Why carlton house london demolished

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We'll own up to our mistakes and will make the corrections with a polite smile on our faces. Write us at. Feeds: Posts Comments. Milliner and Mantua Maker ». Lower Regent Street and Waterloo Place were originally laid out to form the approach to its front entrance An existing early eighteenth century house had been sold in to Frederick, Prince of Wales, and son of George I. The Grand Staircase.

Like this: Like Loading Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 6, other followers. Search for:. Austen, Esq. The grave after restoration. Click on image to read the story. Click on their names to enter their own blogs. Men's hair styles at the turn of the 19th century. Regency Women: Money Matters. In an effort to raise money, he gave up Carlton House completely in , stripping it of its furniture and fittings for reuse in Buckingham Palace and other royal residences.

The house was demolished and superior housing erected on the appropriately named Carlton House Terrace. There is also a floor plan available. However, it is not always straight forward to match the descriptions with the rooms as George had a habit of changing their names when he redecorated! Carlton House, with its courtyard, is separated from Pall Mall by a dwarf screen, which is surmounted by a very beautiful colonnade. The Microcosm of London stated:. According to Britton and Pugin, the Great Hall had The Vestibule was octagonal in shape.

The other four sides of the octagon had marble busts by Nollekens on display. The Grand Staircase consisted of a flight of steps up to a landing place and then two further flights of steps which curved round up to the chamber floor. Below, a second staircase led to the lower suite of apartments. The State Apartments were on the principal floor and reached through the West Ante Room, on the right after entering through the portico from Pall Mall.

This was a waiting room for people calling at Carlton House on business. Should you not have read the earlier instalments in this series, please commence from HERE. Should you reference this Blog elsewhere, please cite. As we know, Carlton House was 'pulled down' during But what prompted this seemingly wilful act of vandalism?

It had simply " fallen from favour ". His Majesty King George IV considered that its rooms were too small for large receptions, it lay too close to the busy Pall Mall, and that despite huge expenditure it was " antiquated and decrepit ". The almost non-stop remodelling and redecoration of Carlton House effectively ceased after the celebrations marking the end of the Napoleonic wars in The Prince then toyed with the idea of almost totally rebuilding Carlton House to a grand plan produced by his Architect John Nash which was to include a dome and a pair of large flanking wings.

But in the end the proposed site facing Pall Mall was considered too restrictive and the Government Treasury would not support the cost. The landscape painter and diarist Joseph Farington relates that on the 27th October Nash told him that "[the King] The latter had been the residence of his late Mother, The Queen, and after her death in he had now 'transferred' his ambitions to " The Queen's House ". Nash produced his first designs for the new Palace in Amusingly, on the 29th July , Nash recounted to a Government Select Committee looking into the cost over-runs on Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace that the late King had declared to him that " I am too old to build a Palace.

I do not like Carlton House standing in a street One way or another the King would still have his Palace. The previously mentioned fire in June appears to have further diminished the King's interest in Carlton House while he also lost a number of irreplaceable paintings.

The fire-damaged painting below is described by the Royal Collection as " a wreck of what might once have been an imposing full-length portrait ". Interestingly, while the frontage of the house was lit by gas from , parts of the house are also recorded as being lit by gas prior to Besides the King, Carlton House now had some quite vocal detractors. The House was " constantly under repair, but never improved, for no material alterations were made in its appearance ".

The King now craved privacy and found the workmen constantly engaged on repairs and maintenance at Carlton House " a great source of annoyance ", not least for their natural curiosity. By now Carlton House was " blackened with dust and soot " and even a simple coat of lime-wash would not have gone amiss.

The Italian Sculptor Antonio Canova, who had undertaken commissions for the Prince Regent, bluntly described Carlton House thus : " There are at Rome a thousand buildings more beautiful, and whose architecture is in comparison faultless, any one of which would be more suitable for a princely residence than that ugly barn ".

In his memoirs published in , Captain Gronow described it as, " One of the meanest and most ugly edifices that ever disfigured London, notwithstanding it was screened by a row of columns During a fractious Parliamentary debate on the question of the Royal Palaces in , the Hon. Sir MW Ridley succinctly summed up his opinion on the matter :. However, about , he began planning a new round of renovations. By that time, Henry Holland was very busy planning for the conversion of the former Melbourne House, located in Piccadilly, into a set of bachelor apartments which was then renamed Albany.

Therefore, the Prince engaged a new architect, James Wyatt , who had done work for his mother at Frogmore House. In his typically quixotic and improvident manner, within two years, in , the Prince decided that he wanted his bedchamber moved back up to the third floor of Carlton House. By that time, Henry Holland has passed away and James Wyatt was busy with other commissions. Therefore, on the recommendation of Walsh Porter, the Prince commission the self-taught but talented architect, Thomas Hopper , to make the changes he wanted.

This magnificent conservatory became the culmination of a grand suite of rooms at ground level which faced the extensive gardens on the south side of the building. These rooms included the formal dining room, the Library, and the Chinese Drawing Room. Access to each of these rooms was by folding doors, all of which could be opened to create a dramatic and impressive enfilade suite of six rooms.

This enfilade suite of rooms was opened for use as a colossal banqueting room for that evening, with one long dining table running though its complete length. A miniature stream flowed down the length of the table, filled with tiny live gold and silver fish.

Only a couple of years later, in , the Regent was once again looking for yet another architect to make still more changes to Carlton House. In that year, he commissioned the noted Whig architect, John Nash to create new designs and to supervise the next round of renovations to Carlton House.

At the direction of the Regent, Nash created new plans to completely remodel the rooms on the ground floor of Carlton House. Nash also added two new rooms to the long enfilade suite there. These new rooms were the Chinese Dining Room, decorated in a style of which the Prince was fond, though it was going out of fashion by that time. With the addition of these two new rooms, the enfilade suite on the garden front of Carlton House included eight rooms, all of which could be opened up to create a huge space for entertaining.

The following year, in , after the first abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte, a series of victory celebrations were planned, when the Allied leaders all assembled in London that summer. The Regent intended to host the sovereigns at several important events at Carlton House during the course of their visit. For that reason, he also had Nash add a pair of temporary rooms above the new Chinese Drawing Room and the Corinthian Room. In addition, Nash also designed and supervised the building of a large wooden rotunda, feet in diameter, in the gardens at Carlton House.

This building was also intended to be temporary, and was constructed for use during the sumptuous outdoor celebration which the Regent had planned to honor the Duke of Wellington , in July of But that was not the end of the interior work that would be done there, nor of the significant attendant costs. The Prince of Wales frequently ordered that the furnishings in one room be moved to another. Whenever possible, he did his best to lead people to believe that this was being done to "economize.

There were also a number of instances in which the Prince placed large orders for expensive fabrics or trims in which he had lost interest by the time they were delivered. Since most of the work was custom, the materials could not be returned. They were stored, or, in some cases, given away to friends or favorites. Not only was the Regent moving expensive furnishings around in Carlton House, from time to time, he also ordered that some fittings and furnishings be removed from his London mansion, to be installed in his seaside resort, the Royal Pavilion at Brighton.

These changes typically also incurred significant costs, to remove them, transport them and to re-install them in the Royal Pavilion. These kinds of changes occurred so often that scholars today find it difficult to track all of them. It is known that one round of redecorating occurred early in , in order to prepare for the marriage of Princess Charlotte to Prince Leopold that spring. The ceremony took place in the Crimson Drawing Room, which the Regent had ordered to be transformed into a royal chapel for the event.

Some of the furnishings and accessories were borrowed from other royal palaces, but many more were acquired just for that wedding.

Following the ceremony, the Regent hosted a magnificent dinner for the young couple and his large group of distinguished guests. Sadly, less than two years later, Princess Charlotte died after a very difficult labor and her baby son was stillborn. The Prince Regent was devastated by the loss of the future queen and her heir. Then, just a year after the death of his daughter, his mother, Queen Charlotte, also died. By that time, the people of London were no longer showing the Regent the public support and affection he craved.