Northumberland House
L.W. Cowie takes a visit to the last of the great Elizabethan and Jacobean mansions of London, that once looked south across the Thames and survived until 1874.
From the middle of the sixteenth century, the northern bank of the Thames from the mouth of the Fleet to the village of Charing Cross became increasingly lined with the town residences of the nobility, which replaced the episcopal palaces that had previously dominated the riverside.
Furthest upstream was the great mansion known for most of its history as Northumberland House, which adjoined Whitehall Palace, the Royal Mews (now the site of the National Gallery) and the ducking-pond of the city of Westminster (about where the fountains of Trafalgar Square now are).
Previously there had stood there the thirteenth-century Augustinian chapel and hospital for the poor of St Mary Rouncivall, so-called because it belonged to the Priory of Roncesvalles (or De Ronda Ville) in the diocese of Pamplona in Navarre. It was suppressed in Edward VI’s reign, when according to Stow it was ‘turned into tenements’, and the building of the great house was not begun here until about 1605.
To continue reading this article you need to purchase a subscription, available from only £5.
Start my trial subscription now
If you have already purchased access, or are a print & archive subscriber, please ensure you are logged in.
Please email digital@historytoday.com if you have any problems.
