London Travel Guide Continued...
Drapers Gardens running through the middle), and another block in St Swithin's Lane where their first hall stood. To the east, the Leathersellers own every freehold around their hall in St Helen's Place, and more either side in Bishopsgate and St Mary Axe. To the west, the Grocers own nearly all of the west side of Prince's Street around Grocers' Hall Gardens, opposite the Bank of England, plus more land in Cornhill and Old Jewry. To the south, the Merchant Taylors at 30 Threadneedle Street have since the 14th century owned virtually everything on their island site bounded by Finch Lane, Cornhill and Bishopsgate.
Of course, the livery companies also own plenty of property in London outside the City. The Mercers, for example, rumoured to be the biggest landowners of all the livery companies, have an estate in Covent Garden around Mercer Street. And the Goldsmiths have 200 acres (80 hectares) of Ealing, left to them by a member called John Perryn in 1657. Much of the estate consists of playing fields. There is also an impressive range of almshouses built in 1811.
Public school landowners
Several livery companies have close connections with long-established public schools, and in one case at least the school has an old London estate that is still managed for it by its sponsoring livery company. In 1553 Sir Andrew Judd, Muscovy merchant and member of the Skinners' Company, founded a school in his home town of Tonbridge in Kent and endowed it with an estate in St Pancras. That estate is now around Tbnbridge Street, Cartwright Gardens and the top end of Judd Street, near St Pancras Station, and it is still looked after by the Skinners' Company. Hence the Skinners Arms pub at 114 Judd Street.
Besides Tbnbridge, several other old public schools have estates in London. Eton College in Windsor owns the 60-acre (24-hectare) Chalcot estate north of Primrose Hill. Formerly a farm, it was given to the school by King Henry VI, founder of Eton in 1440. Today it can be identified by street names such as Eton Villas, Provost Road and King Henry's Road. Rugby School in Warwickshire was founded in 1567 with an estate around what is now Rugby Street, close to the famous children's hospital in Great Ormond Street, WC1. The land on which the hospital stands was bought from the school, so reducing the original 8-acre (3-hectare) endowment somewhat. Today the school, having missed the boat on development, is saddled with huge bills for maintaining its inheritance of handsome 18th-century listed houses, so there may not be a Rugby estate in the area for much longer.
The Rugby estate includes the northern section of Lamb's Conduit Street. The southern section, along with Dombey Street, Emerald Street and part of Bedford Row, belongs to the Harper estate, the endowment of Bedford School founded by William Harper in 1566. This estate was originally 13 acres (5 hectares) in extent, but it hasnow shrunk to 3 acres (1.2 hectares). Probably the largest old school estate in central London belongs to Christ's Hospital. Besides land in Soho, Islington and Westminster (most of Queen Anne's Gate, where the National Trust is based, Old Queen Street and Carteret Street), it includes the freehold of two West End theatres (the Queen's and the Gielgud in Shaftesbury Avenue) and an industrial estate in the East End. The school, now based in Horsham, West Sussex, was originally founded in the City by King Edward VI in 1553. Today its wealth is such that all but six of its 800-plus pupils are on subsidized fees.
The largest old school estate in Greater London must be that belonging to Dulwich College in south London. The school's founder, actor Edward Alleyn, endowed it with the l,500-acre (600-hectare) manor of Dulwich in 1619. Today the manor remains virtually intact (although Dulwich Park has been acquired by the local authority), and with its woodlands and large open spaces has all the appearance of a country, rather than an urban, estate. Through the middle runs a College-owned road that is barred halfway by the last toll gate in London. The revenue is about £20,000 (US$30,OOO) a year. In the centre of Dulwich village is the school's public picture gallery with its world-famous collection of Old Masters.
CHURCH ESTATES
You may have noticed that, with the exception of Eton, all these schools were endowed around the same time, that is to say in the 1550s and 1560s. The reason for this is that, during the Middle Ages, the monasteries ran the schools. When the monasteries were dissolved as part of the Protestant Reformation in the middle of the 1500s, other ways offunding schools had to be found: endowing them with their own estates was the obvious method, since that is how monasteries also had been supported.
Although the monasteries lost their estates during the Reformation, the rest of the Church clung on to its extensive landholdings. Today these estates, managed since 1948 by church commissioners, generate income that mainly goes towards paying clergy stipends. Once upon a time the Church of England's estate in London, handed down from bishop of London to bishop of London, covered hundreds of acres, but this century it has considerably diminished in size.
The largest single block today is the Hyde Park estate, a gO-acre (40- hectare) triangle of upmarket houses between Sussex Gardens, Edgware Road and Bayswater Road. Originally developed from 1827 onwards with increasingly large stuccoed terraces, much of this area has been rebuilt since the 1950s with more manageable town houses This has enabled it to retain its social cachet and therefore its value to the Church. Elsewhere in London, in places like Brixton, Lambeth, Vauxhall and Stoke Newington, the Church owns the Octavia Hill housing estates. Unlike the Hyde Park estate, which is purely an investment, these fulfil a social purpose by providing homes for people on small incomes who need to live in central London. As well as residential property, the Church also has an extensive commercial property portfolio in London, though to what extent this is the result of the development of historic estates or modern property dealing is not clear. Some of the more conspicuous commercial premises are the Royal Lancaster Hotel at Lancaster Gate (the western corner of the Hyde Park estate), offices at 107-169 Victoria Street and shops in Connaught Street (also on the Hyde Park estate), Knightsbridge (55-91) and King's Road, Chelsea (virtually everyone between 195 and 277).
THE CROWN ESTATE
Historically, the Church and the Crown were the two biggest landowners in London. But whereas the Church has either lost or disposed of most of its property (one recent disposal was its historic estate in Maida Vale, where it is believed Harrow School also has an estate), the Crown has managed to hang on to its possessions so that today it is far and away the largest historic landowner in London.
The official Crown Estate consists essentially of 12 million - yes, 12 million - square feet (over 1.1 million square metres) of commercial space, mainly shops and offices, in central London, and over 1,000 acres (400 hectares), mainly residential land and golf clubs, in outer London. Not part of the official Crown Estate but still royal property are the 5,000 acres (2,000 hectares) of parkland in both central and outer London, and the small Duchy of Cornwall and Duchy of Lancaster estates. .'
Central London
With one significant exception, most of the central London Crown Estate is described either as 'ancient possession', which means it has been owned by the Crown for as long as there have been records (i.e. approaching 1,000 years), or was acquired during the 16th century As an example of the latter, Regent's Park, originally part of Barking Abbey's manor of Tyburn, was appropriated by the rapacious Henry VIII in 1544 following the closure of the monastery and the seizure of its property.
The 'significant exception' is Regent Street: although a major part of the central London estate today with nearly a quarter of the Crown's commercial space in London, it was not acquired until the early 19th century. Its purchase was made necessary by John Nash's ambitious scheme to link Regent's Park with Carlton House, the Prince Regent's palace overlooking St James's Park.
The core of the Crown Estate in London is a broad and virtually continuous strip ofland between Primrose Hill in the north and Millbank/Victoria Street in the south. Broken only by Portland Place, the strip follows Regent Street, Haymarket, Trafalgar Square and Whitehall. Among other things it includes the gleaming stucco terraces of Regent's Park and Carlton House Terrace (where the Crown Estate Commissioners have their office); all the famous shops like Liberty and Mappin & Webb on both sides of Regent Street; Piccadilly Circus and its lights; the clubs, art dealers and Green Park-facing mansions of St James's; cinemas and theatres in Hayrnarket, including the Theatre Royal; and the two large buildings facing each other across 'Trafalgar Square, Canada House and South Africa House. The Crown Estate also includes a clutch of big West End hotels like the Intercontinental, the Inn on the Park, Le Meridien Piccadilly and the Strand Palace.
In the City, the Crown Estate has over a million square feet (100,000 square metres) of office space, mainly blocks of offices in Holborn Viaduct, Cornhill, East Smithfield (Royal Mint Court) and Leadenhall Street. Away to the west, the Kensington estate is made up of two components: first, the individual mansions in Kensington Palace Gardens and Palace Green, now mostly used as embassies; and, second, half a million-plus square feet (50,000 square metres) of shops and offices in lucrative Kensington High Street, including the former Derry & Toms department store, with its large roof garden (see page 164).
Greater London
In outer London, almost all the 1,000-plus acres (400- hectares) of houses and golf clubs are divided between Eltham and Richmond. Eltham in south-east London, an ancient possession where the remains of the royal palace can still be seen, has 490 acres (200 hectares). The golf clubs are the Royal Blackheath and Eltham Warren. Richmond in south-west London, another ancient possession where again the remains of the royal palace can be seen, has 375 acres (150 hectares), including the Old Deer Park and the Royal Mid-Surrey Golf Club between Kew and Richmond.
In Richmond itself, Richmond Park is, at 2,470 acres (1,000 hectares), by far the largest royal park in London. Then come in descending order of magnitude: Bushy Park and Hampton Court Park, 1,099 acres (445 hectares); Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, 615 acres (250 hectares); Regent's Park, 420 acres (170 hectares); Greenwich Park, 200 acres (80 hectares); Primrose Hill Park, 112 acres (45 hectares); St James's Park, 90 acres (36 hectares); and Green Park, 53 acres (21 hectares).
Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall estates
The Crown Estate is really semi-public property, for all its income (minus management expenses) is surrendered to the government in return for a royal family operating grant known as the Civil List. The estates of the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, however, are very much personal possessions, and the Queen is entitled to keep every penny they earn. Both these estates are mainly agricultural and therefore mainly outside London, but each has its central London nucleus.
The Duchy of Lancaster's London estate consists of 3 or 4 acres (1-1.5 hectares) under and around the Savoy Hotel in WC2.and essentially covers the site of the medieval palace of Savoy, home of royal Earls and Dukes of Lancaster in the 13th and 14th centuries. The land has always been Crown property except for a brief period in the mid-13th century when it was granted to Queen Eleanor's uncle, the Count of Savoy, and then bequeathed by him to the monastery of St Bernard in Savoie in 1268. Queen Eleanor bought it back in 1270 and gave it to her second son, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster. Today the only surviving part of the palace is the Savoy Chapel in Savoy Street. The estate is managed from the duchy office in Lancaster Place.
The 45-acre (18-hectare) Duchy of Cornwall estate is south of the river in the Kennington area. Though it has some shops and offices, it mainly consists of 600 flats and houses '- mostly let on low rents, often to ex-royal family employees - and the 10-acre (4-hectare) Oval cricket ground, on long lease to Surrey County Cricket Club. Ever since 1337, when Edward III created his eldest son Duke of Cornwall, the income from the estate has been used to support the heir to the throne. Prince Charles is the 25th Duke of Cornwall: he receives three-quarters of the income and gives the rest - maybe as much as £500,000 (US$750,OOO) a year - to the government. The duchy is managed from an elegant office at 10 Buckingham Gate with a panelled first-floor boardroom known as the Prince's Council Chamber. |
