York House, Strand

York House in the Strand in London was one of a string of mansions which once stood along the route from the City of London to the royal court at Westminster. It was built as the London home of the Bishops of Norwich not later than 1237, and around 300 years later it was acquired by King Henry VIII. It came to be known as York House when it was granted to the Archbishop of York in 1556 and retained that name for the rest of its existence. Its neighbors were Suffolk House (later Northumberland House), on the west and Durham House, London residence of the Bishop of Durham, to the east. For about seventy years from 1558 it was leased to various Lord Keepers of the Great Seal of England. In the 1620s it was acquired by the royal favourite George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, [A view of York House by Wenceslas Hollar, in the Pepysian Library, is reproduced in London County Council, "Survey of London" 18, pl. 2b.] and after an interlude during the English Civil War it was returned to George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, who sold it to developers for £30,000 in 1672. He made it a condition of the sale that his name and title should be commemorated by George Street, Villiers Street, Duke Street, Of Alley, and Buckingham Street. These streets are still extant, though Of Alley has been renamed York Place and George Street is now York Buildings. Villiers Street runs along the eastern side of Charing Cross railway station). [Nikolaus Pevsner and Bridget Cherry (1973) "London I: The Cities of London and Westminster": 382] The mansions facing in the Strand were built where they were partly because they had direct access from their garden fronts to the Thames, which was then a preferred transport artery. The York Watergate, built ca. 1626, survives, now marooned convert|150|yd|m|0|lk=on from the river, within the Embankment Gardens, due to the construction of the Thames Embankment. With the Banqueting House it is one of the few surviving reminders in London of the Italianate court style of Charles I. Its boldly rusticated design in a confident Serlian manner has been attributed to Sir Balthazar Gerbier [by Sir John Summerson, in "Architecture in Britain, 1530-1830" (1963); Sir John withdrew the attribution in the 1991 edition.] , to Inigo Jones himself [by John Harris in "Country Life" 2 November 1989.] and to the sculptor and master-mason Nicholas Stone. [in a list drawn up by his relative, Charles Stoakes (Colvin, "Gerbier").] It was restored in the 1950s.

The York House Conference that assembled there in February 1626 ended unsatisfactorily with the final rupture of Puritan members of Parliament with Buckingham. York House was the setting for a masque presented before their majesties in May 1627, in which Buckingham appeared followed by “Envy,with divers open-mouthed dogs’head representing the people’s barking, while next came Fame and Truth", just before his departure for his unsuccessful second foray against France. [ [http://www.spamula.net/col/archives/2005/11/the_ministerduk.html Isaac D’Israeli, "Curiosities of Literature"] ]

The first Duke granted lodgings at York House to the painter Orazio Gentileschi, and to Sir Balthazar Gerbier, diplomat and sometime painter; though after the Duke's assassination in 1628, the Duchess tried to expel him, it was in Gerbier's lodgings that Peter Paul Rubens soujourned during his visit to London this following year. [Edward Croft-Murray, "The Landscape Background in Rubens's St. George and the Dragon" "The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs" 89No. 529 (April 1947:89-91, 93) p. 90. ] An inventory of the contents of York House drawn up in 1635 [Randall Davies, "An Inventory of the Duke of Buckingham's Pictures, etc., at York House in 1635" "The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs" "10" No. 48. (March 1907: 376, 379-382).] is mined by scholars both for the light it sheds on one of the handful of great art collections [There were 330 paintings enumerated, many of which were sold at Antwerp in 1649 for the young Duke; among them were seventeen canvases by Rubens. And there were tapestries, marble sculptures, plate and rich furnishings] formed in the circle of Charles I, and the furnishings of a fashionable Early Stuart nobleman's residence. In the 'Great Chamber' twenty-two paintings were displayed with fifty-nine pieces of Roman sculpture, many of which were heads. In the 'Gallery' were a further thirty-one further heads and statues. Apparently the only modern sculpture at York House was Giambologna's "Samson and a Philistine", a royal gift from Philip IV of Spain to Charles I, who passed it to his favourite, Buckingham. [John Pope-Hennessy, "Samson and a Philistine by Giovanni Bologna" (1954); John Harris, "The Link between a Roman Second-Century Sculptor, Van Dyck, Inigo Jones and Queen Henrietta Maria" "The Burlington Magazine" 115 No. 845 (August 1973:526-530) p. 529.]

The designation "York House" was assumed by the palatial York House, built in the Stable Yard, St. James's Palace, for the Duke of York, brother of George IV and heir apparent. Foundations were begun for a designs by Robert Smirke, who was quickly replaced by Benjamin Dean and Philip Wyatt; when the Duke died in 1827, deeply in debt and the house unfinished, it was subsequently completed as Stafford House, with gilded interiors by Sir Charles Barry for Stafford's heir, the Duke of Sutherland, that inspired Queen Victoria's famous remark about "coming from my house to your palace". [Howard Colvin, "The Architects of Stafford House" "Architectural History" 1 (1958:17-30).] The name is carried today by a commercial building in Portugal Street, Kingsway, London.

Notes

References

*"London's Mansions" by David Pearce, (1986) ISBN 0-7134-8702-X
*"Survey of London", xviii, plates 31-33.
*Howard Colvin, "A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600-1840" 3rd ed. 1995 sv "Sir Balthazar Gerbier", "Inigo Jones" "Nicholas Stone"

ee also

*York House, for a list of other mansions in London which have been known as York House.