NORFOLK HOUSE SOLD

Southland Times, Issue 23395, 30 December 1937, Page 6

NORFOLK HOUSE SOLD

PROBABLE DOOM OF HISTORIC MANSION REPLACEMENT BY BLOCK OF FLATS LONDON, November 28. The Duke of Norfolk has sold Norfolk House, St. James square, S.W., to a firm of building contractors. This great Georgian mansion, which has been in the possession of eight successive Dukes of Norfolk, is likely to be replaced by a block of offices or flats. It will thus be sharing the fate of Devonshire House, Lansdowne House, Grosvenor House, and many other London mansions. Norfolk House 'was offered at auction in 1930, but was withdrawn at £250,000. Fifteen years ago it was available on a furnished tenancy at 3500 guineas for the season, or at 5000 guineas for the year. In a room which still exists in the old building at the back of the present Norfolk House a King of England was born. The then Duke of Norfolk, in 1737, offered his house in St. James square to Frederick, Prince of Wales, who had had to leave St. James Palace with his family after a quarrel with his father, George 11. In June of the following year the Prince who was to ascend the throne as George 111 was bom there. Norfolk House, double-fronted and typically Georgian in its simplicity, was designed by the elder Matthew Brettingham for the ninth Duke. It took about four years to build. The Duke’s name was entered in the rate books for 1752, the gross estimated value of the new premises being put at £525. Of many notable apartments, one of the most striking is the« ballroom, measuring about 41ft by 21ft, and decorated in the Italian style. The lofty walls are moulded into gilded panels bearing carved decorations and mirrors.

In addition to a salon, music-room, and four other reception rooms, there are 26 bedrooms. The freehold property has a site area of approximately 28,840 square feet. In recent years the character of St. James square has been changing steadily, but far less obtrusively than some other London squares. Business interests have long been firmly established there. Among private residents still remaining are Viscount Astor, the Earl of Strafford, the Marquess of Bristol, and the Earl of Iveagh. The square provides homes, too, for seven or eight clubs. Next door to Norfolk House is the Caledonian Club, in premises part of which was formerly the West End residence of the Bishop of London.