Clarendon House
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Clarendon House was a town mansion which stood on
Piccadilly Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, England, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road (England), A4 road that connects central London to ...
in London, England, from the 1660s to the 1680s. It was built for the powerful politician
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon (18 February 16099 December 1674) was an English statesman, lawyer, diplomat and historian who served as chief advisor to Charles I during the First English Civil War, and Lord Chancellor to Charles II fro ...
, and was the grandest private London residence of its era.


History

After the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, new houses began to spring up in the West End to accommodate Charles II's courtiers. Piccadilly was little more than a country lane, but the land to the north of it was just beginning to be used for housing; the next several decades would see the development of the whole of this area, which was to become London's leading aristocratic residential district,
Mayfair Mayfair is an area of Westminster, London, England, in the City of Westminster. It is in Central London and part of the West End. It is between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane and one of the most expensive districts ...
. Two other celebrated mansions were built close to Hyde's at around the same time. To the east Sir John Denham was building the house that later became
Burlington House Burlington House is a building on Piccadilly in Mayfair, London. It was originally a private English Baroque and then Neo-Palladian mansion owned by the Earl of Burlington, Earls of Burlington. It was significantly expanded in the mid-19th cent ...
, and to the west Lord Berkeley was building Berkeley House, later
Devonshire House Devonshire House in Piccadilly, was the London townhouse of the Dukes of Devonshire during the 18th and 19th centuries. Following a fire in 1733 it was rebuilt by William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire, in the Palladian style, to designs ...
. Lord Clarendon acquired the site for his house by royal grant in 1664. Ironically in view of later events he always maintained that he had been reluctant to build such an ostentatious house, but was unable to rent any suitable mansion. Clarendon House was built between that year and 1667 to designs by Roger Pratt. It was set well back from the street behind a courtyard. The central section had nine bays and the two side wings were each three bays wide. The house was built on the double pile plan, meaning that it was two rooms deep, and had two main storeys of roughly equal height. There was a raised basement below and a tall attic storey with dormer windows above. The roof was flat and balustraded and topped with a
cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...
. The style was typical of the English fashion of the day, clearly influenced by classical principles, symmetrical and pedimented, but lacking any
classical orders An order in architecture is a certain assemblage of parts subject to uniform established proportions, regulated by the office that each part has to perform. Coming down to the present from Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman civiliz ...
. Little is known about the interior layout beyond what can be surmised from the exterior, from Pratt's other works, and from the conventions of the time. It probably had a large top lit central staircase hall and a series of state apartments. It had 101 hearths. Clarendon House was praised both by contemporaries and by later architectural critics.
John Evelyn John Evelyn (31 October 162027 February 1706) was an English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, who is now best known as a diary, diarist. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society. John Evelyn's Diary, ...
thought it was "the best contriv'd, the most useful, graceful and magnificent house in England". Three hundred years later,
John Summerson Sir John Newenham Summerson (25 November 1904 – 10 November 1992) was one of the leading British architectural historians of the 20th century. Early life John Summerson was born at Barnstead, Coniscliffe Road, Darlington. His grandfather wo ...
wrote: "Clarendon House was among the first great classical houses to be built in London and easily the most striking of them." It was to prove an influential model for future English houses, but its impact was felt much more in the design of
country house image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...
s than London mansions.
Belton House Belton House is a Grade I listed country house in the parish of Belton near Grantham in Lincolnshire, England, built between 1685 and 1687 by Sir John Brownlow, 3rd Baronet. It is surrounded by formal gardens and a series of avenues lead ...
in
Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...
, which is sometimes said to be the exemplar of the
English country house image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...
, was closely based on Clarendon House. In 1667, the same year that his house was finished, Clarendon fell from favour. His image had not been helped by the grandeur of his mansion, which is believed to have cost around £40,000. Among the many allegations against him it was charged that he had appropriated, to build his house, stone intended for repairs to St. Paul's Cathedral after the
Great Fire of London The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Wednesday 5 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old London Wall, Roman city wall, while also extendi ...
. That same year, on 14 June 1667,
Samuel Pepys Samuel Pepys ( ; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English writer and Tories (British political party), Tory politician. He served as an official in the Navy Board and Member of Parliament (England), Member of Parliament, but is most r ...
recorded in his diary: "...some rude people have been... at my Lord Clarendon's where they cut down the trees before his house and broke his windows." In response to the allegations, the King abandoned his former favourite. In 1667, Clarendon fled to France, where he died in 1674. In 1675, his heirs sold Clarendon House to Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle, for £26,000, and in 1683, Albemarle resold it to a consortium of investors led by Sir Thomas Bond. Bond demolished it and built
Dover Street Dover Street is a street in Mayfair, London. The street is notable for its Georgian architecture as well as the location of historic London clubs and hotels, which have been frequented by world leaders and historic figures in the arts. It al ...
,
Albemarle Street Albemarle Street is a street in Mayfair in central London, off Piccadilly. It has historic associations with George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, Lord Byron, whose publisher John Murray (publishing house), John Murray was based here, and Oscar ...
, and
Bond Street Bond Street in the West End of London links Piccadilly in the south to Oxford Street in the north. Since the 18th century the street has housed many prestigious and upmarket fashion retailers. The southern section is Old Bond Street and the l ...
on the site. Albemarle Street ran right through the centre of the site of the house, which had faced directly down St. James's Street. The building of the house and the resentment it caused are major elements in ''The Piccadilly Plot'', the seventh of the Thomas Chaloner series of mystery novels by Susanna Gregory.


References

*''London's Mansions'' by David Pearce, (1986) *''The London Rich'' by Peter Thorold (1999)


External links


Clarendon Estate
Victoria County History The Victoria History of the Counties of England, commonly known as the Victoria County History (VCH), is an English history project which began in 1899 with the aim of creating an encyclopaedic history of each of the historic counties of Englan ...
{{Gutenberg, name=The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 368, 2 May 1829., no=11348 1667 establishments in England 1683 disestablishments Former houses in the City of Westminster Buildings and structures on Piccadilly Townhouses in the United Kingdom