The Origins of St James’s
St James’s Square has now been a bastion of London clubs and institutions for over a century. But at the time of the Restoration when Charles II, not wanting to live in the Whitehall that had witnessed his father’s miserable last years, chose St James’s palace as his residence, it was not such a desirable residence.
‘St James’s Palace, where the royal family now resides in the winter season, stands pleasantly upon the north side of the Park, and has several noble rooms in it, but it is an irregular building, by no means suitable to the grandeur of the British monarch its master. In the front next St. James’s street, there appears little more than an old gate house, by which we enter a little square court, with a piazza on the west side of it leading to the grand stair case; and there are two other courts beyond, which had not much the air of a prince’s palace.’ (Look’s fine to me, for a little place in town.)
The history of the square is a snapshot of London in her prime: Henry Jermyn, Duke of St Albans was to build what is arguably London’s finest square, and also cut the ribbon on the race for London’s aristocrats to become hereditary landlords. Jermyn was described by a contemporary as ‘a man of pleasure….and entertains no other thoughts than to live at ease’. Perhaps the ideal qualifications for a man to build a garden square designed to house London’s wealthiest families.
Fire and plague was spurring the building craze in London’s second city. When Charles II was restored to the English throne in 1660, he was determined to rule in style completely opposed to that of his father: relaxed and accessible, he worked hard to please his people and reward the friends who had remained loyal. Henry Jermyn, the Duke of St Albans was allowed to start building in St James’s Fields because, as he put it, ‘Ye beauty of this great Towne and ye convenience of your Court are defective in point of houses fitt for ye dwellings of Noble men and other Persons of quality’. Like most aristocratic landlords of his time Jermyn was no architect, but he did have a vision for his development and laid out the square in plots which were to be leased to builders who were to build houses of ‘substantial character’. He worked with Sir John Coell and Sir Thomas Clarges to make a plan, all overseen, in theory, by the King himself. The City, protective of its water supply and alarmed by the expansion of London, were not so keen, as Samuel Pepys recorded on September 2nd, 1663:
‘The building of St. James’s by my Lord St Albans, which is now about, and which the City stomach, I perceive, highly, but dare not oppose it.’
By 1666 St James’s Square had its first resident - Sir William Stanley, who was living on the north side of the square. The rate books record him as owing a solitary pound, on which he defaulted. By 1667, Henry Jermyn was living in a house on the north-west corner of York Street, later to become Chandos House. From there, he could watch over his blossoming development, both in the square, and north towards Piccadilly.
In 1676, St James’s Square first appears as a separate place of residence, by which time the King’s ex-mistress Mary, or ‘Moll’ Davis was living in the south-west corner. Elizabeth Pepys called her ‘the most impertinent slut in the world’, which is presumably how she came by the £1800 she paid for the property, aged 29.
Nearby, St James’s Market was opened to serve the local population. Although Tobias Smollett was less than happy with some of the stall-holders: ‘It was but yesterday that I saw a dirty barrow-bunter in the street, cleaning her dusty fruit with her own spittle; and who knows but some fine lady of St. James’s parish might admit into her delicate mouth those very cherries which had been rolled and moistened between the filthy, and perhaps ulcerated, chops of a St. Giles’s huckster?'
(The market) SAUL’s, for all your drainpipe needs!
In the early part of the eighteenth century, the square retained its rural, though grand appearance, echoing the Rus In Urbe ideal of nearby Buckingham House. Although Jermyn had planned to pave the square early in its life, it never happened, and by the 1720s, the central space was overgrown and beginning to resemble a refuse tip, with garbage ditched there by all manner of residents and passersby. It was clear this could not continue and in 1726, the residents decided to clean up their act, asking Parliament for permission to rate themselves for enough funds to ‘cleanse, adorn, and beautify’ the square which ‘hath for some years past lain, and doth now lie, rude and in great disorder’. Worse than the filth, a local coachmaker had built a shed in the centre of the square in which to store timber. The bill whooshed through both Houses in two months. The new rules included the stipulation that hackney-carriages were not allowed to ply, or pick up in the square, but must drop off their fare and make the quickest exit.
The piles of rubbish were supposed to be replaced with a small ornamental lake and a fountain in 1727. The York Buildings Company won the contract to supply water and after 1734, the square was lit at night. Around this time the railings went in at their current positions to frame the water feature, and the rest of the square outside them was paved. From the middle of the century, the great buildings begin to appear. Matthew Brettingham’s Norfolk House (on the right in the top picture) on the south east side for the same Duke was finished by 1756, and whilst the reviews of its splendid interior (some parts surviving in the V&A) were favourable, the plain exterior was unpopular. Lichfield House, which has just undergone an extensive renovation, was built between 1746-6 by James 'Athenian’ Stuart, is still standing in the north east corner, next to the wonderful London Library.
(Image courtesy of English Heritage)
There are a couple of other survivals, including the link (torch) extinguishers outside Ormond House on the north side*, but change has been part of the life of the square. The water feature was filled in with the first cholera outbreak in 1832. The market was demolished in 1918. Norfolk House remained until 1938 when it was pulled down to make the current offices. The little house at the back where George III was born was being used as a storeroom at the time.
*That’s Berkeley Square but the St James’s ones are similar.
