Richard Garnier, ‘The Grange and May’s Buildings, Croom’s Hill, Greenwich’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. XIV, 2004, pp. 261–286 TEXT © THE AUTHORS 2004 THE GRANGE AND MAY’S BUILDINGS, CROOM’S HILL, GREENWICH RICHARD GARNIER Pevsner’s London II volume classified Croom’s conurbation, but then in Kent, was already gaining an Hill as urban feel, even though still distinct from London and in size more like a village; it was administered by a the pride of domestic architecture in Greenwich. parish vestry, although, with its diversified economic There are not many streets near London which give so base, it was definitely of town (but not borough) good and sustained an idea of the well-to-do private house from the C to the early C . status. The two schemes in question reflect this growing dichotomy, being of disparate characters. The This article concerns neighbouring projects in this first comprised the alteration and stylistic updating of street, initiated in the mid- s, for different patrons, what was still essentially a country house in extensive but demonstrably linked and arguably by the same grounds on the outskirts of a small town (Fig. ). The architect. Both schemes are largely extant today. second, on a parcel of ground hived off from the first, Greenwich, now a borough within the London leased by that house’s freeholder to a speculating Fig. The Grange, Croom’s Hill, Greenwich, view from east, as remodelled in the s, here attributed to (Sir) Robert Taylor, photograph; another Tuscan-eaved pediment was presumably intended for the first gable obliquely seen to the right. English Heritage . THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV THE GRANGE AND MAY ’ S BUILDINGS , CROOM ’ S HILL , GREENWICH developer, produced a totally urbane terrace of four court at Greenwich Palace and was then known as tall town houses, as if in the West End of London Paternoster Croft. With some twelfth-century fabric (Fig. ). In both instances the likely architect was retained, it was first substantially rebuilt, altered or (Sir) Robert Taylor. enlarged in by Edmund Chapman, who from Pevsner’s original description of these two was Elizabeth I’s Chief Joiner. properties was as follows: By the time of the mid eighteenth-century works The Grange (No. , early C , plus C ) with a pretty that are the subject of this article, The Grange had gazebo of overlooking the street. It is square and been in the same extended family’s ownership for of brick with a pyramidal roof and arched openings of just over years. In the process it regressed from a which one has a scrolled open pediment. Nos – principal to a subsidiary out-of-London house, and are a tall, urban terrace of c. . then a let one. This had ushered in a period of This was amplified in the revision London decline, advancing an eventual process of South by Bridget Cherry to show the then current development on part of the site. That in turn proved state of knowledge: a catalyst to arrest the decline of the old house, as it was updated in the same building campaign, No. (THE GRANGE), hidden behind garden walls, is more complicated, with mid C and C plausibly in preparation for its sale in . work concealing an even older core. S front with four windows; a pedimented gable at one end with a circular window (in this corner a good upper room with coved ceiling). The W wing is mid C . The T H E P R E V I O U S H I S T O R Y O F pretty gazebo overlooking the street (restored in ) T H E P R O P E R T Y was built for Sir William Hooker (a later Lord Mayor) in , probably by Robert Hooke . Brick with The freehold had been bought in by Sir William pyramidal roof, arched openings, one with a scrolled Hooker, who had already been tenant since , open pediment. Good plasterwork inside. Continuing according to the rate books. Hooker’s holdings in the up the hill, Nos. – a terrace built between area also comprised a group of houses in London and (MK). Now altered to flats, the central Ionic Street and Gang Lane (later called Stockwell and porch brought in. Heathgate Street), all of which were regarded as part It is the purpose of the article to set out both the and parcel with the Croom’s Hill property, as they chronology and circumstances of these two mid remained interlinked in many of the subsequent eighteenth-century schemes and thereby demonstrate deeds. In his will Hooker had left the associated Taylor’s likely authorship. As a consequence it can Greenwich properties to his eponymous son, who in be shown how his office could be responsible for sold them to William Heysham, MP, evidently a comparatively humble projects in contrast to the self- connection, as his wife Diana had formerly been a Mrs consciously important ones that are sometimes Hooker. The Grange then descended to William thought the exclusive fare of leading architects. Heysham’s first cousin, Robert Heysham, and from The Grange is so called from the supposition that him to a mutual cousin, Robert Thornton the elder, it occupies the site of the grange or farm of the ‘late of London, brewer’, in . In the later s, monastic convent in Greenwich, originally governed by during the tenure of his son, John Bigge Thornton, Ghent Abbey in Flanders, but latterly a sub-house of the plot for May’s Buildings was leased out and The Sheen Abbey, near Richmond, Surrey. After alienation Grange itself was updated. to the crown under the Reformation the house seems At the time of Robert Thornton the elder’s to have been turned over to use by officials serving the inheritance he had retired from London and was THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV THE GRANGE AND MAY ’ S BUILDINGS , CROOM ’ S HILL , GREENWICH Fig. May’s Buildings, Croom’s Hill, Greenwich, - , here attributed to (Sir) Robert Taylor, photograph. English Heritage. already living with his cousin Robert Heysham at the occupant, Major Henry Otway, as his sub-tenant. Thornton-cum-Heysham estate of Stagenhoe, in the The lease appears to indicate that Otway’s portion of parish of King’s Walden, Hertfordshire. By that the property included ‘the yards and garden thereto inheritance he came into Stagenhoe as well as The belonging together also with the coach house and Grange. Unlike Robert Heysham, Thornton never stables’. Falkingham was succeeded by his son and lived at The Grange and at first let it as a single unit, the status quo was unchanged until October , but from the Greenwich rate books show it as when the lease (along with the final rent due from the divided in two. This was perhaps initiated in then under-tenant, Charles Brett) was surrendered or soon after, but was not regularised until up to the then freeholder, John Bigge Thornton. May , when Robert Thornton the elder granted a He was the ‘heir at law’, who by then had succeeded, primary lease for years to one of the co-tenants, as only son, from Robert Thornton the elder, who Edward Falkingham, who thus received the other died intestate. THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV THE GRANGE AND MAY ’ S BUILDINGS , CROOM ’ S HILL , GREENWICH T H E J O I N T C A M P A I G N and, moreover, to As will be shown below, the development of May’s repair the end of the building which by means Buildings must have been well in train by the time of aforesaid will become damaged in such part or parts the surrender of the lease on The Grange, even thereof will be cut down or damaged. though Articles of Agreement concerning the scheme Clearly, to make room for the site of May’s Buildings, were not signed between John Bigge Thornton and The Grange was losing its stabling and coach houses; Henry May, a distiller, until the following these, as outlined above, had fallen in the sub-tenant’s December. For a peppercorn May leased for one half of the divided house, which the rate books make year from the ensuing Lady Day a parcel of ground clear was the more southerly. Replacement stabling slightly up the hill to the south of The Grange, on and coach house evidently required partial demolition which May was ‘to build one or more… dwelling and repair of The Grange. This accords with the houses… provided that one be fifty feet in front or ‘mid-eighteenth century’ dating of the west cross- two of half that dimension thereon in manner ’. In wing noted by Bridget Cherry in . The whole return, provided the house or houses ‘be raised and process also fits with the suggestion The Grange was covered in’ before the expiry of the year’s lease, being prepared for the sale of the house which was to Thornton undertook to grant May thereafter ‘a good follow soon after. lease of the whole said piece… of ground and the After the signing of the Articles of Agreement , said house or houses so intended to be built’ for a – is the first period when the rate books show term of years at £ s. per annum . the house as empty, and this might therefore have The December agreement specifically been the time when the works were carried out (see stipulated that the houses of May’s Buildings were to Appendix B). On the other hand, the house’s have no windows facing north, so that The Grange rateable value dipped in the early s, and rose and its garden should not be overlooked.