Old Houses in Great Queen Street, ca.1879

From: Henry Dixon & Son

RA Collection: Art

"Great Queen Street, built about 1629 from the designs of either Inigo Jones or his pupil, Webb, was so called from Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I. The street was then, and for some time afterwards occupied by people of rank. Here was Conway House, the residence of the noble family of that name. Here lived the Marquis of Winchester, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the Marquis of Worcester, and the Earl of Bristol, whose mansion, taken in 1671 for the Board of Trade and Plantations, had seven rooms on a floor, a long gallery, gardens, &c.

An illustration, dated 1817, in Parton's History of St. Giles, shows a row of private houses with a uniform front, having three doorways and twelve pilasters, ending towards the west with two over a gateway, as in the photograph."

The above description, by Alfred Marks, was taken from the letterpress which accompanies the photographs. Dixon's photograph of 1879, shows the remains of what was originally a much larger house dating from 1637, the home of the Earl of St Albans. Over the next two centuries, the house was divided internally and stables, coach houses and workshops were built on the land attached to the rear of the house. Then, after further divisions and alterations, the eastern half of the house was demolished in the 1840s. This photograph concentrates on the surviving original exterior, the upper storeys showing the Corinthian pilasters, stone bases and carved capitals and the remains of decorative brickwork between the first and second floor windows.