St John's Lodge | |
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Location | Inner Circle, Regent's Park, City of Westminster, London, England |
Coordinates | 51°31′46″N0°09′09″W / 51.52957°N 0.15250°W |
Built | 1812 |
Built for | Charles Augustus Tulk |
Architect | John Raffield |
Owner | Royal family of Brunei Darussalam |
Listed Building – Grade II* | |
Official name | St John's Lodge, Regent's Park |
Designated | 5 February 1970 |
Reference no. | 1277478 |
St John's Lodge is a Grade II* heritage-listed [1] private residence located in Regent's Park, in the City of Westminster, London, England. Since 1994 it has been owned by the royal family of Brunei Darussalam [2] and is the London home of Prince Jefri Bolkiah of Brunei. [3] St John's Lodge is located on the Inner Circle of Regent's Park, which until 1965 was in the Metropolitan Borough of St Marylebone and is now part of the City of Westminster. [4]
St John's Lodge is the first villa to be built in Regent's Park in 1812 [5] and was designed for Charles Augustus Tulk by architect John Raffield. The Royal Parks service described St John's Lodge and The Holme as the only two villas remaining from John Nash's original conception of Regent's Park, [6] which would have included a royal palace.
Other owners of the lodge have included Lord Wellesley, Sir Isaac Goldsmid, and John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute. [7] The residence was occupied by the University of London's Institute of Archaeology from 1937 to 1959, and by the history and classics departments of Bedford College from 1959 to 1983. The adjoining gardens have been open to the public since 1928. [2] St John's Lodge was bought in 1987 by the development company Messila House for £9 million who doubled it in size to 35,000 square feet (3,300 m2) before being sold in 1994 to the royal family of Brunei Darussalam for £40 million, making it the most expensive private house in the UK. [8]
John Nash was one of the foremost British architects of the Georgian and Regency eras, during which he was responsible for the design, in the neoclassical and picturesque styles, of many important areas of London. His designs were financed by the Prince Regent and by the era's most successful property developer, James Burton. Nash also collaborated extensively with Burton's son, Decimus Burton.
Regent's Park is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies 410 acres (170 ha) in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the Borough of Camden. In addition to its large central parkland and ornamental lake, it contains various structures and organizations both public and private, generally on its periphery, including Regent's University and London Zoo.
St James's Park is a 23-hectare (57-acre) urban park in the City of Westminster, central London. A Royal Park, it is at the southernmost end of the St James's area, which was named after a once isolated medieval hospital dedicated to St James the Less, now the site of St James's Palace. The area was initially enclosed for a deer park near the Palace of Whitehall for King Henry VIII in the 1530's. It is the most easterly of a near-continuous chain of public parks that includes Green Park, Hyde Park, and Kensington Gardens.
Buckingham Palace Garden is a large private park attached to the London residence of the British monarch. It is situated to the rear (west) of Buckingham Palace, occupying a 17-hectare (42-acre) site in the City of Westminster and forms the largest private garden in London. It is bounded by Constitution Hill to the north, Hyde Park Corner to the west, Grosvenor Place to the south-west, and the Royal Mews, King's Gallery, and Buckingham Palace itself to the south and east.
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Decimus Burton was one of the foremost English architects and landscapers of the 19th century. He was the foremost Victorian architect in the Roman revival, Greek revival, Georgian neoclassical and Regency styles. He was a founding fellow and vice-president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and from 1840 architect to the Royal Botanic Society, and an early member of the Athenaeum Club, London, whose clubhouse he designed and which the company of his father, James Burton, the pre-eminent Georgian London property developer, built.
Belgrave Square is a large 19th-century garden square in London. It is the centrepiece of Belgravia, and its architecture resembles the original scheme of property contractor Thomas Cubitt who engaged George Basevi for all of the terraces for the 2nd Earl Grosvenor, later the 1st Marquess of Westminster, in the 1820s. Most of the houses were occupied by 1840. The square takes its name from one of the Duke of Westminster's subsidiary titles, Viscount Belgrave. The village and former manor house of Belgrave, Cheshire, were among the rural landholdings associated with the main home and gardens of the senior branch of the family, Eaton Hall. Today, many embassies occupy buildings on all four sides.
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Carlton House Terrace is a street in the St James's district of the City of Westminster in London. Its principal architectural feature is a pair of terraces, the Western and Eastern terraces, of white stucco-faced houses on the south side of the street, which overlook The Mall and St. James's Park. These terraces were built on Crown land between 1827 and 1832 to overall designs by John Nash, but with detailed input by other architects including Decimus Burton. Construction was overseen by James Pennethorne. Both terrace blocks are Grade I listed buildings. A separate but linked cul-de-sac at the terrace's western end is named Carlton Gardens.
Jefri Bolkiah ibni Omar Ali Saifuddien III is a member of the Bruneian royal family. His elder brother is the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah. Prince Jefri was the finance minister of his oil-rich country from 1986 to 1997. He also served as chairman of the Brunei Investment Agency (BIA) which invests much of the country's wealth and was responsible for overseas investments. Additionally, he is the Deputy Chairman 3 of the Jabatan Adat Istiadat Negara (JAIN).
White Lodge is a Grade I listed Georgian house situated in Richmond Park, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Formerly a royal residence, it now houses the Royal Ballet Lower School, instructing students aged 11–16.
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Campden Hill is a hill in Kensington, West London, bounded by Holland Park Avenue on the north, Kensington High Street on the south, Kensington Palace Gardens on the east and Abbotsbury Road on the west. The name derives from the former Campden House, built by Baptist Hicks, 1st Viscount Campden whose country seat was Campden House in the Gloucestershire town of Chipping Campden.
Park Crescent is at the north end of Portland Place and south of Marylebone Road in London. The crescent consists of elegant stuccoed terraced houses by the architect John Nash, which form a semicircle. The crescent is part of Nash's and wider town-planning visions of Roman-inspired imperial West End approaches to Regent's Park. It was originally conceived as a circus (circle) to be named Regent's Circus but instead Park Square was built to the north. The only buildings on the Regent's Park side of the square are small garden buildings, enabling higher floors of the Park Crescent buildings to have a longer, green northern view.
Robert Weir Schultz, later Robert Weir Schultz Weir and known as R. W. S. Weir, was a Scottish Arts and Crafts architect, artist, landscape designer and furniture designer. He did much work on the Isle of Bute. Almost all of his buildings are now category A listed buildings, reflecting the high quality of his work.
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