Montagu House, Bloomsbury
Encyclopedia
Great Russell Street
Great Russell Street is a street in Bloomsbury, central London, England. It is the location of the main entrance of the British Museum to the north. The Congress Centre of the Trades Union Congress is located at number 28...
in the Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury
-Places:* Bloomsbury is an area in central London.* Bloomsbury , related local government unit* Bloomsbury, New Jersey, New Jersey, USA* Bloomsbury , listed on the NRHP in Maryland...
district of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, which became the first home of the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
.
The house was actually built twice, both times for the same man, Ralph Montagu, 1st Duke of Montagu
Ralph Montagu, 1st Duke of Montagu
Ralph Montagu, 1st Duke of Montagu was an English courtier and diplomat.-Life:He was the second son of Edward Montagu, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton and Anne Winwood, daughter of the Secretary of State Ralph Winwood...
. The late 17th century was Bloomsbury's most fashionable era, and Montagu purchased a site which is now in the heart of London but which then backed onto open fields (the Long Fields
Field of the Forty Footsteps
The Field of the Forty Footsteps was part of meadow lands at the back of the British Museum, once known as the Long Fields, then Southampton Fields...
). His first house was designed by the English architect and scientist Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke FRS was an English natural philosopher, architect and polymath.His adult life comprised three distinct periods: as a scientific inquirer lacking money; achieving great wealth and standing through his reputation for hard work and scrupulous honesty following the great fire of 1666, but...
, an architect of moderate ability whose style was influenced by French planning and Dutch detailing, and was built between 1675 and 1679. Admired by contemporaries, it had a central block and two service blocks flanking a large courtyard and featured murals by the Italian artist Antonio Verrio
Antonio Verrio
The Italian-born Antonio Verrio was responsible for introducing Baroque mural painting into England and served the Crown over a thirty year period.-Career:...
. The French painter Jacques Rousseau
Jacques Rousseau
This is an article about Jacques Rousseau the 17th century French Huguenot painter, for the 17th century Dutch painter see Jacques des Rousseaux and for the French long jumper see Jacques Rousseau ....
also contributed wall paintings. In 1686, the house was destroyed by fire.
The house was rebuilt to the designs of an otherwise little known Frenchman called Pouget. This Montagu House was by some margin the grandest private residence constructed in London in the last two decades of the 17th century. The main façade was of seventeen bays, with a slightly projecting three bay centre and three bay ends, which abutted the service wings of the first mansion. The house was of two main storeys, plus basement and a prominent mansard roof with a dome over the centre. The planning was in the usual French form of the time, with state apartments leading from a central saloon. The interiors, decorated by French artists, were admired by Horace Walpole and were probably comparable to the surviving state apartments at Boughton House
Boughton House
Boughton House is a country house about north-east of Kettering off the A43 road near Geddington in Northamptonshire, England, which belongs to the Duke of Buccleuch.-History:...
in Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...
, which were built for the same patron at the same time.
In the early 18th century, Bloomsbury began to decline gently from a fashionable aristocratic district to a more middle class enclave, and the 2nd Duke of Montagu abandoned his father's house to move to Whitehall. He built himself a more modest residence which was later replaced with an opulent mansion by his Victorian descendant, Walter Montagu Douglas Scott, 5th Duke of Buccleuch: see Montagu House, Whitehall
Montagu House, Whitehall
Montagu House was the name of two mansions in Whitehall in Westminster, Central London, England.In 1731, John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu, abandoned the existing grand Montagu House in the socially declining district of Bloomsbury, which was later to become the premises of the British Museum, and...
.
Montagu House in Bloomsbury was sold to the Trustees of the British Museum in 1759 and was the home of that institution until it was demolished in the 1840s to make way for larger premises.
In fiction, the House appears in Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson
Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction.Difficult to categorize, his novels have been variously referred to as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk...
's The Baroque Cycle
The Baroque Cycle
The Baroque Cycle is a series of novels by American writer Neal Stephenson. It was published in three volumes containing 8 books in 2003 and 2004. The story follows the adventures of a sizeable cast of characters living amidst some of the central events of the late 17th and early 18th centuries in...
as Ravenscar House with Daniel Waterhouse as the architect in place of Hooke.