Carlton House

**Carlton House** was a mansion in London, best known as the town residence of the King. It faced the south side of Pall Mall, and its gardens abutted St. James's Park in the St James's district of London. The location of the house, now replaced by Carlton House Terrace, was a main reason for the creation of John Nash's ceremonial route from St James's to Regent's Park via Regent Street, Portland Place and Park Square: Lower Regent Street and Waterloo Place were originally laid out to form the approach to its front entrance (*illustration, right*).

An existing house was rebuilt at the beginning of the eighteenth century for Henry Boyle, created Baron Carleton in 1714, who bequeathed it to his nephew, the architect Lord Burlington. Burlington's mother sold it in 1732 to Frederick, Prince of Wales, for whom William Kent laid out the garden. Frederick's widow Augusta, Princess of Wales, enlarged the house; in 1783, when Frederick's grandson George, Prince of Wales, was granted possession of Carlton House and £60,000 to refurbish it, it was a rambling structure without architectural cohesion.

The Prince had the house substantially rebuilt by the architect Henry Holland between 1783 and 1796. By the time the Prince Regent and Henry Holland parted company in 1802, Carlton House was a spacious and opulent residence, which would have been designated a palace in many countries. From the 1780s it was the centre of a glittering alternate court to that of the Prince's parents at St James and Buckingham House. After 1811 when he became Prince Regent the house was altered and redecorated to suit an even larger amount of usage as a palace in all but name.

In 1820, on the death of his father, George III, the Prince Regent became King George IV. He deemed that Carlton House, the official royal residence of St. James's Palace and his parents' Buckingham House were all inadequate for his needs. Some consideration was given to rebuilding Carlton House on a far larger scale, but in the end Buckingham House was rebuilt as Buckingham Palace instead. Carlton House was demolished in 1826 and replaced with two grand white stuccoed terraces of expensive houses known as Carlton House Terrace. The proceeds of the leases were put towards the cost of Buckingham Palace.

## Cultural references

Oscar Wilde makes reference to Carlton House in his fictional novel *The Portrait of Dorian Gray*, published in 1890. In chapter 11, as the protagonist looks over portraits of his ancestors, he writes, "What of the second Lord Beckenham, the companion of the Prince Regent in his wildest days, and one of the witnesses at the secret marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert? How proud and handsome he was, with his chestnut curls and insolent pose! What passions had he bequeathed? The world had looked upon him as infamous. He had led the orgies at Carlton House. The star of the Garter glittered upon his breast."

## Notes

1. ↑ Years later The Mall was driven through the former gardens, to provide a ceremonial route between Buckingham Palace and Admiralty Arch, which now leads into Trafalgar Square.
2. ↑ Burlington employed Henry Flitcroft to unify the garden front and reface it in stone (Stroud 1966:61).
3. ↑ The neighbouring structure had been the London house of the Prince's friend George Bubb Doddington, Lord Melcombe.
4. ↑ Henry Holland | British architect. Retrieved on 11 May 2020.
5. ↑ the-lothians.blogspot.ie/2013/05/8-carlton-house-london-demolition-and.html

## References

* John Gloag, *A Short Dictionary of Furniture* rev. ed. 1969
* John Summerson, *Georgian London* (Barrie & Jenkins, 1986 ed.)
* Dorothy Stroud, *Henry Holland, His Life and Architecture*, 1966