op. cit., p. 29.
57. Deeds of Albany Trustees, 24–25 March 1789.
58. Birkenhead, op. cit., pp. 8–9.
59. Mrs. Elizabeth Steele, The Memoirs of Mrs. Sophia Baddeley, 1787, vol. II, pp. 203–4.
61. Deeds of Albany Trustees, 26 Feb. 1785.
62. Birkenhead, op. cit., p. 7.
63. Torrens, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 34.
64. Birkenhead, op. cit., p. 29.
65. Deeds of Albany Trustees, 10–11 April, 30 Oct. 1775.
66. Ibid., 20–21 July 1792.
67. Ibid., 6–7 Nov. 1792.
68. Ibid., abstract of title, recited deeds of 28–29 Sept. 1803.
69. Ibid., 5 Jan. 1793.
70. Thomas Malton, A Picturesque Tour Through the Cities of London and Westminster, 1792–, vol. II, p. 106.
71. E. H. Coleridge, The Life of Thomas Coutts, Banker, 1920, vol. II, p. 34; cf. archives of Coutts and Co., Duke of York to Thomas Coutts, 4 and 8 May 1799.
72. Archives of Coutts and Co., Albany, no. 222.
73. Ibid., Albany, no. 219.
74. Ibid., Albany, nos. 219, 221.
75. Ibid., Albany, no. 223.
76. Ibid., Albany, no. 224 (abstract of title).
77. Birkenhead, op. cit., p. 45. The conditions for the proviso's coming into effect are not included in the abstracted agreement in the archives of Coutts and Co., Albany, no. 224.
78. Archives of Coutts and Co., Albany, no. 206.
79. Archives of Albany Trustees; B.M., Crace Maps, portfolio XII, no. 32.
80. Archives of Coutts and Co., Albany, no. 205a.
81. Ibid., Albany, no. 203.
82. Quoted by H. Furniss, Paradise in Piccadilly, 1925, p. 2.
83. Deeds of Albany Trustees, abstract of title, recited deed of 29 Sept. 1803; archives of Coutts and Co., Albany, no. 227.
84. Archives of Coutts and Co., Albany, no. 204.
85. Ibid., Albany, nos. 210, 211, 215.
86. Ibid., Albany, no. 214.
87. Photostat, in possession of Albany Trustees, of item in archives of Coutts and Co., agreement, 3 Feb. 1803, Alexander Copland and General Budé.
88. Deeds of Albany Trustees, abstract of title, recited deeds of 28–29 Sept. 1803; Holden's Triennial Directories, 1802–7.
89. Albany Trustees' minute book, 1808.
90. Archives of Coutts and Co., Albany, no. 224 (abstract of title), recited item of 26 Aug. 1802.
91. Photostat, in possession of Albany Trustees, of item in archives of Coutts and Co., private ledger.
92. Deeds of Albany Trustees, abstract of title, recited deed of 29 Sept. 1803.
93. Archives of Albany Trustees, minutes of the general meetings of the proprietors of Albany, 22 April 1803.
94. Albany Trustees' minute book, 28 April 1803.
95. A. E. Richardson, Robert Mylne, Architect and Engineer, 1733 to 1811, 1955, p. 196.
96. Archives of Coutts and Co., Albany, nos. 212, 227.
97. Archives of Albany Trustees, copy agreement between the Trustees and proprietors of Albany with the Rules and Regulations annexed, 28 Feb. 1804.
98. Letter from Cyril Ray in The Manchester Guardian, 20 March 1956, citing information from Mr. William Stone.
99. Albany Trustees' minute book, 24 Aug. 1804.
100. Ibid., 26 June 1812.
101. Ibid., 14 Aug. 1819.
102. Ibid., 2 Feb. 1804, 21 Feb. 1812.
103. The Farington Diary, ed. James Greig, 1924, vol. IV, p. 206.
104. Archives of Coutts and Co., Albany, no. 212.
105. Deed in possession of Albany Trustees.
106. Photostat, in possession of Albany Trustees, of item in archives of Coutts and Co., 24 March 1814.
107. Albany Trustees' minute book, 22 Dec. 1810.
108. Ibid., 26 June 1805.
109. Ibid., 23 Dec. 1815, 13 March, 12 May, 19 Nov. 1818.
110. Ibid., 24 June 1820.
111. Ibid., 12 May, 7 July 1868.
112. Ibid., 13 May 1873, and printed particulars of sale, 2 April 1873, in possession of Albany Trustees.
113. Albany Trustees' minute book, 2 Nov. 1887.
114. Ibid., 10 April, 10 July 1893.
115. Ibid., 29 Nov. 1894.
116. Ibid., 16 Jan. 1889.
117. Furniss, op. cit. (78 above), p. 191.
118. Albany Trustees' minute book, 13 March, 10 April 1889.
119. Furniss, op. cit., list of tenants.
120. Albany Trustees' minute book, 1889–92, passim; Annual Report of The Royal Academy for the Year 1892, 1893, p. 7.
121. The Times, 8 May 1929.
122. Albany Trustees' minute book, 20 June 1894 et seq.; archives of Coutts and Co., Albany, nos. 230–1; Birkenhead, op. cit. (34 above), pp. 215–18.
123. Albany Trustees' minute book, 1, 30 May and Oct. 1895.
124. Birkenhead, op. cit. (34 above), pp. 217–18.
125. Albany Trustees' minute book, 7 March 1894.
126. Ibid., 9, 30 Oct. 1895.
127. Furniss, op. cit., pp. 103, 105.
128. Albany Trustees' minute book, 24 Jan., 29 Nov. 1894.
129. The Builder, 9 May 1903, p. 480.
130. Archives of Coutts and Co., Albany, nos. 235–6.
132. T. P. 5055; The Builder, 8 Jan. 1937, pp. 119, 123.
133. Birkenhead, op. cit. (34 above), pp. 235–6.
134. The Crown Journal (staff magazine of Messrs. Higgs and Hill), no. 65, April 1952.
135. Information kindly supplied by Captain Charles Adams, Secretary to the Albany Trustees.
136. Soane Museum, drawer 43, set 3, nos. 2–9.
137. Archives of Albany Trustees.
138. Soane Museum, drawer 17, set 7, no. 5.
139. Ibid., drawer 17, set 7, no. 4.
140. Victoria and Albert Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, 7074.1.Q2c.
142. Ibid., 2216.40, A. 108.
143. Country Life, 14 May 1938, Christopher Hussey, Renishaw Hall, II, p. 510; James Paine, Plans, Elevations and Sections of Noblemen and Gentlemen's Houses, vol. II, 1783, plate .
144. Soane Museum, drawer 18, set 8, no. 9.
145. The Life and Times of Henry Lord Brougham Written By Himself, 1871, passim.

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