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Chenies Street Chambers       Historical Society

Camden Leisure & Community

HISTORIC WALK

CLOSEST TUBE: Goodge Street tube station. To find Chenies Street Chambers, come out of Goodge Street Station and  turn to your right  (south). Walk down and then, at the lights, cross over Tottenham Court Road (cross  to the east) at the first street lights, which brings you to Chenies Street.

You will notice a slight jog northwards between Goodge Street and Chenies Street. This is because Chenies Street belonged to the Bedford Estate, which belongs to the Russell Family (who are still amongst the largest landowners in London). The Russell family were not only NOT interested in joining up their own roads with the area to the west of Tottenham Court Road,  at one point, they had gates installed to keep non-residents out.

Continue along the north side of Chenies Street, noting the sweep of the North Crescent to your left, and the Minerva statue on the front of the former Minerva House (circa early 1920's) behind the Eisenhower Centre (circa 1940's) and the Rangers War Memorial Monument  in front of it (erected in 1923).  Note the impressive old Telephone Exchange Building on North Crescent. To get a better view, you will have to walk around the crescent, going behind The Eisenhower Centre (a bunker built to connect to highly-placed army officials, including the American General Eisenhower, to the Goodge Street tube station).  Most of  the D-Day  invasion was planned from the depths of the Eisenhower Centre and although most people find it very ugly, it is also a Grade II listed building, and will remain.

As you continue on towards Chenies Street Chambers, which is on the north side of Chenies Street, across from the Drill Hall Theatre,  look across the street to admire the Drill Hall  Arts Centre on the south side of Chenies Street.  Both the Drill Hall  (16 Chenies Street, built in 1882-1883 , designed by Samuel Knight for the Bloomsbury Rifles) and Minerva House (North Crescent, built in 1912-13, designed by George Vernon for the Minerva Motor Company) are Grade II listed buildings. (There seems to be a Bloomsbury tradition of turning Drill Halls into Arts Spaces; The Place,  just off Euston Road,  is also a former Drill Hall).  

There are several buildings in our neighbourhood which are designated Conservation Buildings, including Fitzroy House, which adjoins the North Crescent. Although it is numbered 11 Fitzroy House in 2001, it is most likely that it was numbered 17 Chenies Street before 1877, and, if so, then it was re-numbered 5 on the 18th of May 1877. The occupants were ordered to renumber their houses by the 12th of June, 1877 (without further research, it is difficult to decide how the six buildings in 1877 become three in 2002. Since we are on the corner of Huntley & Chenies Street, we know the houses occupying  numbers 21 & 20 pre-1877 make up part of the area of our building, and we suspect that 19 and possibly 18 made up the area as well (numbers 9, 11,13,15 after June 1877). We are now designated 9-11 Chenies Street Chambers, which suggests that a further re-numbering has taken place since our building was built. (for a list of 1877 home-owners in Chenies Street, please click here).

There are also several buildings in our neighbourhood which are not yet designated, but of cultural and historical interest. One building that gives great pleasure is Ridgmount Gardens, built around 1890, which is on the opposite us on Huntley Street (which, like Chenies Street Chambers, appears for the first time as a listed building in the 1891 Census). Circa 2003, we have 36 separate heads of households in the building (including six in the basement);  in 1891, the original building records 16 heads of household (with the basement being taken up with kitchen, dining room and possibly the caretaker's flat), by 1901 (with the Huntley Street extension, bringing the building to its present size) they had 37 (with, again, the same restrictions of space in the basement).

As you can see from the print, in 1888, the main entrance to Chenies Street Chambers was on Chenies Street, until the Local Authority restored the building  in 1947, after it was bombed during the war. Camden used the Tradesman's Entrance on Huntley Street as the new, sole entrance to the building, and formed bathrooms for adjacent flats in the space previously occupied by the Chenies Street Entrance and Main Stairwell. the print you see is circa 1888, and Chenies Street Chambers was a purpose-built mansion, to provide dwellings for professional women. Most London-based women intellectuals, writers, artists, doctors, social reformers and artists of the early 20th century had either lived in the building at some time, or knew someone who did.

 In the 1891 census, "Chenies Chambers" is described as a 'Ladies Residential Dwellings." It isn't quite clear whether the ladies are very rich or very poor, but the census return for 1891 list several of them as "living on own means."  The company founded by Agnes Garrett (sister of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Britain's first woman physician) to provide living accommodation for professional women teachers, artists and physicians, as well as other like-minded women. Booth's 1889 map of poverty records the Chenies Street Chambers site as comfortably middle class (pink), in contrast to the rich inhabitants of North  and South Crescent and Alfred Place (red) and the Aristocratic Bedford Square (yellow).

The ladies living in Chenies Chambers all seemed to be involved in education  and many were connected to the Charity Organisation Society in some way. Although there are 19 residents listed in Chenies Chambers in 1891, (not including the caretaking couple, their son and two domestic servants) only one of the residents indicates that she is 'employed,' (Emma Elizabeth Mayne, 44, who , besides  being listed as 'living on own means' appears to be employed as a rent collector, whether for this building or some other is not apparent). Only one woman indicates that she is an 'employer' (Evelyn Hewison Burney, 25, living with her mother and a typist).  Five women indicate that they are neither employed nor employed, leaving 11 not commenting. This may be a class distinction. Aside from the 'rent collector'  (who is also the Secretary of the Holborn Branch of the Charity Organisation Society)  they seem to have cultural or educational professions: 'artist,' music teacher,' lecturer,'physician' 'medical student.' (these early suffragette residents, and the committee members who planned the purpose-built mansion for professional women,  are explored in more depth in Elizabeth Crawford's Book, Enterprising Women.

(please click here:  Chenies Street Chambers Historical Society  for more information about architectural changes and a more complete history of Chenies Street Chambers).

In contrast to Chenies Street Chambers artistic, political and social-reformist roots,  our geographical companion building, Ridgmount Gardens, is described as:

Ridgmount Gardens
Middle Class
Dwelling facing
Ridgmount Gardens
and East side of Huntley Street

(1891 Census)

This is not the insightful socialist class statement it appears,  Ridgmount Gardens is described as 'Middle Class' because the 'Middle Class Dwelling' Corporation was the developer of the site.

If you cross the road  to the south side of Chenies Street, and walk past the high-rise development (which used to be the Jewish School 20-22 Chenies Street, until RADA decided to 'develop' the site by  building luxury flats) and then walk one block south, (circa october 2008) you will walk past a boarded up site which still, for the moment, holds the charming motoring mural  painted on the wall of the Bloomsbury Service Station (Number 6 Store Street, built in 1926). the lease for this busineess was not renewed in 2008, and it is due to be re-developed, unless the market crashes. One sincerely hopes the market will crash and freeholders and property develpoers don't tear down any more buildings - the terrible tragedy of 2008 was the demolishing of the Middlesex Hospital on Goodge Street, which, as of October 2008 remained just an empty hole with silly billboards advertising 'NoHo' flats).

Glance across to the south side of Store Street to Number 37 - in which it is rumoured that Dr. Crippen roomed as a medical student. Mary Wollstonecraft also lived some where in Store Street.

From the Bloomsbury Service Station corner,  walk east, along the north side of Store Street. You will come to the  London School of Hygiene and Tropical Diseases on the corner of Gower and Keppel Street.  Take some time to enjoy the gold mosquitoes and various infectious bugs adorning the outside walls of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Diseases before crossing Malet street to walk through the 1930's magnificent  monstrosity Senate House (used as the Ministry of Intelligence by the government in the second world war, and used as the model of his 'Ministry of Truth' by Geoge Orwell in his famous novel 1984).  

GOWER STREET.(modern numbering)

Number 2. Agnes Garrett (interior designer and one of the directors of Chenies Street Chambers) lived at 2 Gower Street  (look for the plaque to her sister, suffragette leader Millicent Fawcett; one of her other siblings was Elizabeth Garrett Anderson) Millicent was married to A. M. Henry Fawcett a blind radical politician and acted as his secretary, gaining useful experience of political activity. Leading figure in constitutional wing of suffrage movement.

Number 6. Fanny Wilkinson, the landscape designer, lived at Number 6 from 1896 onwards, next door to the Agnes Garrett,  who worked with her on various projects

Number 7. John Everett Millais. On the other side of Gower Street, Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais lived with his parents, as a young man, at Number 7 (then numbered 83). It was here that John Ruskin came to have his portrait finished of himself standing on the rocks  at Glenfinis. Although he lived most of his childhood in Camberwell, John Ruskin was born in 8 Hunter Street, now demolished.

No 10 Lady Ottoline Morrell. literary hostess and some-time lover of Bertrand Russell (yes, of the Russell family).

No 14 Sarah Siddons (1755-1831) actress (who  also in Grafton Way)

No 84 Vernon Lee (Violet Paget), writer (short stories, theory of aesthetics), lived here during the 1880s.

If you walk through Senate House, you will be walking over the site of the house where Charles Dickens' father died, and also, further on, the site of a house where Antholny Trollope lived (look for the blue plaque marking the Trollope site). Senate House was also the place George Orwell had his office for the BBC during the Second World War (his office was Room 101).  Cross the road to Russell Square, which has been newly re-planned, and renovated, ostensibly to return it to an earlier plan, but probably , by removing the thick growth of shrubs along the perimeter, to discourage homosexual couplings (the park does not commemorate Joe Orton's many midnight visits, in spite of pressure to put a plaque up to him by local gay activists).

side trip 1:  of interest to Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury fans

side trip 2: of interest to Kenneth Williams fans.

side trip 3: if you're feeling peckish at this point.

Retrace your steps,  walking past Crippen's former home on Store street (37), (once the offices of a branch of  Mailboxes, etc.) , past Olivelli's famous Theatrical Hotel  (35) ,  past The Political Cartoon Gallery (32), past The Printing Centre(30), which used to be the old Post Office, until you come to the corner of Store Street and South Crescent and the very useful  Building Centre (26).

Store Street , once known as Great Store Street,  is one of the oldest streets in our neighbourhood It adjoins South Crescent (first built in 1798) which is one of the wonderful buildings with a Christmas Light display for the entire crescent building at Christmas (see the archival maps  to trace the street's development throughout the centuries).

The buildings in North and South Crescent , and their linking street, Alfred Place, are not original. Even though the originals for the crescent curves were demolished early in the 20th century ,  the graceful sweep remains (although the Eisenhower Centre ruins the North Crescent perspective.)  

As you look up Alfred Place towards the North Crescent (and the Eisenhower Centre, you will see modern buildings, which have been built because the area (including Chenies Street Chambers) was bombed heavily during the Second World War. Either end your walk eith a snack or a meal at the Busaba Eathai restaurant (which serves excellent Thai Calamari) or end your walk at Tottenham Court Road, in The Rising Sun pub (Treadwell & Martin, 1898). The Rising Sun is Grade II listed; the beer is excellent, and both the interior and exterior are charming.

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side trip 1: If you adore Virginia Woolf  (born January 25, 1882 - died March 28, 1941) and the Bloomsbury set, visit the Hotel Russell, opposite the Park, and take tea in their lobby area; if you loathe them, visit the hotel's Virginia Woolf Restaurant,  just for a laugh  (which used to be joyously named 'Virginia's Grill' and served various delights, including 'Woolf-burgers' and what is alleged to be Virginia's favourite dessert, an obviously pre-Freudian concoction involving flambéd bananas).

While you sip your tea, read your Quentin Bell biography of Virginia Woolf, which will direct you to the various homes she has had within walking distance of the hotel.

If you're feeling energetic, walk over to Gordon Square (stopping in Tavistock Square to see the statue to Woolf. The monument to Virginia Woolf was unveiled on Saturday, 26th June 2004 at the SW corner of Tavistock Square Gardens. The memorial consists of a bronze copy of the bust of Woolf sculpted by Stephen Tomlin in 1931, on a five-foot-high plinth of Portland stone designed by Stephen Barkway). While you are there, admire the cherry tree planted for peace by politician and peace activist Millie Miller.

If you feel bookish rather than energetic, take side trip 2, instead and visit the Marchmont Street book shops for other biographies, or  visit Cybergate (on Leigh Street) to find the addresses on the internet.

Virginia Woolf is like Dickens - it's sometimes easier to just point out where she DIDN'T live in Bloomsbury.

When you return home, once you've read the biographies and books, you can relive the days of the Bloomsbury set , and either be amused or outraged by reading the first episode of Ivan Shakespeare's 1995 BBC Radio 4 sitcom, A Square of One's Own . (http://members.aol.com/playscript/Comedy/Britain/Writers/Shakespeare/Ivan8.html)

side trip 2: if you have a special interest in Books, Comedy, Film or Gay History, you can continue along the north side of the park, follow the signs to the Russell Square Tube Station, continue on until you come to Marchmont Street, where you can marvel at the Brunswick Centre, 9and visit SKOOB Books, now moved from Sicilian Avenue and re-located on the north side of the Brunswick Centre).

SKOOB is not the only excellent book shop in the street. Continue walking north up Marchmont street, and visit two excellent book shops, Gay's the Word and Judd Books.  Buy a biography  or autobiography of Kenneth Williams, to discover what he thought of the place he lived as a child on Marchmont street which is still being used as a Beauty Shop, but is  now called the cv hairdressing shop (number 57). Check out Film Fare (number 44) as well, an excellent art-house video rental shop, which may or may not carry his films.

side trip 3: f you're feeling peckish, and you like organic food, Alara Health Food shop is also in Marchmont Street.  If you are a fan of good beer, The Lord John Russell keeps its cask beer very well. If you'd like some cheap good old-fashioned caf food, there is a magnificent old-fashioned caf opposite The Lord John Russell pub, on the east side of Marchmont Street called Valtaro which makes the best bacon sarnies in the neighbourhood (and the worst coffee! - but don't tell the proprietor, who is very proud of it, and recommends it to everyone).The best coffee is further down the street, at the Valencia.


OTHER PLACES OF INTEREST CLOSE TO CHENIES STREET CHAMBERS:

Torrington Square:
Christina Rossetti once lived at no 30 Torrington Square  (not open to public)
The building is at the Tavistock Place end of Torrington Square, tucked into the University side street, across from Byng Place, on the same side of the street, but to the left of the Recycling bins, east of Waterstone's Book shop.

Doughty Street:
48 Doughty Street: The Dickens Museum. (admission charge).
Leased by Charles Dickens, 1937-1939. Saved from demolition and bought 1922, by the Dickens Fellowship Society, opened as a museum 1925, and lovingly and intelligently restored.

Albany Street
55 Albany street. HISTORICAL NOTE: No.55 was the home of Henry Mayhew, founder of Punch magazine (LCC plaque). (Survey of London: Vol. XXI, Tottenham Court Road & Neighbourhood, St Pancras III: London: -1949: 145).
 http://mycamden.camden.gov.uk/gdw/T/ListedBuildingDetail?LbNo=20&xsl=ListedBuildingDetail.xsl

GOOD PUBLIC PLANNING: CAMDEN COUNCIL
Euston Road   (former) Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital
Location: Camden, NW1
Street: Euston Road
Grade: II
Reference No: 798-1-102240
Date of listing: Sep 12 2003 12:00AM
HISTORY: this hospital was opened in 1890 as the New Hospital for Women, and was the first purpose-built hospital devoted to women doctors, treating female patients. (architect: J.M. Brydon 1889). Brydon designed this the year after he designed Chenies Street Chambers, using the same Queen Anne style. At the turn of the twenty-first century, this bulding, owned by UCLH, looked as though it would be sold off and demolished. After community protests, the building was bought by UNISON, who plan to restore its original porportions by removing the ugly modern additions made through the years, when it was a working hospital.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital (former)
architectural details: listed buildings in Camden: http://mycamden.camden.gov.uk/gdw/T/ListedBuildingDetail?LbNo=10224&xsl=ListedBuildingDetail.xsl

PLANNING PERMISSION: 31.10.2008
Full planning permission and listed building consent for an office-led scheme to create 10, 523 sq.m. of office space, 47 residential units and a retail unit. The total proposed floorspace applied for is 14,293 sq.m. including the retention of the grade II listed building. The applicant is UNISON, and the architect is Squire and Partners .
31.10.2007. Planning application no. 2007/3736/P
source:  http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/planning_decisions/2007/20071031.jsp#11





BAD PUBLIC PLANNING : Westminster Council
(former)  Middlesex Hospital, Mortimer Street.
SITE OF HOSPITAL DEMOLISHED.

LISTED BUILDINGS (PHOTOGRAPHS)
CHAPEL, Grade 11 listing  http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/details/default.aspx?pid=1&id=419233
10 Mortimer Street: Grade 11 listing   http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/details/default.aspx?pid=1&id=419234

SUGGESTED WALKS AND BICYCLE RIDES IN BLOOMSBURY

Chenies Street Chambers
Historical Society