Chesterfield House, Westminster
Encyclopedia
Chesterfield House was a grand London townhouse
built between 1747-52 by Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
(1694-1773), statesman and man of letters. The exterior was in the Palladian style, the interior Baroque
. It was demolished in 1937 and on its site now stands an eponymous block of flats. It stood in Mayfair
on the north side of Curzon Street
, between South Audley Street and what is now Chesterfield Street.
The French travel-writer Pierre-Jean Grosley
in his 1770 book Londres (translated as Tour to London) considered the house to be equal to the hotels of the nobility in Paris.
by Isaac Ware
. In his “'Letters to his Son” Chesterfield wrote from “Hotel Chesterfield” on March 31 1749: “I have yet finished nothing but my boudoir and my library; the former is the gayest and most cheerful room in England; the latter the best. My garden is now turfed, planted and sown, and will in two months more make a scene of verdure and flowers not common in London. ”
”(founded 1809), no. 125 reported:
, near Edgeware, the mansion of James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos
(d.1744) which was demolished shortly after his death, the materials being sold at auction in 1747. Chesterfield also bought at the auction the portico and railings. Chesterfield also furnished his new mansion with artefacts from the sale at Houghton Hall
, the country house of Robert Walpole
, including an 18-candle copper-gilt lantern. The library was hung with portraits of the earl's ancestors. As a piece of satire concerning the fashion for boasts of ancient ancestry, he placed amongst these portraits two old portraits which he inscribed “Adam de Stanhope” and “Eve de Stanhope”.
's “Old & New London” op. Cit, pp.354-356:
George Capel-Coningsby, 5th Earl of Essex
(d.1839) remembered seeing the earl sitting on a rustic seat in front of his mansion, basking in the sun.
merchant Charles Magniac
, who considerably curtailed the grounds in the rear, and erected a row of buildings overlooking Chesterfield Street, named Chesterfield Gardens.
Townhouse
A townhouse is the term historically used in the United Kingdom, Ireland and in many other countries to describe a residence of a peer or member of the aristocracy in the capital or major city. Most such figures owned one or more country houses in which they lived for much of the year...
built between 1747-52 by Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield PC KG was a British statesman and man of letters.A Whig, Lord Stanhope, as he was known until his father's death in 1726, was born in London. After being educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he went on the Grand Tour of the continent...
(1694-1773), statesman and man of letters. The exterior was in the Palladian style, the interior Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
. It was demolished in 1937 and on its site now stands an eponymous block of flats. It stood in Mayfair
Mayfair
Mayfair is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster.-History:Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today...
on the north side of Curzon Street
Curzon Street
Curzon Street is located within the exclusive Mayfair district of London. The street is located entirely within the W1J postcode district and is 400 yards to the north west of Green Park tube station...
, between South Audley Street and what is now Chesterfield Street.
The French travel-writer Pierre-Jean Grosley
Pierre-Jean Grosley
Pierre-Jean Grosley was a French man of letters, local historian, travel writer and observer of social mores in the Age of Enlightenment. Grosley was a magistrate in his native Troyes, where he had plenty of opportunity to hear the local dialect, which he described in a paper...
in his 1770 book Londres (translated as Tour to London) considered the house to be equal to the hotels of the nobility in Paris.
History
It was built on land belonging to Richard Howe, 1st Earl HoweRichard Howe, 1st Earl Howe
Admiral of the Fleet Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe KG was a British naval officer, notable in particular for his service during the American War of Independence and French Revolutionary Wars. He was the brother of William Howe and George Howe.Howe joined the navy at the age of thirteen and served...
by Isaac Ware
Isaac Ware
Isaac Ware was an English architect and translator of Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio.He was apprenticed to Thomas Ripley, 1 August 1721, and followed him in positions in the Office of Works, but his mentor in design was Lord Burlington.Ware was a member of the St...
. In his “'Letters to his Son” Chesterfield wrote from “Hotel Chesterfield” on March 31 1749: “I have yet finished nothing but my boudoir and my library; the former is the gayest and most cheerful room in England; the latter the best. My garden is now turfed, planted and sown, and will in two months more make a scene of verdure and flowers not common in London. ”
Library
The “Quarterly ReviewQuarterly Review
The Quarterly Review was a literary and political periodical founded in March 1809 by the well known London publishing house John Murray. It ceased publication in 1967.-Early years:...
”(founded 1809), no. 125 reported:
“In the magnificent mansion which the earl erected in Audley Street you may still see his favourite apartments, furnished and decorated as he left them – among the rest, what he boasted of as “the finest room in London”, and perhaps even now it remains unsurpassed, his spacious and beautiful library looking on the finest private garden in London. The walls are covered half-way up with rich and classical stores of literature; above the cases are in close series the portraits of eminent authors, French and English, with most of whom he had conversed; over these, and immediateley under the massive cornice, extend all round, in foot long capitals, the HoratianHoraceQuintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
lines: 'NUNC . VETERUM . LIBRIS . NUNC . SOMNO . ET . INERTIBUS . HORIS : DUCERE . SOLICITAE . JVCUNDA . OBLIVIA . VITAE.' On the mantelpieces and cabinets stand busts of old orators, interspersed with voluptuous vases and bronzes, antique or Italian, and airy statuettes, in marble or alabaster, of nude or semi-nude opera nymphs”
Staircase
The columns of the screen facing the court yard and the marble staircase with bronze balustrade came from CannonsCannons (house)
Cannons was a stately home in Little Stanmore, Middlesex built for James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos between 1713 and 1724 at a cost of £200,000 but which in 1747 was razed and its contents dispersed....
, near Edgeware, the mansion of James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos
James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos
James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos, MP, PC was the first of fourteen children by Sir James Brydges, 3rd Baronet of Wilton Castle, Sheriff of Herefordshire, 8th Baron Chandos; and Elizabeth Barnard...
(d.1744) which was demolished shortly after his death, the materials being sold at auction in 1747. Chesterfield also bought at the auction the portico and railings. Chesterfield also furnished his new mansion with artefacts from the sale at Houghton Hall
Houghton Hall
Houghton Hall is a country house in Norfolk, England. It was built for the de facto first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, and it is a key building in the history of Palladian architecture in England...
, the country house of Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....
, including an 18-candle copper-gilt lantern. The library was hung with portraits of the earl's ancestors. As a piece of satire concerning the fashion for boasts of ancient ancestry, he placed amongst these portraits two old portraits which he inscribed “Adam de Stanhope” and “Eve de Stanhope”.
Creation of Stanhope St
Chesterfield formed Stanhope Street on adjoining land purchased from the Dean & Chapter of Westminster.Description in 1869
The following description is reproduced in Edward WalfordEdward Walford
Edward Walford was a British magazine editor and a compiler of educational, biographical, genealogical and touristic works, perhaps best known for his Old and New London 6 volumes , 1878....
's “Old & New London” op. Cit, pp.354-356:
“The house itself has many fine points, and in others, it must be owned, it is slightly disappointing. Passing from the porter's lodge across a noble court paved with stones, and entering the hall, the visitor cannot fail to be struck by the grand marble staircase, up and down which the great Chandos must have walked when it stood beneath his own palatial roof at Canons. And, apart from historical traditions, it is really a staircase for ideas to mount, especially when one is met on its first landing, not only by busts of PittWilliam Pitt the YoungerWilliam Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
and FoxCharles James FoxCharles James Fox PC , styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and who was particularly noted for being the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger...
, but by a lofty clock, apparently of antique French construction, and which looks as though it had, at some time or other, chimed out the hours at VersaillesPalace of VersaillesThe Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles....
. Entering the music-room by means of this same staircase, we confess to some sense of disappointment. Not, of course, that we had expected to be greeted by any harmony of sweet sounds, but that the symbolism of decoration on the walls, on the ceiling, and the mantelpiece, might on the whole have been more graceful and more appropriate than it is, considering that the two fiddles in bas-relief, gilt and crossed one over the other, are scarcely to be compared in appearance with harps, lyres, etc., the usual metaphorical tributes to the Muse of MelodyMuseThe Muses in Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge, related orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and myths...
...More pleasingly reminded, however, of that same court (i.e. Versailles) is the visitor on descending to the reception rooms on the lower floor, and entering the drawing room, which is especially called the French room. There not only do the panelling of the walls, and the construction of the various pieces of furniture transport one back to the glories of the ancient regimeAncien Régime in FranceThe Ancien Régime refers primarily to the aristocratic, social and political system established in France from the 15th century to the 18th century under the late Valois and Bourbon dynasties...
of the time when Chesterfield enjoyed its society, but the looking-glasses, one over the fire-place and another facing it, appear as though they had mirrored that society, and not only mirrored but multiplied it; for thes looking-glasses, being severally formed of various panels, fit mosaicMosaicMosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
-like one into another and the divisions of these panels being ornamented by wreaths of painted flowers, etc., the beholder is reproduced again and again, and in many a fantastic multiform, may judge of himself under various, not to say versatile, aspects. In one of the apartments – another drawing room to which this French salon leads – hangs a large chandelierChandelierA chandelier is a branched decorative ceiling-mounted light fixture with two or more arms bearing lights. Chandeliers are often ornate, containing dozens of lamps and complex arrays of glass or crystal prisms to illuminate a room with refracted light...
, formed of pendant crystal, which once belonged to Napoleon INapoleon INapoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
. The mantel-shelf in this room is clasically beautiful; and amongst the pictures on the walls is a fine copy of TitianTitianTiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
's VenusVenus of UrbinoThe Venus of Urbino is a 1538 oil painting by the Italian master Titian. It depicts a nude young woman, identified with the goddess Venus, reclining on a couch or bed in the sumptuous surroundings of a Renaissance palace. It hangs in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence. The figure's pose is based...
. But perhaps the most interesting apartment in the whole house is the library. There where Lord Chesterfield used to sit and write, still stand the books which it is only fair to suppose that he read – books of wide-world and enduring interest, and which stand in goodly array, one row above another by hundreds...
In another room, not far from the library, one seems to gain an idea of the noble letter-writer's daily life, for we can still see its ante-chamber, in which the aspirants for his lordship's favour were sometimes kept waiting. (This room is immortalised in the Victorian portrayal by E.M. Ward(d.1879) of Dr JohnsonSamuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
in the ante-room of Lord Chesterfield). On the garden-front outside is a stone or marble terrace, overlooking the large lawn, stretching out in lawn and flower-beds behind the house”.
George Capel-Coningsby, 5th Earl of Essex
George Capel-Coningsby, 5th Earl of Essex
George Capel-Coningsby, 5th Earl of Essex FSA was an English aristocrat and politician, styled Viscount Malden until 1799.-Life:...
(d.1839) remembered seeing the earl sitting on a rustic seat in front of his mansion, basking in the sun.
Sale
Faced with the prospect of demolition in 1869 it was purchased by the CityCity of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
merchant Charles Magniac
Charles Magniac
Charles Magniac was a British financier and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons in two periods between 1868 and 1886.He was the eldest son of Hollingworth Magniac of Colworth, Bedfordshire...
, who considerably curtailed the grounds in the rear, and erected a row of buildings overlooking Chesterfield Street, named Chesterfield Gardens.
See also
- Ranger's House is the modern name for the house in Greenwich acquired by the 4th Earl in 1748 and renamed Chesterfield House
- Bretby HallBretby HallBretby Hall is a country house at Bretby, Derbyshire, England, north of Swadlincote and east of Burton upon Trent on the border with Staffordshire. It is a Grade II* listed building...
- Derbyshire seat of the Stanhope family
Sources
- Walford, EdwardEdward WalfordEdward Walford was a British magazine editor and a compiler of educational, biographical, genealogical and touristic works, perhaps best known for his Old and New London 6 volumes , 1878....
. Old & New London: A Narrative of Its History, Its People & Its Places, 6 vols., London, 1878, vol 4, pp.353-359
External links
- Bowles' map of 1775 showing Chesterfield House