Bridgewater House
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Bridgewater House is a palatial mansion in the London borough of St. James's. It is located, overlooking Green Park , on, between Little Street , Cleveland Row and Little St James's Street , the neighboring property of St. James's Palace.
The first known house on the site was the Berkshire House , built around 1626-27 for Thomas Howard , the second son of the Earl of Suffolk and Master of the Horse to King Charles I of England when he was Prince of Wales. After the victory of parliamentary troops in the English Civil War , the house was used as the Portuguese embassy. After the restoration of the monarchy , Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon lived in it . Afterwards the house was inhabited by the lover Karl II . Barbara Villiers was made Duchess of Cleveland in 1670 , making the house known as the Cleveland House . She had the old house renewed, the front redecorated and given new wings. For a few years the house belonged to a speculator who sold it in 1700 to John Egerton, 3rd Earl of Bridgewater , who bequeathed it to his descendants. The family of the Earls and intermittent Dukes of Bridgewater owned the property until 1948.
Building history
The fundamental renovation of the old Cleveland House in a neo-Renaissance palace was carried out by the architect James Lewis (1750-1820) and especially since 1840 in the Italianate style by Sir Charles Barry and in 1854 by Lord Ellesmere, the later Earl of Ellmere for Francis Egerton , 3rd Duke of Bridgewater remodeled. It is made of the typical yellow sandstone from Bath , has three floors above a basement and is covered by a slate roof. A new gallery was designed by Charles Tatham (1772–1842) to accommodate the large collection of pictures. The house became famous as one of the two locations of the famous Orléans Collection , the Stafford Galley (in Cleveland House) and the Bridgewater Gallery (in Bridgewater House), where the collections of paintings by the Duke of Bridgewater and his nephew and heir George Granville Leveson- Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland (whose second son Ellesmere was) was at least temporarily open for inspection. The collection of these approximately 70 paintings from the collection was opened in 1803 and could be visited every Wednesday afternoon by selected people or people recommended by the Royal Academy .
The building was badly damaged in World War II and its furnishings were stripped. The reconstruction of the house into offices concealed the architectural masterpieces. These were rediscovered in 1999 during a thorough renovation. In 1981 the Greek shipowner Giannis Latsis bought Bridgewater House. It is now owned by his family and is not open to the public.
Individual evidence
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 30 '17.4 " N , 0 ° 8' 23.1" W.