Bridgewater House | |
---|---|
Type | Townhouse |
Location | 14 Cleveland Row London, England |
Coordinates | 51°30′17″N0°08′24″W / 51.50472°N 0.14000°W |
OS grid reference | TQ 29203 80070 |
Built | 1854 |
Architect | Charles Barry |
Architectural style(s) | Palazzo style |
Owner | Latsis family |
Listed Building – Grade I | |
Official name | Bridgewater House |
Designated | 24 February 1958 |
Reference no. | 1066255 |
Bridgewater House is a townhouse located at 14 Cleveland Row in the St James's area of London, England. It is a Grade I listed building. [1]
The earliest known house on the site was Berkshire House, built in about 1626–27 for Thomas Howard, second son of the Earl of Suffolk and Master of the Horse to Charles I of England when he was Prince of Wales. [2] Howard was later created Earl of Berkshire.
After being occupied by Parliamentarian troops in the English Civil War, used for the Portuguese Embassy, and inhabited by Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, the house was lived in by Charles II's mistress Barbara Villiers, who was made Duchess of Cleveland in 1670, following which the house was known as Cleveland House. She refaced the old house and added new wings. After being owned for some years by a speculator, the house was sold in 1700 to John Egerton, 3rd Earl of Bridgewater, after which it passed by inheritance until 1948. [3]
Cleveland House was re-designed in the Palazzo style by Sir Charles Barry in 1840. The rebuilding was completed and renamed in 1854 for Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere, heir of the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater. It is built in Bath stone with a slate roof in three storeys with a basement.
The building was damaged in the Second World War by a bomb in the street and was subsequently adapted for office use. [1] It was sold by John Egerton, 6th Duke of Sutherland. By 1979, it was the corporate head office of Tube Investments, the British engineering and metals conglomerate.
In 1981, Bridgewater House was purchased for £19 million and restored by Yiannis Latsis, a Greek shipping magnate, [4] and it is still owned by his family.
George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Marquess of Stafford had Cleveland House extended in 1803–1806 by architect Charles Heathcote Tatham [5] to accommodate the Stafford Gallery (renamed the Bridgewater Gallery in Bridgewater House), where the collections of paintings of the Duke of Bridgewater and his nephew and heir George Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland (whose second son Ellesmere was) were on at least semi-public display.
The collection included about 70 paintings from the famous Orleans Collection, some of which are now in the Sutherland Loan to the National Gallery of Scotland. The collection was opened in 1803, and it could be visited on Wednesday afternoons over four, later three, months in the summer by "acquaintances" of a member of the family, or artists recommended by a member of the Royal Academy. [6]
The painting Charles I Insulted by Cromwell's Soldiers , thought lost in a World War II air raid, was rediscovered in 2009.
The exterior appears as Marchmain House in the 1981 television adaptation of Brideshead Revisited and as Grantham House, the Crawleys’ London house, in the TV historical drama series Downton Abbey . [7]
Duke of Sutherland is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom which was created by William IV in 1833 for George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Marquess of Stafford. A series of marriages to heiresses by members of the Leveson-Gower family made the dukes of Sutherland one of the richest landowning families in the United Kingdom. The title remained in the Leveson-Gower family until the death of the 5th Duke of Sutherland in 1963, when it passed to the 5th Earl of Ellesmere from the Egerton family.
Earl of Sutherland is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created circa 1230 for William de Moravia and is the premier earldom in the Peerage of Scotland. The earl or countess of Sutherland is also the chief of Clan Sutherland.
George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle of Castle Howard,, styled Viscount Morpeth until 1825, was a British statesman. He served as Lord Privy Seal between 1827 and 1828 and in 1834 and was a member of Lord Grey's Whig government as Minister without Portfolio between 1830 and 1834.
Earl Granville is a title that has been created twice, once in the Peerage of Great Britain and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It is now held by members of the Leveson-Gower family.
Earl of Ellesmere, of Ellesmere in the County of Shropshire, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1846 for the Conservative politician Lord Francis Egerton. He was granted the subsidiary title of Viscount Brackley, of Brackley in the County of Northampton, at the same time, also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Born Lord Francis Leveson-Gower, he was the third son of George Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland and Elizabeth Gordon, 19th Countess of Sutherland. In 1803 his father had inherited the substantial estates of his maternal uncle Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater. On his father's death in 1833, Lord Francis succeeded to the Egerton estates according to the will of the late Duke of Bridgewater, and assumed by Royal licence the surname of Egerton in lieu of Leveson-Gower. The Brackley and Ellesmere titles created for him in 1846 were revivals of titles held by the Dukes of Bridgewater. In 1963 his great-great-grandson, the fifth Earl, succeeded his kinsman as 6th Duke of Sutherland. The earldom of Ellesmere and viscountcy of Brackley are now subsidiary titles of the dukedom.
Earl of Bridgewater was a title that has been created twice in the Peerage of England, once for the Daubeny family (1538) and once for the Egerton family (1617). From 1720 to 1803, the Earls of Bridgewater also held the title of Duke of Bridgewater. The 3rd Duke of Bridgewater is famously known as the "Canal Duke", for his creation of a series of canals in North West England.
Francis Ronald Egerton, 7th Duke of Sutherland, known as Francis Ronald Egerton until 2000, is a British peer from the Egerton family.
Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, known as Lord Francis Egerton until 1748, was a British nobleman from the Egerton family. He was the youngest son of the 1st Duke. He did not marry, and the dukedom expired with him, although the earldom was inherited by a cousin, Lieutenant-General John Egerton.
Anne Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland VA, 1st Countess of Cromartie in her own right and known as the Marchioness of Stafford from 1849 to 1861, was a British peeress.
Harriet Elizabeth Georgiana Sutherland-Leveson-Gower,Duchess of Sutherland, styled The Honourable Harriet Howard before her marriage, was an English courtier and abolitionist from the Howard family.
Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford, KG PC, known as Viscount Trentham from 1746 to 1754 and as The Earl Gower from 1754 to 1786, was a British politician from the Leveson-Gower family. Sitting in the House of Lords, he spent a quarter of a century in the Cabinet.
Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere,, known as Lord Francis Leveson-Gower until 1833, was a British politician, writer, traveller and patron of the arts. Ellesmere Island, a major island in Nunavut, the Canadian Arctic, was named after him.
John Sutherland Egerton, 6th Duke of Sutherland, was a British peer from the Egerton family. He was styled Viscount Brackley until 1944, when he became the 5th Earl of Ellesmere on inheriting his father's substantive title. He inherited his ducal title in 1963 from a distant cousin.
George Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland KG, PC, known as Viscount Trentham from 1758 to 1786, as Earl Gower from 1786 to 1803 and as the Marquess of Stafford from 1803 to 1833, was an English politician, diplomat, landowner and patron of the arts from the Leveson-Gower family. He was the wealthiest man in Britain during the latter part of his life. He remains a controversial figure for his role in the Highland Clearances.
George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland, KG, styled Viscount Trentham until 1803, Earl Gower between 1803 and 1833 and Marquess of Stafford in 1833, was a British peer and Whig politician from the Leveson-Gower family.
George Granville William Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 3rd Duke of Sutherland,, styled Viscount Trentham until 1833, Earl Gower in 1833 and Marquess of Stafford between 1833 and 1861, was a British politician from the Leveson-Gower family.
Scroop Egerton, 1st Duke of Bridgewater, styled as Viscount Brackley from 1687 to 1701 and as the Earl of Bridgewater from 1701 to 1720, was an English peer, courtier and landowner. Born into the Egerton family, he succeeded as Earl of Bridgewater in 1701, before being created Duke of Bridgewater on 18 June 1720, with subsidiary titles including Marquess of Brackley.
Admiral Francis Egerton, known as Francis Leveson-Gower until 1833, was a British naval commander and politician from the Egerton family.
Charles I Insulted by Cromwell's Soldiers is an oil painting by the French artist Paul Delaroche, depicting Charles I of England taunted by the victorious soldiers of Oliver Cromwell after the Second English Civil War, prior to his execution in 1649. Completed in 1836, it is thought to be one of Delaroche's greatest masterpieces. It was displayed as part of the Bridgewater Collection in London, although it was latterly thought to have been lost when, during The Blitz of 1941, a German bomb struck close to Bridgewater House, causing shrapnel damage to the canvas in the ensuing explosion. In 2009 it was rediscovered in Scotland in an unexpectedly good condition, having been rolled up and stored after the war, but recorded in the intervening years as badly damaged or destroyed. After a partial restoration it went on display in the National Gallery in London in 2010, in an exhibition re-appraising Delaroche's work. After the exhibition, it was to be fully restored.
The Egerton family is a British aristocratic family. Over time, several members of the Egerton family were made Dukes, Earls, knights, baronets and peers. Hereditary titles held by the Egerton family include the dukedoms of Bridgewater (1720–1803) and Sutherland, as well as the earldoms of Bridgewater (1617–1829), Wilton (1801–1999) and Egerton (1897–1909). Several other members of the family have also risen to prominence. The Egerton family motto is Virtuti non armis fido.