ESTATES

Albertpolis

Albertpolis is a cultural and educational district that lies to the south of Kensington Gardens and to the east of Queen's Gate the road. Its best-known feature is The Royal Albert Hall (1871).

After the Great Exhibition of 1851, the event's supervising Commission bought 86 acres estates that was bound on its north-western side by Kensington Gardens and on its southern one by the Cromwell Road. The institutions that have come to reside there include Imperial College, the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal College of Art, and the Royal College of Music.¹

Location: Exhibition Road, SW7 2AZ (red, yellow)

Website: www.discoversouthken.com (The Exhibition Road Cultural Group) https://gcdn.net/member/exhibition-road-cultural-group

¹. The former Royal College of Organists, which is now a private residence, stands at No. 26 at the southern end of the west side of the Kensington Gore square in which the Royal Albert Hall stands.

The Royal Commission for The Exhibition of 1851

The Royal Commission for The Exhibition of 1851 organised the Great Exhibition of that year. The body is still active.

Location: 453 Shenfield Building, Imperial College, SW7 2AZ (orange, purple)

Website: https://royalcommission1851.org

The Bedford Estates

In 1550 the Bloomsbury estate was granted to Lord Chancellor Thomas Wriothesley 1^st Earl of Southampton. In 1723 the property passed through inheritance to the Russell Dukes of Bedford. During the mid-20^thC the Russells sold the freeholds of much of the estate.

The 11^th Duke of Bedford lived in Belgrave Square.

The 12^th Duke of Bedford was known as Spinach . He died in a shooting accident. His son, the 13^th Duke was known as Ian .

Location: 29a Montague Street, WC1B 5BL (red, turquoise)

Website: www.bedfordestates.com

Covent Garden

From 1536 until 1918 Covent Garden was owned by the Russell family. Their townhouse, Bedford House, stood between the Strand and Covent Garden. In the early 17^thC the 4^th Earl of Bedford decided to take advantage of the westward growth of London by developing the property. Inigo Jones acted as the peer s planner-architect. The original piazza reflected Jones's knowledge of Italian architecture. (The colonnades on the western section of the piazza's northern side used to be accompanied by others that extended along all four sides of the piazza.)

In 1918 the 11^th Duke sold Covent Garden to the Covent Garden Estate Company Ltd., a private company.

Location: Covent Garden Piazza, WC2E 8HB (blue, grey)

Website: www.coventgarden.london

The Benyon Estate

The Benyon estate included 300 houses in De Beauvoir Town.

The Benyon family own 400 houses in Hackney.

Location: 72c Southgate Road, N1 3JF

Website: https://thebenyonestate.com

Bouverie Street

Pleydell-Bouverie is the surname of the Earls of Radnor. The family are of Huguenot descent. They own a number of properties in the area to the south of the eastern end of Fleet Street.

A past Earl of Radnor is reputed to have remarked that he would not open his country house¹ to the public because The people who come around here might be very nice, but you would n t want to see and hear them all the time. I am told that you can even smell them and eventually your house takes on an odour like a railway station . In part, it was the income generated by the Pleydell-Bouveries London estate that enabled the peer to afford to keep his stately home private.

Location: Bouverie Street, EC4Y 8DP (orange, orange)

See Also: THE HUGUENOTS

Website: www.longfordestates.co.uk

¹. Longford Castle in Wiltshire.

The Cadogan Estate

Sir Hans Sloane worked as a doctor in Jamaica. He realised that quinine could be used to treat malaria. He was to become one of the most successful physicians of the 18^thC, earning a large fortune through his medical practice. In 1712 the Cheyne family sold the Manor of Chelsea to him. Sloane used the manor house to store his collection curios and antiquities in. In 1722 Sir Hans conveyed Chelsea Physic Garden to the Society of Apothecaries in perpetuity for an annual rent of 5.

Sloane did not reside in Chelsea until 1742. Following his death, the estate was split in two. The western portion went to his daughter Sarah and her family the Stanleys of Paultons, Hampshire. The eastern one was left to his other daughter Elizabeth and her descendants the Cadogans.

In 1771 Sloane Square was enclosed. The houses around it were constructed under the supervision of the architect Henry Holland, who developed land to the north-west of the square. In the 1780s the manor house was demolished. Nos. 19-26 Cheyne Walk were built on the site.

Location: 16 Cadogan Gardens, SW3 2RS (blue, yellow)

Swan Court, 77 Chelsea Manor Street, SW3 5RT. The site of the manor house. (red, orange)

19-26 Cheyne Walk, SW3 5RA (orange, grey)

Paultons Square, SW3 5AP (orange, blue)

Sloane Square, SW1W 8EL (purple, yellow)

Stanley Terrace, 293-301 The King's Road, SW3 5EP (orange, pink)

Website: www.cadogan.co.uk

The Cecil Estates

William Cecil 1^st Baron Burghley was a highly adept 16^thC politician who successfully navigated the reigns of King Edward VI and Queen Mary I to become the principal servant of their sister Queen Elizabeth I. He founded two separate two aristocratic dynasties - the Marquises of Exeter and the Marquises of Salisbury.

The Salisburies

Location: Salisbury House, 80 Strand, WC2R 0RL. Shell-Mex House now occupies the site. (blue, orange)

Website: www.gascoynececil.com

The Duchy of Cornwall

The Duchy of Cornwall owns land to the south of the South Bank.

Website: https://duchyofcornwall.org

The Gunter Estates

James Gunther was a celebrated confectioner who had premises in Berkeley Square. He invested the business's profits in land to the west of London. In the late 1790s he acquired Earls Court Lodge, which soon popularly became known as Currant Jelly Hall. In the mid-1800s Gunther started developing residential properties in Earls Court and Brompton. His son Robert was active in both of the family businesses but eventually concentrated on the property one.

Location: Gunter Grove, SW10 0UN (blue, orange)

Gunterstone Road, W14 9BP

Tregunter Road, SW10 9LR (blue, pink)

See Also: CAKES & PASTRIES Gunter s

The Howard de Walden Estate

Location: 23 Queen Anne Street, W1G 9DL (orange, turquoise)

See Also: THE UNRESURRECTED MOLE

Website: www.hdwe.co.uk

The Hyde Park Estate

The Hyde Park Estate lies within a triangle composed of Edgware Road, Bayswater Road, and Sussex Gardens. For centuries the land was owned by the Bishops of London. Housing started to be built on it in 1807. The development was completed in the 1850s. It was known as the Paddington Estate.

The Estate was transferred from the bishops ownership to the newly formed Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1868. In 1948 the Commissioners merged with Queen Anne's Bounty to create the Church Commissioners. By the 1950s much of the estate was in a poor condition. As a result, a programme of redevelopment was embarked upon.

Website: https://www.hydeparkestate.com

The Panton Estate

Colonel Thomas Panton (d.1685) was a renowned gamester who skills included chess and billiards. His particular game was hazard. In a single night he won enough to purchase estates that had a rent-roll of 1500. Thereafter, he never played cards or dice again.

Location: Panton Street, SW1Y 4EA (orange, purple)

Great Windmill Street, W1D 7DH. Piccadilly Hall stood on the corner of Coventry Street and Windmill Street. Its final resident was Colonel Panton. (purple, red)

The Pollen Estate

The Pollen Estate owns a portion of south-eastern Mayfair, including Cork Street.

In 1622 William Maddox, a tailor, bought 35 acres of land. This was in what became eastern Mayfair.

In 2014 the Church Commissioners sold 64% of the Pollen Estate to the Crown Estate for 381m. At the time, it consisted of 43 properties, some of which were on Bond Street and Savile Row. At the time, the Pollen family had a 25% holding and Greenwich Hospital a 10% one.

In 2014 the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund acquired 64.2% of the estate.

Location: 160 Aldersgate, EC1A 4HT (purple, red)

Savile Row, W1S 3PQ (blue, red)

Website: www.thepollen.com

The Portman Estate

In 1532 Sir William Portman bought a small estate north of what was to become Oxford Street. Orchard and Portman were the first streets to be lain out. In 1764 Portman Square was lain out.

In 2006 the Portman Estate covered 206 acres.

Location: 40 Portman Square, W1H 6LT (red, blue)

Website: www.portmanestate.co.uk

The Rugby Estate

Location: Lamb's Conduit Street, WC1N 3NB (purple, turquoise)

Website: www.rugbyschool.co.uk

Thomas Arnold

Thomas Arnold was the headmaster of Rugby School from 1827 to 1841. His ideas on education had a major impact on the subsequent development of public schools and universities in Britain. He sought to induce the boys in his care to educate one another with the social skills and the outlook that Victorian society was to believe that they needed. Their childish games, such as rugby, were no longer to be suppressed. To the contrary, Arnold believed they should be encouraged as a means of instilling toughness, selflessness, bravery, and a willingness to work co-operatively. In the wake of his influence the public schools started to generate the cult of muscular Christianity .

See Also: SPORTS Rugby

The Pratt Estate

The Pratt Estate covered much of Camden Town. The Pratt family sold it off and held on to their Welsh farmlands. The disposal started in the 1910s and was completed following the end of the Second World War.

Location: Pratt Street, NW1 0AB (blue, red)

Sir Richard Sutton

Location: 41 Great Pulteney Street, W1F 9NZ (orange, pink)

Website: www.srsl.co.uk www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vols31-2/pt2/pp116-137

The Thurloe Estate

The Thurloe Estate in South Kensington is centred on Thurloe and Alexander Squares.

What became the Thurloe Estate was acquired by the vintner Sir William Blake (d.1630). It passed to the grandson of John Thurloe, Cromwell's Secretary of State. The estate's development was started by John Alexander (1762-1821) during the building boom that followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

Joan Campbell's (1887-1960) inherited London residence was in Bryanston Square. She claimed never to have never visited any part of South Kensington, including her estate.

Location: Alexander Place, SW7 2SF (purple, brown)

2 Bryanston Square, W1H 2DH (orange, purple)

The Tonbridge Estate

There is a story that the academic literary critic Ian Watt is supposed to have recounted about his time in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp during the Second World War. Well, we were in a cell that was probably built for six but was holding about sixteen of us. There was n t much food and we had n t been given any water for quite a while. The heat was absolutely ferocious. Dysentery had begun to take its toll, which was distinctly disagreeable at such close quarters ...

Added to this unpleasantness, we could hear one of our number being rather badly beaten by the Japanese guards, with rifle butts it seemed, in the guardroom down the corridor. At this rather trying moment one of my subalterns, who d managed to fall asleep, stated screaming and flailing and yelling. He was shouting: No, no - please don t ... Not any more, not again, Oh God please. Hideous noises like that. I had to take a snap decision to prevent panic, so I ordered the sergeant to slap him and wake him up. When he came to, he apologized for being a bore but brokenly confessed that he d dreamed he was back at Tonbridge.

The novelist E.M. Forster was once invited to write an article for Tonbridge s school magazine. He replied that he would do so Only if it could be against compulsory games.

David Backhouse 2024