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This is next in a series excerpted from my talk for the Beau Monde Conference held July 23, 2019, in NYC. The former residence of Arthur Wellesley, first Duke of Wellington (1769-1852), Apsley House is now run by English Heritage as the Wellington Museum.  It was built between 1771 and 1778 for the 2nd Earl of Bathurst; the house's title comes from his position as Baron Apsley which he held before succeeding his father in 1775. Originally of red brick, it was the first house to be passed after the toll gates at the top of Knightsbridge, and thus known as No. 1, London. Below, left, Hyde Park Corner in 1750; middle, painting of Apsley House in 1816; right, as remodeled and clad in stone, 1829. Apsley House was purchased in 1807 by Marquess Wellesley (1760-1842), elder brother of the first Duke of Wellington, for a price of £16,000. The fashionable architect James Wyatt carried out improvements for Lord Wellesley before he sold the house to his brother for £42,000 in 1817. The 1st Duke had just returned from his ambassadorial post in Paris. The duke enlarged the house in 1827, added the Corinthian portico and encased house in Bath stone. It was eventually presented to nation by 7th Duke in 1947 after damage from WWII bombs. Above, left, the Dining Room with Portuguese silver gilt service, a gift from that nation for the Duke’s service in the Peninsular War; Victoria, Kristine Hughes Patrone, and Diane Gaston offering their homage to the 1st Duke; the Wellington Shield, 1822. Please click on the photos.  The colossal sculpture of Napoleon as Apollo was carved by Canova and completed in 1811. It is 11 feet 4 inches high. Napoleon hated it as undignified and had it hidden away in the Louvre. The British bought it in 1816 and the Prince Regent presented it to the Duke. It is said that the floor under the staircase had to be reinforced to hold the statue.  The Waterloo Gallery was added to Apsley House by Benjamin Dean Wyatt in 1828 to provide exhibition space for the duke’s collection of paintings. It was first hung with more yellow silk, bur changed to red under the 2nd duke. The huge candelabra of grey Siberian porphyry were gifts from Emperor Nicholas I of Russia. Above, left: The Entrance Hall; middle, the Striped Drawing Room; right, fireplace in the Piccadilly Drawing Room.  Apsley House is filled with the gifts and honors given to the duke from all over the world, but it is also a home still, having apartments for the current duke and his heir. The 1st Duke died in 1853 and was given a huge state funeral at St. Paul’s Cathedral after a procession from Apsley House through London. Above, pictures from the Mystery Night at Apsley House on Friday, September 13, 2019. Left and center, characters enacting the suspects....,right, Kristine and the Duke strike similar poses. I figured out the perpetrator! It was great fun questioning all the suspects, including several physicians and even Mary Shelley...and a glass of wine always helps.
This was one of many public events held at Apsley House, in the most elegant of surroundings. Congratulations to the current management for making the house a frequent venue for talks, concerts, and performances which brig new audiences to the museum. Only a fragment remains of one of the great houses of the Georgian and Regency periods in London: Holland House.  Holland House evolved from the original Cope Castle, built in 1605 for Sir Walter Cope by architect John Thorpe on a 500 hundred-acre parcel of once rural land, now within London. His daughter Isabel inherited the house and lived there with her husband, Henry Rich, who was named 1st Earl of Holland. Then known as Holland House, the house descended through minor branches of the family until 1768 when it came into the possession of Henry Fox, a leading Whig in Parliament, after which Fox was named Baron Holland. Below, Holland House in 1815.  Holland House was built in the early 17th century, a Jacobean design. The Luftwaffe destroyed the house in 1940, and the remains, now Grade 1 listed, have been made into a hostel and venue for entertainments in what remains of Holland Park.  Apparently, after the German attack, much of the library continued to serve browsers. Below, a comparison of Holland House in 1896 and 2014.  I understand that the once-thriving hostel is now being adapted for other purposes, but the news is sketchy. On the other hand, the gardens are used by many and include an opera theatre, restaurants, and sports facilities. Below, two views I took of the remains of the house and a slice of the garden in 2017. Below, several photographs of the house's interior from 1907. Left, the China Room; middle, Gilded Room; right, the Library.  Holland House, 1907.
One of my favorite spots in London is the Wallace Collection, exhibited in the wonderful Hertford House on Manchester Square in Mayfair. Below, a drawing from their collection of Hertford House, c. 1812.  Today the home of the Wallace Collection in Manchester Square looks entirely different. Hertford House was built as Manchester House in 1776-88 by the 4th Duke of Manchester. It has been considerably altered from its original form with the addition of galleries to accommodate the art. It is open to the public today, and has a lovely café. Below, the current appearance.  The 2nd Marquess of Hertford, 1743-1822, a member of the Seymour family headed by the Duke of Somerset, bought Manchester House, and renamed it Hertford House in 1797. Hertford was Lord of the Treasury, and Ambassador to Berlin and Vienna under George III and Lord Chamberlain to Prince Regent 1812-21. His wife, Isabella, Lady Hertford, had a long liaison with the Prince Regent from 1807 to about 1819. Lady Hertford's place in Prinny's life was taken by Lady Conyngham. Below, décor of the house reflects the French tastes of the English aristocracy in the mid-Victorian era. Please remember to click on the thumbnail below for larger versions. In the top row, center, Margaret, Countess of Blessington, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1822. It seems the Hertfords had an appropriate scandal in just about every generation. The Third Marquess led a dissipated life and he was the model for Thackeray’s Lord Steyne in Vanity Fair. Yet he was a brilliant connoisseur and acted as agent for the Prince of Wales purchase of some magnificent Dutch pictures which are still in the Royal Collection. The 4th Marquess of Hertford (1800-70) never married. He was brought up in Paris by his mother and was one of Europe's richest men, benefitting from extensive Irish estates. I suppose we may safely assume he was one of those wretched landlords during the potato famine. He left his fortune and his unentailed property to Richard Wallace, (1818-1890) son of Mrs. Agnes Jackson, later Sir Richard Wallace, Bart., but never acknowledged his paternity. A second cousin inherited the marquisate. Below, the Staircase.  Richard Wallace was a considerable philanthropist in France during the war with Prussia and eventually married his mistress Julie Castelnau, mother of his son (who died in 1887.) He was made a baronet in 1871 and made many philanthropic donations to both the French and British nations. Lady Wallace, said to have been a former shop girl in a Paris perfumery, lived a secluded life at Hertford House after her husband's death in 1890. She was his sole heir. The Wallace collection was bequeathed to nation in 1897 by Lady Wallace, widow of Sir Richard Wallace. Sir Richard inherited one of the world's great collections of the Hertford Family and also was a great collector himself. Above, L to R: The Laughing Cavalier by Franz Hals, 1624; George IV by Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1822; Mrs. Mary Robinson (Perdita), by Thomas Gainsborough, 1781. Below, my only photo of the WallaceCollection Cafe, as reflected in the glass ceiling over the former courtyard, also showing the window-washer. Can you imagine crawling around on that glass looking down at the diners below? Glad it's not my job!  We have reached Kenwood House, part of my talk at the Beau Monde Conference in New York on July 23, 2019, that I did not deliver. I ran out of time!  The façade of the Orangery and Kenwood House facing Hampstead Heath.  The Entrance of Kenwood House Hampstead, London. The house is open today as a gallery of pictures, among them works by Rembrandt, Van Dyke, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Romney, and Lawrence; operated by English Heritage. The art collection is primarily the bequest of Edward Cecil Guiness, 1st Earl of Iveagh, who acquired the house to exhibit the pictures in 1927.  Above, the house from the Heath. The first house built here was about 1616, a Jacobean house partially pulled down but with remaining features beneath the 18th century white stucco; several prominent families owned the property throughout the 18th century. William Murray (1705-1793), 1st Earl of Mansfield, hired Robert Adam to redo the house in 1764. Mansfield was the Lord Chief Justice of England, 1756-1765. Below, the 1775 portrait of Lord Mansfield (by David Martin)hangs in the Library.  Perhaps the most famous room in Kenwood is the Adam Library, completely refurbished in 2012-14.  Compare this view with the previous appearance and the changes in the ceiling below. The original version was painted by Antonio Zucchi Much of the gilding had been added well after the original design, as well as the scarlet carpeting, now gone. The way it looked in the left above is the way I first saw it many years ago. The far more subtle shades of the restoration make me much more amenable to working in the library, so if there is sufficient wi-fi access, don't be surprised if you find me there next time you visit. Don't I wish!!! Below, three more views of the re-done library. For some years, the library was about the only room furnished as the original. But in the recent restoration, other rooms were returned to their 'residential' as opposed to 'gallery' appearance. Below, the dining room, refurbished.  The portrait above the dining room fireplace is Princess Henrietta of Lorraine attended by a Page by Anthony Van Dyck, 1634. Below, two of the priceless masterpieces from the collection. Left, Portrait of the Artist by Rembrandt van Rijn, c. 1663; and right, The Guitar Player by Jan Vermeer, c. 1672. The Music Room, below, including the chamber organ, from 1796, and many excellent English portraits.  Below, a selection of the fine English portraits from Kenwood House. Below, top, left, Mrs. Musters as Hebe by Sir Joshua Reynolds; Miss Murray, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1825-27; lower, left, Kitty Fisher as Cleopatra, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1759; right, Mrs. Jordan as Viola, by John Hoppner, The 1st Earl of Mansfield, was noted for his reform of English law and was important in the fight against slavery. He was the author of a court opinion that slaves brought into Britain or its territories were free. The Film Belle, 2013, tells the story, a bittersweet one, of these two young ladies, Mansfield’s niece, Elizabeth Murray, and Dido Bells, the natural daughter of Mansfield's nephew with a West Indian slave woman. They lived with the Mansfields for most of their lives. A cop of their portrait hangs at Kenwood, below.   Above, drawing of the house, c. 1774. Below, The café garden.  Another in a series excerpted from my talk at the Beau Monde Conference in New York City on July 23, 2019, brings us to Spencer House. This is part of the talk I did not deliver due to time constraints.  Spencer House by Thomas Malton, 1800. Façade overlooking Green Park. Spencer House was built in 1756 by John, first Earl Spencer, great grandson of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough and grandson of the third Earl of Sunderland. He inherited fortunes from both of them before he came of age.  Above, Spencer House today. In 1755 the 1st Earl Spencer married his childhood sweetheart, Georgiana Poyntz, age 18, at Althrop, upstairs in a secret ceremony during a ball for 50 guests. The Spencer family was one of the great wealthy Whig families of the 18th century. Based on their fortunes in wool and their service to the crown, they entered the peerage at the time of Charles I. Althrop was, and is, the Spencer country estate, famous as the 1997 burial place of Diana, Princess of Wales, daughter of the 8th Earl Spencer,  Entrance is 27, St. James Place. John Vardy (1718-1765), a pupil of William Kent, designed Spencer House and later, it was also worked on by James 'Athenian' Stuart (1713-1788). It is an excellent example of the classical style and was highly praised upon its completion. Above left, the Ante-Room; Right, the Morning Room. The first earl died in 1783 and was succeeded by his son, a member of the Whig inner circle around Charles James Fox and the Prince of Wales. The 2nd Earl's sister was Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. The Great Room, below, with a ceiling of green and gold was intended for receptions and balls.  During WW II, many fixtures were removed to Althrop. After the war, it was taken over by a series of businesses and now is leased by the RIT Capital Partners, under the chairmanship of Lord Rothschild. The fantastical architecture of The Palm Room, below, with carved and gilded palm trees is based on John Webb’s design for the King’s Bedchamber at Greenwich Palace. The palm trees were a symbol of marital fertility. The frieze of griffins and candelabra is derived from a Roman Temple. Below, Lady Spencer’s Drawing Room was the ladies withdrawing room for escape from the men’s cigars and port. The ceiling is based on a ceiling in the Baths of Augustus in Rome, by Stuart. Below. two final rooms of elegance and refinement. Left, the Dining Room. Right, the Painted Room, primarily the work of James 'Athenian' Stuart, completed in 1765. Spencer House is open to the public on most Sundays, usually by pre-arranged tours. Don't miss it on your next London jaunt.
In these excerpts from my talk on London Mansions at the 2019 Beau Monde Conference in New York, we'll take a look at three mansions adapted for other uses: Uxbridge House, Crewe House, and Number 106 Piccadilly. In my opinion though these three examples are significantly smaller than the three previous subjects (Burlington, Devonshire, and Lansdowne Houses), they definitely qualify as Mansions.  Above, an 1880 drawing of Uxbridge House in Burlington Gardens, at the corner of Saville Row. Built in 1721-23 by Giacomo Leoni, until 1778 it was the residence of the 3rd Duke of Queensbury and his protégé John Gay, the poet.
Today's occupants are rocking the foundations of Saville Row, where the tailors are afraid the new digs will lower the distinction of their fabled street. It is the home of Abercrombie in London and it’s bare-chested models on bill boards, sides of buses, and in the tube, have set London ablaze all over again. In a way it has stimulated a renaissance on Saville Row, for the bespoke tailors were not only offended, but organized and now they are more amenable to serving their clients in China, New York, Los Angeles and Russia where perfectly tailored sober British suits are highly esteemed and unlikely to be replaced by American chinos.  Nevertheless, Number 7 Burlington Gardens is a Grade II* building and will be preserved.  Crewe House is now the embassy of Saudi Arabia, in Curzon Street. It was once owned by Edward Shepard, one of the earliest developers of Mayfair-- see Shepard Market. Much altered, it 'became' a late Georgian mansion owned by 1st baron Wharncliffe in 1818 as Wharncliffe House, then, in the late 19th century the townhouse of the Marquess of Crewe. Its forecourt and rear gardens are not open to the public of course, and they would be a mere shadow of their former selves. Above, a view of the Drawing Room of Crewe House, a pair of chair from the house at auction, and the house as it appeared before the iron fence and security cameras were installed. Many such houses with yards and stables in the forecourt and gardens either behind or beside, existed in Mayfair as London grew west. Coventry House, better known as 106 Piccadilly, is now a school, with a fee of more than 2200 pounds a year, built in 1759 as home for Sir Hugh Hunlock, or Hunloke. He sold it for £10,000 and ground rent of £75 per annum to George Coventry, 6th Earl of Coventry who hired Adam to remodel it in 1764. Coventry House was purchased by Comte de Flahaut, former aide de camp to Napoleon, and husband of Margaret Mercer Elphinstone, daughter of Admiral Lord Keith, and confidante of the late Princess Charlotte. Flahaut was the ambassador of France to Britain and this was their embassy; subsequently purchased from Madame de Flahaut, also known as Baroness Keith, it become the site of the St. James Club from 1868 to 1978 when the club merged with Brooks. Below, l to r, Emily Jane Flahaut, Baroness Nairne, daughter of the Flahauts who married Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 4th Marquess of Landowne and became the marchioness and the mother of the 5th marquess and so forth; Before her marriage to General Flahaut in 1817, Mercer had been a close friend of Lord Byron who gave her the Albanian costume he wore in the painting below and which she wears in the engraving at right. Coventry House was once the site of the Old Greyhound Inn. It is a five bay structure with a handsome staircase and Adam ceilings and walls remaining on the piano nobile. Now 106 Piccadilly is a Grade 1 listed building, the Eaton Square Upper School for super rich kids. 
 Lansdowne House, London, in 1800. Lansdowne House was built in the 1760’s for Lord Bute, designed by Robert Adam (Scottish, 1728-1792). Lord Bute, first lord of the treasury, was a favorite of young king George III but later resigned in disfavor and retired to the country permanently. Bute sold the house before it was completed to William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, a leading Whig in the House of Lords. By 1782- 83, Lord Shelburne (who was named Marquis of Lansdowne in 1784), was prime minister for part of the American war of Independence.  Entrance to the Lansdowne Club, London, today. The house was partially demolished in 1936 and the remainder is the Lansdowne Club. The entrance foyer, the Adam Room, the Round Bar, and the ballroom are the originals, beautifully restored. Lord Shelburne’s picture is on the wall of the Round Room where he conferred with Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams as they negotiated the preliminary agreements that led to the Treaty of Paris of 1783 ending the American Revolution and establishing the independent USA. Shelburne was Prime Minister and like most of the Whigs at the time, he was in favor of colonial independence and opposed to the King. After he left government, he was named Marquess of Lansdowne, and the house was renamed as well. Another amusing American connection is the fact that H. Gordon Selfridge, who founded the great department store on Oxford Street, leased Lansdowne House in the 1930’s before it suffered its partial demise. Selfridge was born in Wisconsin and was an executive with Marshall Field & Co. in Chicago before he moved to England. During Selfridge’s tenure, the house was the scene of many famous parties, most attended by his intimate friends, the celebrated dancing Dolly Sisters. Below, another drawing of the massive Palladian style structure.  Two of the rooms removed in the partial demolition are in U.S. museums. Below, the brightly-colored saloon, a main reception room in the house, is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Adam designs, many based on motifs from classical sites uncovered in his lifetime in Pompeii, are brilliant.  The dining room, below, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It includes many of the sculptures the Lansdowne family collected.  Below at left, Bowood the Petty-Fitzmaurice- Shelburne-Lansdowne family country house in Wiltshire. It also was dramatically altered when the main structure was pulled down in 1956 and parts of the house relocated to the Orangery, now open to the public. In the process the handsome dining room also by Robert Adam, was removed and eventually ended up as the Adam Room, high above London in the Lloyd's of London Building. Below, at left, Bowood from Morris's County Seats, 1880. The remaining Orangery is on the far left, and the house on the right is gone. Right, the Bowood Dining Room, used by the Council of Lloyd's of London. More London Mansions ahead.
Last week, I presented Burlington House in Piccadilly, now the Royal Academy of Arts. This week, Devonshire House, long gone and replaced by a graceless office building just opposite the Green Park Tube Station.  Above, Devonshire House in 1896. The tall walls enclosed a courtyard. Behind the house originally, the gardens abutted the gardens of Lansdowne House, giving a clear view up to and including Berkeley Square. In the map below, Devonshire House is at the bottom, with its large garden behind it; Lansdowne House is center left facing its garden which meets the lower end of Berkeley Square.   Above, original plans for Devonshire House, designed by architect William Kent, as shown in Colen Campbell's publication Vitruvius Britannicus. In 1665 Lord Berkeley, commander of the Royalist Forces in the Civil War, built Berkeley House on this site. Later it was purchased by the Duke of Devonshire, and shortly thereafter, it burned down in 1733. The third Duke of Devonshire and his descendants lived here after its completion in 1740 until it was demolished in the 1920's, dividing their time among a number of houses, particularly their lavish country house Chatsworth in Derbyshire. Below, top row, William Cavendish, (1748-1811) 5th Duke; and Georgiana Spencer Cavendish, (1757-1806) his first duchess. Lower row, l to r, William Cavendish, 6th Duke (1790-1858--the bachelor duke) and, Elizabeth Hervey Foster Cavendish, (1759-1824) the 5th duke's second duchess. Though the outside of Devonshire House was stark and sober in red brick with little embellishment, the interior was sumptuously decorated as befit the home of a leading Whig family well known for its elegant entertainments.  Some pictures from the 19th century show the magnificent rooms. To celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897, the 8th Duke of Devonshire and Louisa, the Duchess, gave a Fancy Dress Ball at Devonshire House. The newspapers declared it the highlight of the Season. Top left to right: Duke and Duchess of Fife, costumed from the period of Henri II; the hostess, Duchess of Devonshire as Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra; Lower L to R: Prince of Wales (future Edward VII) as Grand Master of the Knights Hospitallers of Malta; and Daisy, Princess of Pless as Queen of Sheba. Photographs taken at the ball, 286 in all, can be seen on the website of the National Portrait Gallery, London. The famous trompe d’oeil violin from London, painted by Jan van der Vaardt (1653-1727), is now at Chatsworth in State Music Room.  Almost opposite the site of the house, in Green Park, are the gates below, once at Devonshire House and before that, they belonged to Berkeley House.  The Garden facade of the house.  Much of Devonshire House was stripped before the wrecking crew arrived in 1920. The furnishings were shipped to Chatsworth where they were stored for almost 100 years.  The Devonshires held a big sale in 2010 selling the contents of many attics and storage rooms in Derbyshire. William Kent fireplace surrounds and woodwork were among the most sought-after items in the auction.  Part Four of excerpts from my talk at the Beau Monde Conference July 23, 2019, in New York City, takes us to Piccadilly again and to Burlington House, now the home of the Royal Academy of Arts.  When this drawing was made about 1707, the open fields behind the house are clearly shown. Today, the building is substantially altered and it sits in the most congested area of Mayfair in the heart of London. Below is the view during the Annual Summer Exhibition of 2018. I am not sure what the large red disc represents, but the statue of Sir Joshua Reynolds, first president of the R.A., is suitably draped in flowers.  Burlington House is familiar to most of us as the home of the Royal Academy of Arts since 1867. But before that, it was a mansion belonging to aristocrats, among the first of the large mansions built along Piccadilly after the restoration of Charles II in 1660. The original house was built by Sir John Denham in red brick. Unfinished, it was sold in 1667 to Richard Boyle, first Earl of Burlington. Another Richard Boyle, his grandson, became the 3rd Earl at the age of ten in 1704 and he inherited the house. Above, l to r, Richard Boyle; Tribuna of the Uffizzi by Johann Zoffany; William Kent. While the 3rd Earl was still a child, his mother, Juliana Noel Boyle, second Countess of Burlington, had ceilings painted by Italian masters in the baroque style. As a teen, the 3rd Earl traveled on several Grand Tours and became a devotee of the architectural style inspired by Andrea Palladio, who built villas in the Veneto in northeastern Italy. By 1718, the 3rd Earl took charge of his Piccadilly mansion and chose fellow Palladian practitioner Colen Campbell to work on the house. William Kent, who had traveled in Italy with the 3rd Earl, took over most of the interiors. This triumvirate can be considered with Inigo Jones as responsible for the Palladian Style in British Architecture which dominated for many years and greatly influenced other nations, particularly colonial America and the first decades of the United States. L to R, Andrea Palladio, Palladio's Villa, Chiswick House. Despite all the Victorian additions of another storey to the Burlington House and the constructions of side pavilions, which house several learned societies, some of the original state rooms designed by Kent still survive in a suite known as the John Madejski Fine Rooms, named to honor the donor of the restoration funding in 2004. These were the first Kentian interiors in England …dating from 1719, including these plaster putti above the doorcases. Last year the Royal Academy completed an ambitious project to enlarge their school and exhibition space by adding the building at the rear – or non-Piccadilly side, with new galleries and an additional entrance and academic facilities. This area, opening onto Saville Row, was all a part of the Burlington estate two to three centuries ago. I highly recommend exploring the old and the new at Burlington House next time you are in London. Once the 3rd Earl had Burlington House in hand, he earned his honorary title as 'the architect earl' by designing and building Chiswick House, now on the west side of metropolitan London, but at that time in rural Twickenham. Among the many properties inherited by Burlington was a Jacobean mansion used as a summer retreat. After a fire in 1725, Lord Burlington redid the house, adding a villa with a connecting structure. The mansion itself was pulled down in 1788 leaving the villa, part of the connecting link, and the gardens. The villa now known as Chiswick House was used as an office, gallery, and rooms for entertaining. Lord Burlington used his great wealth in sponsoring the work of many artists, architects and musicians. Handel was first a guest at Chiswick in 1712, and came back many times. The English Heritage Guidebook to Chiswick comments on the character of Burlington’s work: “Lord Burlington’s principal objective was to recreate the architecture and gardens of ancient Rome (and) re-establish its meaning…which told a story or painted a moral. Chiswick House incorporates an allegorical exposition of the polite arts; its garden includes reference to political liberty.” Chiswick House, incidentally is pronounced Chis-ick, with a silent W as is usual in British names…Warwick, for another example. The beauty of the house is in its symmetry, its proportions. Geometric shapes, circles, squares, octagons, all combine to create perfect balance. Based on the principles of ancient Greek architecture as reinterpreted by the Romans and Renaissance Italians, it is a pleasingly human scale which brings comfort and satisfaction in merely looking at the plans. Each room flows from the central saloon under the shallow dome, one into another without barriers. The cornices and wall or ceiling paintings are the main decoration. Furniture was minimal and rearranged for specific purposes, as was usual in the days of many servants. Some rooms were used by Lord Burlington as a gallery for his collection of paintings. Below, Burlington House in 1873, the Piccadilly facade.  The 3rd Earl of Burlington married Lady Dorothy Savile, daughter of the 2nd Marquess of Halifax, an heiress who brought additional estates to the family. They had no sons; his only surviving daughter Charlotte (1731-1754) inherited his properties; she was the Marchioness of Hartington, married to the eventual 4th Duke of Devonshire. Note that Charlotte had a very short life; her son William Cavendish (1748-1811) was born when she was a mere 17. But through her, the possessions of Lord Burlington passed into the hands of the Cavendish/ Devonshire family. Since the Devonshires already had a house on Piccadilly just a few doors away, they eventually sold the house to Lord George Cavendish, a younger brother of the 5th Duke of Devonshire. Lord George was named 1st Earl of Burlington of the second creation in 1831; He lived in Burlington House and built the Burlington Arcade on the west side of the house in 1818. Below, drawing of Burlington Arcade in 1827-28 by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd.  So next time you browse through the elegant shops in the Burlington Arcade, remember this is the province of two of the greatest families of the realm. Below, photo from Wikipedia.  |
Victoria Hinshaw, Author
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