The Great Houses of London

by Pearce, David

• ISBN13: 9780865651548
• ISBN10: 086565154X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-11-01
• Publisher: Vendome Press

Summary

The Great Houses of London is an account of extraordinary buildings, most of which no longer exist, of such great designers as Robert Adam, and of the enormously rich English aristocratic grandees who commissioned these houses. When Queen Victoria remarked to her neighbor, the Duchess of Sutherland, "I have come from my house to your palace, " she was by no means exaggerating. The palaces of the nobility were second only to churches in architectural and aesthetic significance, and defied comparison with the chateaux of France or the palazzi of Venice. Filled with astonishing French and English furniture, generally equipped with a large private picture gallery to display priceless paintings bought on the Grand Tour, staffed by between 50 and 60 servants, these houses expressed the taste and aspiration of a single person, and usually one rich and powerful enough to have his own way. A distinguished designer, large rooms for entertaining formally, an imposing facade to impress passers by and visitors were the background for the endless balls and costume and garden parties, and formal dinners that made the dazzling London "Season" one of the high points for European royalty and society from June through August. This book, the only publication on a fascinating subject, covers some 40 major home and 100 lesser ones, starting in the 13th century in the walled city of London and moving on to the then suburbs of Bloomsbury, Holborn, Soho, Piccadilly and St. James, finishing in Park Lane from which the aristocrats were driven by the noises of motor traffic. This is a book that will fascinate architects, decorators, Anglophiles and social historians.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. 7
Acknowledgements	p. 11
Introduction	p. 13
Houses of the City, the Strand and the Medieval Suburbs	p. 15
Houses
Barnard's Castle
Durham House
York House, the Manor of the Savoy
Crosby Place
Barnard's Inn
Devonshire House (Bishopgate)
Sir Thomas Gresham's House
Coldharbour
The Manor of the Rose
Burgaveny
Petre
Shaftesbury
Lauderdale
Bridgewater (Barbican)
Exeter
Wimbledon
Worcester
Salisbury
Bedford
Hungerford
Northumberland (ex Northampton House)
Somerset
Arundel
Essex
Craven
Dorset Houses
Bangor Inn
Ely Place
The Movement West	p. 42
Houses
Newcastle (Clerkenwell)
Ailesbury
Brooke
Warwick
Newcastle (Lincoln's Inn Fields)
Lindsey
Powis
Monmouth
Carlisle
Fauconberg
Clarendon
Buckingham
Ashburnham
The Augustan Ideal	p. 56
Houses
Marlborough
Burlington
Queensberry
General Wade's
Pembroke
Chesterfield
Norfolk
Spencer
The Age of Adam	p. 85
Houses
Lichfield
Lansdowne
20 St James's Square
Derby
Home
Montagu
Carrington
Landlord's Mansions	p. 109
Houses
Southampton (Later Bedford)
Montagu (Bloomsbury)
Leicester
Ormonde
Dover
Ashburnham (Dover Street)
44 Berkeley Square
Harcourt
Chandos
Roxburghe (Later Harewood)
16 Grosvenor Street
44 Grosvenor Square
11 and 12 North Audley Street
22 North Audley Street
Brook
54 Mount Street
32 Green Street
Hampden
Aldford
Bute
38 South Street
Bourdon
Dudley
Breadalbane
Political Houses	p. 136
Houses
Wallingford
Dover (Whitehall)
Stanhope
Portland
Fife
Richmond
Gwydyr
Schomberg
Buckingham (Pall Mall)
Cumberland
Devonshire
Sunderland
Melbourne
Cambridge
Hertford (Piccadilly)
Coventry
The Rothschild Houses
Londonderry
Camelford
Somerset (Park Lane)
Palaces of Art	p. 166
Houses
Grosvenor
Apsley
Bridgewater
Montagu (Whitehall)
Dorchester
After the Palaces	p. 194
Houses
Stafford (Ex York, Later Lancaster)
Hertford
Crewe
Wimborne
Bath
Stratford (Later Derby)
Glossary	p. 216
Select Bibliography	p. 217
Notes	p. 218
Index	p. 221
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