Description:Work began on Stafford House in 1825 when the Duke of York commissioned a property which he intended to call York House. However, when the Duke of York died in 1827, the freehold lease of the property was purchased by George Granville Leveson-Gower (1758-1833), the 2nd Marquis of Stafford who became the first Duke of Sutherland in 1833. The Marquis took over the completion of the property which he renamed Stafford House. Stafford House remained in the Leveson-Gower family until 1913 when the house was purchased by Lord Leverhulme, a Lancastrian, and was renamed Lancaster House.
When the Marquis of Stafford decided to purchase the lease of York House in 1827, his chief estate agent James Loch passed the lease to the Marquis’s solicitor Mr. Lowndes for his examination. York House was Crown property and the lease therefore contained important information on how the property should be completed architecturally. In the letter above Lowndes replies to James Loch that he had ‘read over’ the lease and remarks on his findings.
The lease stated that York House was ‘Crown property’. By the terms of the lease, the Duke of York had been ‘bound to finish the House by the 5th of April 1828 – externally & internally’. Lowndes suggests to Loch that there was ‘good ground’ for extending this time.
As York House was Crown property, the Crown could influence the design of the house. Lowndes objected to there being ‘any restriction as to time & mode of the internal ornaments & fittings up’ at Stafford House, remarking ‘the interior should be left altogether to the Marquess’. However, the exterior of the house was a different matter. Lowndes writes ‘the external appearance is a matter of great moment & should be finished according to the plan agreed on & no variations made without the consent of the Crown’.
Lowndes found a number of clauses in the detailed lease for York House ‘objectionable’. He found ‘the clause for repairs’ to be ‘highly objectionable’, particularly the stipulation ‘to paint the inside once in every eight years’. Lowndes writes ‘this is useless & will effectually prevent a Tenant fitting up the rooms in an expensive way’. He adds ‘for a large house & rooms hung with pictures it is unnecessary’, remarking ‘it is a stipulation applicable to small lodging houses not to a mansion’.
The Crown Lease included clauses relating to the appropriate height of trees on the property. Lowndes writes ‘worded as the lease is any thing more than a shrub might be objected to’. He remarks ‘you are at the mercy of your Neighbours, before recommending modifying such a troublesome clause’.
Lowndes concludes his letter to Loch remarking that ‘the cost of erecting the house is very vague’.
Click on the images on the left to learn more about how York House became Stafford House.
Contextual Information from: James Yorke, Lancaster House: London’s Greatest Town House (2001)