Grosvenor House was one of the largest townhouses in London, home of the

Grosvenor family Duke of Westminster is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created by Queen Victoria in 1874 and bestowed upon Hugh Grosvenor, 3rd Marquess of Westminster. It is the most recent dukedom conferred on someone not related to the ...

(better known as the Dukes of Westminster) for more than a century. Their original London residence was on Millbank, but after the family had developed their Mayfair estates, they moved to

Park Lane Park Lane is a dual carriageway road in the City of Westminster in Central London. It is part of the London Inner Ring Road and runs from Hyde Park Corner in the south to Marble Arch in the north. It separates Hyde Park to the west from ...

to build a house worthy of their wealth, status and influence in the 19th century. The house gave its name to

Upper Grosvenor Street Upper Grosvenor Street is a one-way Georgian street in Mayfair, London, United Kingdom. It runs from the north side of the Grosvenor House Hotel (fronting Park Lane) to the south side of the London Chancery Building (fronting Grosvenor Squ ...

and Grosvenor Square. The house was requisitioned during the First World War, and was sold and demolished in the 1920s. The

Grosvenor House Hotel ] JW Marriott Grosvenor House London, originally named the Grosvenor House Hotel, is a luxury hotel that opened in 1929 in the Mayfair area of London, England. The hotel is managed by JW Marriott Hotels, which is a brand of Marriott Internat ...

was built on its site.

History

The site was originally occupied by a small house named 'Gloucester House' (after

Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, (25 November 1743 – 25 August 1805), was a grandson of King George II and a younger brother of George III of the United Kingdom. Life Youth Prince William Henry was born at Leicester ...

, who owned it), with the front entrance on Upper Grosvenor Street. This house was purchased by

Robert Grosvenor, 1st Marquess of Westminster Robert Grosvenor, 1st Marquess of Westminster, (22 March 1767 – 17 February 1845) was the son of the 1st Earl Grosvenor, whom he succeeded in 1802 as 2nd Earl Grosvenor. He was created Marquess of Westminster in 1831. He wa ...

, in 1805 for £20,000. He spent £17,000 on extending the house to make it more fashionable. In 1821, a large picture gallery long was added to the west of the house. It was here that many of the Grosvenor family's treasures were held. Another extension was added in 1842, in the form of a long classical-style

colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or cur ...

d entrance screen on

. At each end was a

triumphal arch A triumphal arch is a free-standing monumental structure in the shape of an archway with one or more arched passageways, often designed to span a road. In its simplest form a triumphal arch consists of two massive piers connected by an arch, cro ...

with pediments above sculpted with the Grosvenor arms. Thomas Cundy, the architect of this vast house, then proposed a larger mansion to go all the way along to Park Street, extending all the way to . This idea was dropped, as the 2nd Marquess thought it would be too lavish. In 1870,

Hugh Grosvenor, 3rd Marquess of Westminster Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, (13 October 1825 – 22 December 1899), styled Viscount Belgrave between 1831 and 1845, Earl Grosvenor between 1845 and 1869, and known as The Marquess of Westminster between 1869 and 1874, was an ...

(later the 1st Duke) commissioned

Henry Clutton Henry Clutton (19 March 1819 – 27 June 1893)Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Photograph , http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pis&GScid=1366392&GRid=12186732&PIgrid=12186732&PIcrid=1366392&PIpi=3000944& was an English arc ...

to add a

porte-cochère A porte-cochère (; , late 17th century, literally 'coach gateway'; plural: porte-cochères, portes-cochères) is a doorway to a building or courtyard, "often very grand," through which vehicles can enter from the street or a covered porch-like ...

to the north, and he had many of the state rooms redesigned. In 1889, electricity was introduced, being one of the first buildings in London to do so.

Demolition

The house was in the Grosvenor family's possession until the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, at which point the government requisitioned it. After the war, the family decided that the home was too lavish to maintain, and it was sold. The house was demolished during the 1920s, and the

was built on the site.

Art collections

It is said that the home originally housed one of the best private art collections in the world, with paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, Gainsborough, Velázquez and other old masters. Some of these were sold between the wars, but most remain in the other Grosvenor family homes, mainly their country seat - Eaton Hall in Cheshire.

Notes

Sources

*Walford, Edward. ''Old & New London: A Narrative of Its History, Its People & Its Places'', 6 vols., London, 1881, vol 4, pp. 370–372. *Young, John. ''A Catalogue of the Pictures at Grosvenor House, London; with etchings from the whole collection ... accompanied by historical notices of the principal works.'' London, 1820.

External links

*
Detailed architectural history
from the ''

Survey of London The Survey of London is a research project to produce a comprehensive architectural survey of central London and its suburbs, or the area formerly administered by the London County Council. It was founded in 1894 by Charles Robert Ashbee, an A ...