Queen Anne's Mansions
Queen Anne's Mansions was a
The Court Circular for January 1897 describes it as "a stupendous pile which, for solidity, comfort and general convenience, sets all rivals at defiance, although twenty years have elapsed and imitations have been legion."[2]
History
Hankey further extended the flats in 1874 and 1877 to the south and west. There were objections to the height of the flats, not least from
It may have been legal complications that led him, for the remainder of the work, to employ an architect,
During the
Queen Anne's Mansions was home to the Medical Department of the Royal Navy (
In 1947, the Ministry of Works retained the building on a 21-year lease. It was used as an Admiralty headquarters building, housing the
Queen Anne's Mansions was demolished in 1973, and later replaced by
The tall superstructures on British battleships constructed or rebuilt from the 1920s onwards, beginning with the Nelson-class, were colloquially referred to as 'Queen Anne's Mansions'.
Facilities
A typical unit of accommodation was a living room, about 23 ft by 14 ft, a bedroom and a bathroom. In the corner blocks were some more commodious suites. Notwithstanding the prejudice against the building, no difficulty was found in letting the flats at high rents to tenants of the 'highest respectability'. A floor containing six rooms, without any grounds, commanded £300 per annum, and two rooms £60 per annum.[5] The principal novelty of the building was the installation of hydraulic passenger lifts, at that time without precedent in domestic buildings in London. Fire control was also provided for by 98 hydrants, supplied from tanks storing 70,000 gallons on the roofs.
Famous residents
- Edward Elgar (composer): "Elgar took a London flat in Queen Anne's Mansions so as to be able to concentrate on the concerto"[6]
- Augusta, Lady Gregory (Irish dramatist and folklorist): "AG had given up her rooms in Queen Anne's Mansions before leaving for Italy on 17 Mar," ... "she leased new rooms in Queen's Anne's Mansions at the beginning of 1902"[7]
- Harry Johnston (British explorer): "Arrived in London toward the end of June 1888, I established myself at Queen Anne's Mansions, in a small but comfortable flat on the sixth floor"[8]
- Eliza Lynn Linton (British novelist, essayist, and journalist)[9]
- Frederic Hervey Foster Quin (medical doctor who first established homeopathy in Britain): "Quin died of bronchitis at the Garden Mansions, Queen Anne's Gate, Westminster, on 24 November 1878"[10]
- Sir John Fowler (civil engineer) who had lodgings on the site prior to the building of the mansions. "Sir John Fowler retained in the reconstructed buildings an office which is still known as 2, Queen Square Place. There is no number one, nor any other house in the 'Place'". Fowler's insistence in keeping his old address confused many of his clients, who would regularly end up in other parts of London. His working partner, Benjamin Baker, tried in vain to get him to accept the change of address, but Fowler "asked his partner to yield to the foible of an old man."[11]
References
- ^ Hamilton et al. National Building Studies, special report 33, pages 143-150. Published HMSO, London 1964
- ^ Quoted in Mangeot, S.E., "Queen Anne's Mansions: the story of 'Hankey's Folly'". Architect & Building News, 13 January 1939, pp. 77-79
- ^ "Queen Anne's Lodge | Pages 142-143". Survey of London: Volume 10, St. Margaret, Westminster, Part I: Queen Anne's Gate Area. British History Online. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
- ^ "http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=778588&jid=PNS&volumeId=12&issueId=03&aid=778580
- ^ "Queen Anne's Mansions and Milton's Garden", The Builder, 2 June 1877, p. 556
- ^ Kennedy, Michael, The Life of Elgar. Cambridge University Press, 2004
- ^ Yeats, W.B. et al, The Collected Letters of W. B. Yeats. Oxford University Press, 2005
- ^ Johnston, Alex, The Life and Letters of Sir Harry Johnston. Kessinger Publishing, 2005. p. 119
- ^ Heilmann, Ann, The Late-Victorian Marriage Question: A Collection of Key New Woman Texts. Routledge, 1998. p. 193
- ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004. p. 693
- ^ McKay, Thomas, The Life of Sir John Fowler, Engineer. John Murray, 1900
Further reading
- English Heritage viewfinder website (Has 4 photographs of the interiors, taken 1893 to 1898...search for "Queen Annes Mansions"...accessed 30-March-2008)
- Dennis, Richard (November 2008). "'Babylonian Flats' in Victorian and Edwardian London" (PDF). The London Journal. 33 (3): 233–247. S2CID 161731312. Archived from the original(PDF) on 8 May 2014.