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25-653: Apsley House is the London townhouse of the Dukes of Wellington . It stands alone at Hyde Park Corner , on the south-east corner of Hyde Park , facing towards the large traffic roundabout in the centre of which stands the Wellington Arch . It is a Grade I listed building . Designed by Robert Adam in the neoclassical style, the house was built for Lord Apsley in the 1770s. It was purchased by Richard Wellesley , in 1807, and passed to his younger brother Arthur ,

50-547: A garden square . Only a small minority of them, generally the largest, were detached; even aristocrats whose country houses had grounds of hundreds or thousands of acres often lived in terraced houses in town. For example, the Duke of Norfolk was seated at Arundel Castle in the country, while from 1722 his London house, Norfolk House , was a terraced house in St James's Square , albeit one over 100 feet (30 metres) wide. Anciently

75-648: A Foundling as the location where Squire Western resides when he first journeys up to London). The house was originally built in red brick by Robert Adam between 1771 and 1778 for Lord Apsley , the Lord Chancellor , who gave the house its name. Some Adam interiors survive: the Piccadilly Drawing Room with its apsidal end and Adam fireplace, and the Portico Room, behind the giant Corinthian portico added by Wellington. The house

100-500: A large collection of paintings, other artworks and memorabilia of the career of the 1st Duke. The 9th Duke of Wellington retains half the house for the family's private use. The practice has been to maintain the public rooms as far as possible in the original style and decor of the 1st Duke. Apsley House stands at the site of an old lodge that belonged to the crown. During the Interregnum newer buildings were erected between what

125-571: Is a Duke of Wellington". The house was refurbished by the Ministry of Works , with old gas lighting removed and replaced by electricity, and the house was opened as a museum in 1952 as part of the Victoria and Albert Museum . In 2004 responsibility for the house was transferred to English Heritage , against the wishes of the Wellington family. The family apartments are now on the north side of

150-595: Is now Old Park Lane and Hyde Park Corner. In the 1600s after the Restoration they were leased by James Hamilton (died 1673) and renewed by Elizabeth his widow in 1692 on a 99-year lease ( Hamilton Place takes its name from that family). Immediately before Apsley House was built the site was occupied by a tavern called the Hercules Pillars (immortalised by Henry Fielding in The History of Tom Jones,

175-532: Is widely forgotten. In concept, the aristocratic townhouse is comparable to the hôtel particulier , which notably housed the French nobleman in Paris , as well as to the urban domus of the nobiles of Ancient Rome . Historically, a town house (later townhouse) was the city residence of a noble or wealthy family, who would own one or more country houses, generally manor houses , in which they lived for much of

200-637: The 1st duke, in 1817. It was sometimes referred to as Number One, London. It is perhaps the only preserved example of an English aristocratic townhouse from this period. The house is also called the Wellington Museum , its official designation under the Wellington Museum Act 1947. Run by English Heritage , much of the house is open to the public as a museum and art gallery, exhibiting the Wellington Collection ,

225-772: The Arthur Wellesley, but in 1817 financial difficulties forced him to sell it to his famous brother, by then the Duke of Wellington, who needed a London base from which to pursue his new career in politics. Wellington employed the architect Benjamin Dean Wyatt to carry out renovations in two phases: in the first, begun in 1819, he added a three-storey extension to the north east, housing a State Dining Room, bedrooms and dressing rooms. The scagliola ornamentations, that resemble marble inlays, were produced in Coade stone from

250-585: The City Greenwich and Hampton Court. The next fashion was to move still further westwards to St James's , to be near the Tudor royal court. In the 18th century, Covent Garden was developed by the Duke of Bedford on his Bedford Estate , and Mayfair by the Grosvenor family on their Grosvenor Estate . The final fashion before the modern era was for a residence on the former marsh-land of Belgravia , on

275-604: The Coade Ornamental Stone Manufactory in Lambeth . The second phase, started after Wellington had become Prime Minister in 1828, included a new staircase and the "Waterloo Gallery" on the west side of the house. The red-brick exterior was clad in Bath stone , and a pedimented portico added. Wyatt's original estimate for the work was £23,000, but the need to repair structural defects discovered during

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300-597: The Duke's famous victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo . The Waterloo Banquet was held annually to commemorate the famous victory of 18 June 1815. The first banquets were held in the Dining Room but in 1828 when Wyatt completed the Waterloo Gallery the banquet was moved there and became a much larger event, seating 74 as opposed to 36 in the dining room. The Duke's equestrian statue can be seen across

325-686: The Dukes of Norfolk also had a townhouse, more properly a ducal palace, in the City of Norwich, the capital of the County of Norfolk, which was greatly enlarged by Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk (d.1572), whose London townhouse was then the London Charterhouse just outside of the northern wall of the City of London, re-named "Howard House". In the Middle Ages , the London residences of

350-681: The Parisian hôtel particulier : Whilst most English examples of the townhouse occur in London, provincial cities also contain some historical examples, for example Bampfylde House (destroyed in WW II) in Exeter, the county capital of Devon, the townhouse of Baron Poltimore of the Bampfylde family, whose main country seat was Poltimore House in Devon. Also in Exeter was Bedford House, also demolished,

375-572: The Strand , the main ceremonial thoroughfare from the City to the Palace of Westminster , where parliamentary and court business were transacted. Areas such as Kensington and Hampstead were countryside hamlets outside London until the 19th century, so mansions in these areas, such as Holland House , cannot be considered as true historical townhouses. Bishops also had London residences, generally termed palaces , listed below. The greatest residence on

400-591: The Strand was the Savoy Palace , residence of John of Gaunt , Duke of Lancaster, the richest man in the kingdom in his age and the father of King Henry IV. His chief seat was Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire. The Strand had the advantage of frontage to the River Thames , which gave the nobles their own private landing places, as had the royal palaces of Whitehall and Westminster and further out from

425-422: The busy road, cloaked and watchful, the plinth guarded at each corner by an infantryman. This statue was cast from guns captured at the battle. Gerald Wellesley, 7th Duke of Wellington , gave the house and its most important contents to the nation in 1947, but by the Wellington Museum Act 1947 ( 10 & 11 Geo. 6 . c. 46) the right of the family to occupy just over half the house was preserved "so long as there

450-660: The house, concentrated on the second floor. Townhouse (Great Britain) British property developers and estate agents often market new buildings as townhouses, following the North American usage of the term , to aggrandise modest dwellings and to avoid the negative connotation of cheap terraced housing built in the Victorian era to accommodate workers. The aristocratic pedigree of terraced housing, for example as survives in St James's Square in Westminster,

475-526: The nobility were generally situated within the walls or boundary of the City of London , often known as "Inns", as the French equivalents are termed hôtel . For example, Lincoln's Inn was the town house of the 3rd Earl of Lincoln , and Gray's Inn was a manor held by the 1st Baron Grey de Wilton . At that time the Tower of London , within the City, was still in use as a royal palace. They gradually spread onto

500-510: The royal court, attendance in Parliament, for the transaction of legal business and business in general. From the 18th century, landowners and their servants would move to a townhouse during the social season when balls and other society gatherings took place. From the 18th century, most townhouses were terraced ; it was one of the successes of Georgian architecture to persuade the rich to buy terraced houses, especially if they were in

525-546: The southern part of the Grosvenor Estate, developed after the establishment of Mayfair by the Duke of Westminster . Many aristocratic townhouses were demolished or ceased to be used for residential purposes after the First World War , when the scarcity and greater expense of domestic servants made living on a grand scale impractical. The following examples, most of which are now demolished, are comparable to

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550-577: The town residence of the Duke of Bedford who resided principally at Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire but required a base in the West Country from which to administer his vast estates there. Georgian Dublin consisted of five Georgian squares, which contained the townhouses of prominent peers. The squares were Merrion Square , St Stephen's Green , Fitzwilliam Square , Ruthland Square (now called Parnell Square ) and Mountjoy Square . Many of

575-407: The work led to costs escalating to more than £61,000. Wyatt introduced his own version of French style to the interior, notably in the Waterloo Gallery and the florid wrought iron stair-rail, described by Pevsner as "just turning from Empire to a neo-Rococo". Iron shutters and railings were also added to the house after the windows had been smashed during riots. The Waterloo Gallery is named after

600-458: The year and from the estates surrounding which they derived much of their wealth and political power. Many of the Inns of Court in London served this function; for example, Gray's Inn was the London townhouse of Reginald de Grey, 1st Baron Grey de Wilton (d. 1308). A dwelling in London, or in the provincial city of the county in which their country estate was located, was required for attendance on

625-419: Was given the popular nickname of Number One, London, since it was the first house passed by visitors who travelled from the countryside after the toll gates at Knightsbridge . It was originally part of a contiguous line of great houses on Piccadilly , demolished to widen Park Lane : its official address remains 149 Piccadilly, W1J 7NT. In 1807 the house was purchased by Richard Wellesley, the elder brother of

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