Albany (London)

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Albany is one of the most exclusive residential complexes in the British capital, London . It is located west of Piccadilly Circus on one of the main arteries of London's West End, Piccadilly, north of the palace district around St James's Palace .

To the history of architecture

The house facade in 2004

After a previous building, built in 1670 for Sir Thomas Clarges, was demolished, the main building Melbourne House of today's Albany with its classicist facade was built from 1771 to 1774 by the court architect Sir William Chambers for Lord Melbourne at today's address Albany, Piccadilly, London, W1 .

In 1791 he exchanged the Albany with Frederick Augustus, Duke of York and Albany , the son of King George III. when he married Friederike von Prussia . The Duke's barter was Dover House , now part of the Scotland Office . After the new owner, the building was given its current name.

In 1802 Alexander Copland bought the Albany and commissioned the architect Henry Holland to add two wings to the main house ( The Mansion ) facing the garden. These were connected by the famous Rope Walk , a covered private path inspired by Chinese fashion at the time. The Albany as a living concept was an absolute novelty in England at the time: apartment buildings for the wealthy did not gain acceptance until the middle of the 19th century. With the Albany the tradition of the bachelor flat was established, which embodies it like no other: settled almost exclusively in the clubland of St. James's and built in large numbers until 1914.

The layout of the residential complex, which was inaugurated in 1803 and is a listed building, is reminiscent of the old colleges of Oxford and Cambridge (Lord Macaulay: "... college life at the West-end of London") and the London Inns of Court . There is a special, longstanding relationship with Peterhouse , the oldest college at Cambridge University. The botanist William Stone, model for the main characters in two dramas and a Sherlock Holmes story, left 34 sets of chambers in his old college in Albany when he died in 1958 , less than half the total. He had “collected” them over the course of his long life.

The only one-room apartment ( The Mezz , short for The Mezzanine flat ) above the porter's lodge was won after the Second World War by adding a false ceiling and was the first London apartment of Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon . All other apartments have a letter from A ( The Mansion ) to L (J is excluded) as part of the address, followed by a number from 1 to 6, i.e. from A 1 to L 6.

Residents of Albany

The rope walk

The residents of Albany and their no less famous visitors ( William Wordsworth , Jane Austen , Charles Dickens , Benjamin Disraeli , Oscar Wilde , William Morris , who completely designed a set , Dante Gabriel Rossetti , Aubrey Beardsley , Cecil Rhodes , Émile Zola , Mark Twain , Henry James , Arthur Conan Doyle , William Butler Yeats , Rudyard Kipling, Somerset Maugham, Noël Coward , Winston Churchill , Princess Diana and others) reflect the cultural and intellectual history of Great Britain to this day.

Famous residents of the past included:

Numerous other important personalities such as:

They all lived in the Albany and were therefore Albanians . For its 200th anniversary on June 12, 2003, Country Life magazine stated succinctly on its front page: London's most exclusive address , ignoring traditional addresses such as Buckingham Palace, 10 Downing Street and Apsley House. In a lengthy article from 1903, in which the allegedly imminent demolition of the Albany was reported, there was talk of the most famous apartment house in the world .

The editors of the literary magazine The Saturday Review were in G 1 for almost forty years before it was sold in 1893. The following year, the renowned publisher The Bodley Head purchased the same set . In the 1890s, the most important domestic and foreign writers came and went there. The publisher John Lane published the infamous Yellow Book there . It was in the Albany that his nephew, Sir Allen Lane, finally launched Penguin Books . Here - in B4 - Ernest Worthing "lived" in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and later in real life the actress Dame Edith Evans, who played in her star role as Lady Bracknell ("a handbag?") In this comedy in theater and film celebrated great success.

This is where 20th-century dramas such as EM Parsons' Shades of Albany , which plays at the 125th anniversary garden party, and While the Sun Shines by Albany resident Sir Terence Rattigan, in whose apartment Laurie Slades plays Joe & I, play novels 19th century by Charles Dickens ( Sketches by Boz , Our Mutual Friend ), WM Thackeray, Trollope (three novels), Disraeli and Oscar Wilde ( The Picture of Dorian Gray ) and 20th century by Sir Compton Mackenzie, Virginia Woolf ( Jacob's Room ), Dorothy L. Sayers , GK Chesterton ( Father Brown ), HG Wells , Sir PG Wodehouse, Anthony Burgess and several short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle : a total of over seventy fictional works.

Several films were shot here, some on the original location; The Albany has been recreated several times in film and television studios and a castle park, for example for six film adaptations of the well-known adventure stories of the fictional Albany resident AJ Raffles by EW Hornung , Conan Doyles' brother-in-law. Three other authors wrote Raffles adventures, Graham Greene wrote a Raffles comedy, and George Orwell wrote an essay on the building.

Location and characteristics

Right (east) next to the Royal Academy of Arts , in the Albany Court Yard, across from the Hatchards bookstore and the exclusive Fortnum & Mason department store , the Albany is located in the heart of the West End in Mayfair , adjacent to St James's Palace . The famous London Library in St. James's Square, Europe's largest bookstore (Waterstone's flagship in Piccadilly), the major auction houses, second-hand bookshops, art dealerships, museums, theaters and gentlemen's clubs are only a few minutes' walk away.

Spared from traffic noise by the driveway and forecourt, it forms a paradise in Piccadilly , according to the title of a book by caricaturist Harry Furniss about Albany that was published in 1925 . In order to guarantee peace in Piccadilly (the book title of Lady Sheila Birkenhead's standard work on the Albany from 1958), there are strict rules: no real estate agents, no journalists, no small children, no animals, no running fast, no whistling, no photography.

After submitting various letters of recommendation, new applicants are subjected to a detailed interview. The chemistry should be right. Since the interest far exceeds the offer, Edward Heath, for example, was on the waiting list for thirteen years. The loyalty of at least two former residents extended beyond death: their ashes were scattered in the two gardens.

Clarifications and trivia

  • When it was founded, the residential complex was simply called Albany ; During the 19th century, The Albany prevailed. Around 1900, the majority of the residents were of the opinion that Article sounded too much like a pub . Therefore, increasing importance was attached to the original designation, which has largely become naturalized again to this day.
  • In the literature about the Albany and in fictional works, the erroneous statements can be found again and again that the Albany is a club, houses the first serviced flats in the world, is "managed", has a common dining room or a restaurant. The latter only applied to the years 1803–1810.
  • The widespread belief that the founding document did not allow women to live in Albany is incorrect. It was only rarely in the 19th century that women started their own households. In fact, women have lived in Albany since the 1980s.
  • Another rumor: Albany residents don't greet each other when they meet on the Rope Walk . You greet each other very well.
  • About pronunciation: The first syllable of Albany is pronounced like the English word all .
  • For reasons of confidentiality and privacy, this article only mentions prominent residents who have stayed at the Albany in the past.
  • In the years 2004-06 the British artist Keith Coventry created Echoes of Albany , a series of 31 paintings , which thematize the structural details of Albany, portraits of famous residents and events from its history. The pictures were shown in 2006 in solo exhibitions in Glasgow (Tramway) and London ( Fine Art Society ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ FHW Sheppard: Survey of London: volumes 31 and 32; St. James Westminster, Part 2 (1963): 'Albany' . British history online. Pp. 367-389. Retrieved April 19, 2010.
  2. ↑ Jonathan Ray, Albany - A Prosopographical Study in Fact and Fiction (Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London PhD thesis), London 1997
  3. ^ The New York Times, June 14, 1903
  4. ↑ Cheryl Bolen, Albany: Elegant Bachelors' Quarters in London, http://www.cherylbolen.com/albany.htm as of 11/2007

literature

  • Harry Furniss, Paradise in Piccadilly, The Story of Albany, London / New York 1925
  • Sheila Birkenhead, Peace in Piccadilly, The Story of Albany, London 1958
  • David Watkin, Albany, Piccadilly, Country Life, June 12, 2003, 102ff.
  • Elizabeth Oliver (Ed.), Albany, London (Trustees of Albany) 2003

Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 32 ″  N , 0 ° 8 ′ 19 ″  W.