2-11 Charterhouse Square, East Side

2-11 Charterhouse Square, East side

1-5 Charterhouse Square was developed as a row of houses by Robert Brabourne between 1691 and 1700. Number 1 (the southernmost house), was demolished as part of the widening of Carthusian Street in 1801. Numbers 2 and 3 were re-built around the same time and the fronts altered at the end of the nineteenth century. They are currently being refurbished as apartments, returning the building to its original use after many years of mixed use.

Numbers 4 and 5 are the only survivors from the original Brabourne development and are among the ﬁnest and tallest houses in the Square. The facades were subsequently replaced and rebuilt in stocks (probably in the early nineteenth century) and the paired doorcases were heightened to accommodate fanlights. Both houses maintained their high status up to the later Victorian period. Between 1870 and 1892 number 4 became a staff hostel for a wholesale hosier and haberdasher. By 1908 it had become offices and this use remains. Number 5 was the parsonage for St Sepulchre Holborn from 1845 to 1929. Since 1931-32 it has been used as offices.

Florin Court, numbers 6-9, stands on the site of a large H-shaped house shown on the Ogilby Morgan map of 1676, and was originally in the possession of the Marquess of Dorchester. This building was demolished to make way for Florin Court in 1935-37, a development by Charterhouse Ltd. Guy Morgan and Partners were the architects, the builders were J. Gerrard and Sons Ltd, with the development costing £74,000. The interior decoration was by Mrs V.M.Thomas. Florin Court contained a mixture of ﬂats and bedsits, intended for businessmen working in the Smithﬁeld area. The U-shaped plan was devised to maximise the outlook over Charterhouse Square. The construction is a steel frame clad in pale yellow and brown mottled brick. By the early 1950s some apartments had been turned into offices and it was refurbished entirely as apartments in 1988. The block was used as set for Hercule Poirot’s home in 1980s and 90s TV productions of Agatha Christie thrillers.

Numbers 10-11 were also a development dating from the 1690s. They were damaged by bombing in the second world war and replaced by an office block in 1957-59, which remains.

23-28 Charterhouse Square, London | Historic Context Report | March 2015 | 9 No.s 4 and 5 No. 10 - demolished

No.s 6 and 9 - Florin Court No.s 10-11 - post war offices

No.s 2-3 No.s 4-5 No.s 6-9 - Florin Court

23-28 Charterhouse Square, London | Historic Context Report | March 2015 | 10 Typical ﬂoor plan of Florin Court

No. 11 - demolished following war damage

23-28 Charterhouse Square, London | Historic Context Report | March 2015 | 11 12-21 Charterhouse Square, North side

Numbers 12 -14 straddle the site of Rutland Court (one of the large houses built after the dissolution of the Charterhouse Priory) and part of the Charterhouse precinct itself. Number 14 was one of two “good and substantial” brick houses of the second rate built by Francis Stacey in 1688. The ground plan remains essentially the same but the façade was altered and extended upwards in a number of phases in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A wider house (6 bays) was also built next to it in 1688 and in 1833 this was divided into two, forming numbers 12 and 13, with the necessary re-facing, replacement of doorcases etc. The current number 12a, at the east end of the terrace, was added in 1832.

In the eighteenth century numbers 13 and 14 were used as boarding houses for the Charterhouse School. From 1870 onwards the terrace was occupied as a mixture of school boarding houses and residences and by 1905 the Fife Hotel was established at numbers 12-14. Since 1938 all the houses have been used as offices.

Chapel Court, with its iron railing, gives views into the Charterhouse precinct. As part of the Revealing Charterhouse project this will become a public entrance to parts of The Charterhouse, with a new pavilion and railings.

The chequered stone wall of the Charterhouse, dating from 1405, forms the centre of the north side of the Square. Eighteenth century buildings along this part of the Square were destroyed in bombing in 1941.

The wall of The Charterhouse is terminated by the original ﬁfteenth century Gate of the Priory. Next to it is The Physicians House, built in 1716. Since the second world war this has been used as the Masters Lodge.

In 1718 and 1786-87 the land to the east of The Charterhouse was developed. Number 22 is the only survivor. Numbers 18-21 were demolished at the end of the nineteenth century and replaced by The Charterhouse Hotel in 1902 with 107 bedrooms. In 1918 it was in use as a military hospital and occupied subsequently by small businesses, nurses accommodation for Barts Hospital, and by a restaurant. It was sold in 1997 and in 2002-04 converted into The Malmaison Hotel, with RHWL as the architects.

23-28 Charterhouse Square, London | Historic Context Report | March 2015 | 12 No.s 12-14

No. 13 First ﬂoor pannelled room

23-28 Charterhouse Square, London | Historic Context Report | March 2015 | 13 Physician’s House and Gatehouse Wall of Charterhouse

Charterhouse Chapel Court

Chapel Court

23-28 Charterhouse Square, London | Historic Context Report | March 2015 | 14 23-28 Charterhouse Square, West side

In 1700 a row of houses was built “with three good storeys and good and convenient garrets”. 30 and 31 burnt down in 1836 and were rebuilt. 29-32 disappeared in clearances for the Metropolitan Railway and Charterhouse Street. Leases on 24-28 expired in 1885 and The Charterhouse decided to rebuild the entire block as commercial premises. It was an iron framed building, with narrow piers and broad, round headed windows, similar to those erected in Clerkenwell Road at the same period.

The first occupants of the block were printers and manufacturing stationers. The northern part, Nos 23–25, gave some trouble. A fire in 1889 caused some of the fabric to collapse. The buildings were reinstated, but the noise of the printing machinery annoyed the square's inhabitants, who felt their 'health, comfort and rest' as well as their financial interests affected. By 1895 this end of the block had been taken over by a firm of blouse manufacturers. No. 27 was first occupied by Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti, the distinguished electrical engineer, inventor and manufacturer, who was just embarking on the construction and equipping of Deptford Power Station. It was here that in 1890 the firm of S. Z. de Ferranti Ltd was formed. Ferranti gave up No. 27 when he opened a new factory in 1896 near Oldham. By the mid-1930s most of the building was occupied by clothing firms of various descriptions, including the hat manufacturer J. Collett Ltd.

The south end of the block, Nos 26–28, was destroyed in the 1941 air-raids. Its replacement, a factory and offices for Colletts designed by Lewis Solomon, Son & Joseph, architects, was built in 1954–6 at an approximate cost of £135,000 and became the first section of the current numbers 23–28. Of six storeys, one more than its predecessor, it is described in the Survey of London as “ a massive but dignified building”, with artificial stone cladding on the ground storey, brick above, and ample windows, all on a reinforced- concrete frame. The new block was evidently designed with the thought of an extension to the north, where Nos 23–25 of the 1885–6 building still remained. In 1962 this extension was added on behalf of Colletts by Lewis Solomon, Kaye & Partners. Colletts at that time were said to be the largest ladies' hat manufacturer in Europe, yet in about 1974 they went into voluntary liquidation. Subsequently Nos 23–28 were converted for use as banking offices, with changes to the windows.

23-28 Charterhouse Square, London | Historic Context Report | March 2015 | 15 No.s 23-28 No.s 23-28

No.s 23-28

No.s 23 to 28 - 1885 development

23-28 Charterhouse Square, London | Historic Context Report | March 2015 | 16 33-43 Charterhouse Square, South side and proposed Crossrail station

A row of houses, dating from 1703-1705, originally stood on this side of the Square. They were demolished and replaced by warehouses following the construction of the Metropolitan Railway extension from Farringdon to Moorgate, and the extension of the roadway on the south side of the Square. The site was bought by the railway company in 1864-65 and the new buildings were erected 1876-77.

The buildings were designed as warehouses by the architect Coutts Stone a friend of George Devey. The development was by Tubbs Lewis and Co., manufacturers of elastic fabric, silk throwsters, warehousemen and “smallware agents” who also developed other speculative warehouses in the area.

The early tenants were mostly in the textile trades. In the mid-1970s only four clothing ﬁrms remained, with a shift towards printing, illustration and white-collar work. Since then most of the row has been ﬁtted out as offices and studios, including No. 41 by Campbell Zogolovitch Wilkinson Gough (CZWG) in 1980 for the pop artist Allen Jones. Number 40 is now occupied by Charterhouse Square School, an independent school for children from the ages of 3 to 11.

Further to the west, across Hayne Street, consent has been given for the construction of the Farringdon East station for Crossrail, including offices on the ﬂoors above the station.

23-28 Charterhouse Square, London | Historic Context Report | March 2015 | 17 No.s 33-43.1 No.s 33-43.2

No.s 37 to 40

Proposed elevation of Farringdon East Crossrail Station

23-28 Charterhouse Square, London | Historic Context Report | March 2015 | 18 Charterhouse Square Garden

In 1590 the open space of Charterhouse Yard was under the ownership and management of the Charterhouse governors. The chapel of the Virgin Mary and All Saints survived until 1615-16. Ten years later a footpath, ﬂanked by wooden railings, was made across the square to the main gate of the Charterhouse. The line of this path survives as the main route within the Square.

In 1715 thirteen of the inhabitants of the Square agreed that the open space should be enclosed with a brick wall and palisades 'as in Leicester Square', where the original rails and posts set up to enclose the central space had been replaced. In 1742 a larger renewal took place at the initiative of residents. Their fear was that if the fence, by then dilapidated, was not replaced, the square would become 'unﬁt for the Habitation of Persons of Character and Condition'. They therefore obtained an Act of Parliament empowering the residents to levy a rate to enclose the square and to cover the costs of watching, paving, cleaning and generally 'improving'.

Implementing the 1742 Act fell to thirteen trustees, ten elected by the residents, the others being the Master, Registrar and Receiver of the Charterhouse. After the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 the trustees reduced their responsibilities for watching the square, since the inhabitants were rated for the police, whether or not officers patrolled the square. The trustees' jurisdiction was further eroded by the Metropolis Management Act of 1855. Later, Charterhouse Square was exempted from the terms of the London Squares Preservation Act of 1931. The Trustees' administration lapsed during the 1960s and was replaced by a management committee.

Iron railings and small gates replaced the old fence round the square in 1825. Apart from on the south side, where they were set back when the roadway here was widened in 1873–4, these railings survived until 1942, when they were removed for salvage. They were replaced during the restoration of the garden in 1949–51. In this restoration the diagonal path connecting the north-east and south-west corners was not reinstated. In 1960 the railings were reset on new alignments, when the roadway round the square was enlarged. The present planting arrangement of the square goes back in some measure to 1853 when the old trees were replaced. Some of the existing plane trees may date from that time.

Charterhouse Square retains three iron gates to the square, at the south ends of the west and east sides and at the neck of Charterhouse Street (formerly Lane). The present gates to Charterhouse Street are those of 1791 as reconstructed in 1890. They consist of a central pair for vehicles and separate pedestrian gates on either side. The gates at the ends of the west and south sides were erected in 1874 at the expense of the City Corporation, in order to close off the parts of the square not affected by the new thoroughfare. They were designed by Sir Horace Jones. The open piers carry the Sutton arms, and the lamps on the piers are surmounted by Sutton's greyhound crests.

As part of the Revealing Charterhouse project, referred to above, the landscaping and furniture of the Square will be refurbished and improved.