The Kings Mews, Charing Cross.
Post in preparation.
One in a series of posts relating to the St Martin's Lane Academy and the local environment in the mid 18th century.
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Map of the Area Dated 1658.
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The King's Mews.
Plan by an unidentified architect 17th/18th Century.
Certainly made prior to the building of the central block by William Kent in 1732.
Image courtesy RIBA.
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An Unidentified Plan of the Mews.
1720's?
Prior to 1730 and William Kent's rebuilding of the North Range of the Great Mews.
British Library.
From the Kings Topographical Collection.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/50265373962
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The Dung Hill Mews.
Formerly The Duke of Monmouth's Mews.
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Called the Little Mews on the Roque Map of 1740.
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John Vardy's design for Alterations to the King's Mews, which must post date the rebuilding of the central block by William Kent in1732.
c 1736 - 40.
John Vardy (February
1718 – 17 May 1765).
Another low resolution image from the RIBA.
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The North Range of the Great Mews designed by William Kent.
with Central arch to the Green Mews.
Built 1732/33.
Engraving by Benjamin Cole (1697 -1783).
J Maurer.
1747.
Engraving.
British Museum.
Crop of the Maurer engraving.
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View looking East from William Kent's building of 1730.
Samuel Wale c. 1760.
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Thomas Malton, 1794.
Image used with permission from the London Picture Archive
https://www.londonpicturearchive.org.uk/view-item?i=312926&WINID=1718118891518
For Thomas Malton's Picturesque Tour.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1880-0911-1268
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Kent's Building in 1793.
Image Courtesy Royal Collection.
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Study of the Interior of Kent's Building. 1808.
Probably by Joseph Stadler, for Ackerman.(see below).
looking South East.
Image Courtesy Art Institute of Chicago.
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/113171/study-for-king-s-mews-charing-cross-from-microcosm-of-london
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Sketch of the Kent Building, 1827.
George Scharf.
British Museum.
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Plan of the Kings Mews, 1798.
Plan of the Kings Mews.
Based on a survey by Thomas Chawner of 84 Guildford St, dated 19 June 1796.
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https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol20/pt3/pp7-14
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The East side of the Kings Mews.
Viewed from the front of William Kent's building.
Looking South East.
Circa 1820.
William Henry Hunt (1790 - 1864).
Yale Centre for British Art.
In 1806 Hunt
persuaded his father to allow him to train as an artist, becoming
apprenticed for a term of seven years to John Varley, the watercolourist,
drawing master, astrologer, and a close friend of William Blake. Hunt exhibited three oil
paintings at the Royal Academy in 1807 and continued to exhibit there for
several years following. In 1808 he was admitted as a student to the Royal
Academy Schools.
Hunt's uncle, a butcher, is recorded as having said of the artist, "He was always a poor cripple, and as he was fit for nothing, they made an artist of him."
Hunt had deformed legs that hampered his
movement and may well have contributed to his eventual abandonment of landscape
work in favor of still life and figures
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For the study of the Mews this is a very important drawing So far this is the only illustration of any of the buildings within the Kings Mews except for Kent's rebuilding of the North range of 1732/3.
Low resolution image from YCBA.
This image appears to have been taken from a book or magazine.
I am very grateful to Rhyannon van Allsteyn of the YCBA for providing me with this image.
There is a black and white illustration of the same watercolour drawing in the Survey of London XX - 1940 plate 3. The source is given as (Westminster) Council's Collection. (included below).
The resolution is slightly higher.
I will attempt to get a copy of the original in due course.
This image depicts the long barn which occupied almost the whole of the East side of the Great Mews.
Hopefully a better image will appear in due course.
Approx 30 ft Wide x 300 ft Long.
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Below The Great Barn from the Chawner Survey of 1798.
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The Mews Gateway at Charing Cross.
Engraving
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View from St Martin's Lane just prior to demolition for the construction of Trafalgar Square.
The Pedimented building is the new Royal College of Physicians.
From Haunted London by Walter Thornbury pub 1865. the houses on the west side of the Lane have already been demolished.
Compare with a similar view by George Scharf.
View looking West from the steps of St Martin's in the Field. 1827.
George Scharf.
British Museum.
George Scharf
1830.
Looking up from the corner of St Martin's Lane and Charing Cross to the gap where the houses to the east of the Mews have been demolished opposite St Martin in the Fields.
