Devonshire Close, originally known as Devonshire Mews East, is a mews street in the

City of Westminster The City of Westminster is a city and borough in Inner London. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It occupies a large area of central Greater London, including most of the West En ...

, London, accessed from Devonshire Street. The Close is on a distinctive H plan with a middle downwards leg. It dates from the 1770s and originally contained a timber yard, stables, and accommodation for domestic servants who worked in the larger houses surrounding it. Access was limited to the north side in order to divert traffic from the grander north–south streets around it. The Close was

gentrified Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and planning. Gentrification often increases the eco ...

in the 20th century and its buildings converted to mews houses which, like other mews in London, have become desirable in the modern era because they are quiet and have little traffic. The Close is now part of the

Howard de Walden Estate The Howard de Walden Estate is a property estate in Marylebone, London, owned by the Howard de Walden family. As of 2020 the estate was reported to be worth £4.7 billion. History The Estate's development dates from 1715 when speculative plann ...

Origins and layout

The Close was laid out in the 1770s and was known as Devonshire Mews EastLaxton, Paul & Joseph Wisdom. (1985) ''The A to Z of Regency London''. London:

London Topographical Society The London Topographical Society was founded as the Topographical Society of London in 1880 to publish "material illustrating the history and topography of the City and County of London from the earliest times to the present day".Dorothy Cavendish, later Duchess of Portland, daughter of the

4th Duke of Devonshire William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, (8 May 1720 – 2 October 1764), styled Lord Cavendish before 1729, and Marquess of Hartington between 1729 and 1755, was a British Whig statesman and nobleman who was briefly nominal 5th Prime Mini ...

. When developed, Devonshire Street was of somewhat lower social status than the north–south streets and the southern reaches of what is now the

. Accordingly, access to the Mews was only from the north side, rather than the east or west which might impede the north–south flow of traffic, and without a southern entrance or exit.

19th century

The Close was originally the site of a timber yard and would also have had stables for horses and accommodation for servants working in the large houses surrounding it. Charles Booth's poverty map shows the different levels of household wealth inside and outside the Close in 1889 with the houses of the upper classes being shown in yellow, the middle class in red, and the Close marked in pink, meaning "fairly comfortable" or "good ordinary earnings"."Descriptive Map of London Poverty 1889", North-Western Sheet, grid square D5. The Cape of Good Hope public house was on the north side until 1932 and gave its name to Cape of Good Hope Mews which replaced the timber yard in the 19th century.

20th century

The

Survey of London The Survey of London is a research project to produce a comprehensive architectural survey of central London and its suburbs, or the area formerly administered by the London County Council. It was founded in 1894 by Charles Robert Ashbee, an A ...

writes of the area that by the start of the 20th century, "the bijou house on side streets or at the back was now making its debut, as motor garages supplanted stinking stables and the mews became detoxified." The timber yard was replaced with mews houses in 1926–27 and extensive gentrification took place in the Close during the early and mid-20th century as buildings were improved or replaced. The Close's original utilitarian buildings were subject to "prettification" during their conversion to private residential use and others were rebuilt in a much more "architectural" style. 40 Devonshire Street, a "mews side-house""Devonshire, Weymouth and New Cavendish Streets"
in ''South-East Marylebone'', Survey of London Vols. 51 & 52, London, 2017. which is on the corner of the western entrance to the Close, was built in the 1930s in what Historic England describe as the "arts and crafts Georgian revival" style. It has been

grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ir ...

since 1987. Number 39, inside the Close, was part of the same plot of land as number 40. It was completed in 1934 and noted by Pevsner for its combination of modernism and tradition. Both were designed by Francis Lorne and Ludovic Gordon Farquhar of Burnet, Tait & Lorne for Vincent Gluckstein, chairman of Bovis, who intended to clear the site and build housing. Number 40 was occupied as a house but the

modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

39 was acquired by G. Grey Wornum who used it as the base for his architectural practice, possibly because its modern style did not suit the rest of the area.The ‘bijou’ or ‘dwarf’ houses of the Howard de Walden grid. Part 2: the inter-war period.
Survey of London, 19 January 2018. Retrieved 13 March 2022. Cottage conversions continued after the Second World War at, for instance, number 3 in 1962 and number 2 in 1970–71. Number 32 was converted to offices in 1986. The Survey of London point out the irony that these and similar London mews, once the home of servants and horses and with limited access from the grander streets that surround them, have now become desirable homes precisely because they are quiet and have little traffic.

References

External links

{{coord, 51.5214, N, 0.1470, W, display=title Streets in the City of Westminster Mews streets in London Howard de Walden Estate Marylebone

Origins and layout

19th century

20th century

References

Further reading

External links