C O N T E X T 1 1 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 9 25 Acknowledgements to LucindaWalker, Heloise Brown, Frank Kelsall and Rory Lalwan. Oliver Bradbury is an independent researcher and author. His publications include books on the lost buildings of Mayfair and Cheltenham. prime site were considerable. Let us turn to George Ridley’s Bend’Or Duke of Westminster (1985): ‘The American government had for some time occupied Grosvenor Square properties… and wished to consolidate in a new embassy to occupy the whole of the west side of the square. In order to do this they asked the Grosvenor Estate to acquire on their behalf the individual existing leases and then to grant the US government a long ground lease. This the estate was happy to do, and set about buying in the leases, somewhat hampered by the Americans’ insistence that each purchase had to be approved by Washington, a practice that gave each owner the opportunity to extract the maximum price for the surrender of his lease.’ Despite the provisional listing exercise (or charade) of 1957, the only building in Grosvenor Square to be actually listed at this crucial and vulnerable moment in the square’s history was No 38, at Grade II*, in February 1958. Why did a provisional list not translate into statutory protection for the precious few historic buildings left clinging on for very existence? Constituting a pathetic requiem for lost neighbours, reproduced here and not often published are two of the surviving trio of Grosvenor Square buildings, Nos 4 and 9. They throw into deep relief just how bland the 20th-century rebuilding of Grosvenor Square was. Now to Fitzrovia, and the positive half and ending of this account. I had no idea that a freestanding chapel existed within the Middlesex Hospital,Mortimer Street, until the latter was pulled down in 2008. Previously hidden within this huge complex occupying a whole block of Fitzrovia is the former hospital’s chapel (Grade II*, JL Pearson and FL Pearson, 1890–91 and 1929). Fortunately, thanks to listing, it was spared when the 1929–35 hospital was pulled down in 2008. As well as the chapel, the complete run of the Nassau Street unlisted façades (of 1897 and 1910) on the west side of the former block have been retained. They are an integral part of a proposed new residential scheme that collapsed last year, as a victim of the economic crisis. The chapel is a beautiful example of late-Victorian modern gothic (as opposed to revivalism). Its very plain exterior belies a sumptuous neo-Byzantine interior. The chapel is now a surreal sight, marooned by a whole block’s worth of rubble. It went up when James Paine’s 1755–78 Palladian hospital was still extant (it was demolished in 1928). In 2007, the Victorian Society commented on the then still extant hospital and chapel. It made constructive suggestions for best practice, at a time when the proposed residential scheme was still buoyant. ‘Our principal concern is the future of the Middlesex Hospital Chapel, which has an interior of outstanding quality and is probably the best surviving example of its type in the country.We are therefore encouraged to see that a full restoration is proposed, based upon the detailed survey of the building already undertaken by Caroe and Partners… At our site visit, we stressed the need for an adequately endowed trust to specifically care for and oversee access arrangements to the chapel. We note that such a trust is being set up, and would like to suggest that consideration be given to including a trustee from the society’s membership.’ Now that the hospital has been demolished, the chapel is looking forlorn, unloved, very exposed and isolated. The vast Candy and Candy residential scheme, to occupy a whole block of prime Fitzrovia, went to ground months ago. I was always surprised that AWHall’s Goodge Street façade (1929–35) was allowed to be demolished. Admittedly, it was breathtakingly dull, with its cour d’honneur, and it was always fronted by an unsavoury medley of recycling bins on the street. Perhaps this was a trade-off for having to retain the chapel and the Nassau Street elevations? An almost-parallel situation can be drawn with the controversial modernist redevelopment plans for the former Chelsea Barracks site on the Chelsea/Pimlico border. The competition-winning scheme broke the military engineers’ long monopoly on the design of barracks. One of the controversies is the proposed demolition of the Garrison Chapel, long-obscured from the main road. Designed by George Morgan in 1855, the chapel is the only remaining ecclesiastical building of its kind left in central London. All that remains of the original 1861–3 Victorian barracks after they were rebuilt in 1960–2 is the chapel (a free Italian medieval brick essay with an east apse and west bellcote, and a south aisle added c1890) and the railings on Chelsea Bridge Road. Although the former Middlesex Hospital chapel is not in danger of demolition, both sites look the same at the time of writing (June 2009), with stranded chapels that have miraculously defied two waves of otherwise total destruction. The modernist Chelsea Barracks residential proposal has now been scotched, and the Candys will be pulling out of this project too. And so to return once more to Pearson’s gothic gem, and the rump of historic Grosvenor Square. The precious listing mechanism can take deserved credit for saving buildings that are now incongruously flanked by well-meaning but utterly bland neo-Georgian corporate hotels, or acres of rubble. The real story here is that listing is taken a lot more seriously in 2009 than it was in 1957, when the system was powerless to stop the might of the establishment, despite being the valuable gift of Parliament. Chapel of the former Middlesex Hospital, Mortimer Street, photographed in 2009
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