Two houses in a quiet cul-de-sac off the Brompton Road, built by Mark Manley of St Pancras when the Smith’s Charity trustees rebuilt this corner of their estate in the mid-1880s. The hotel dates them to 1843, the year the street’s older houses were begun; the Survey of London places them some forty years later. They are not listed buildings.
At a glance
Egerton Terrace began as Michael’s Grove, a short road laid out by the architect Michael Novosielski in the late 1780s, and most of its present houses were built between 1843 and 1850, with stuccoed fronts. Nos. 17 and 19 are not among them. The Survey of London records that their sites were taken under separate agreements in the mid-1880s, when the trustees of the Smith’s Charity estate cleared Novosielski’s old houses and let the ground for rebuilding, and that their builder was Mark Manley, whose work here is recorded in the district surveyor’s returns for 1886. The houses of the 1840s, on both sides of the street, are listed Grade II; Nos. 17 and 19 are not on the National Heritage List for England. Together they now form the Egerton House Hotel.
Key facts
- Where: 17–19 Egerton Terrace, London SW3 2BX, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
- Street: laid out by Michael Novosielski as Michael’s Grove after 1785; rebuilt mostly in 1843–50; renamed Egerton Terrace in 1898, keeping the house numbers given in 1877
- Built: from 1886, by Mark Manley of St Pancras, builder, according to the Survey of London (district surveyor’s returns, 1886)
- Date given by the hotel: 1843; not supported by the Survey of London
- Architect: not known to us
- Protection: not listed. Within the Thurloe Estate and Smith’s Charity Conservation Area (appraisal adopted 25 October 2016)
- Current use: Egerton House Hotel, part of the Red Carnation group according to the hotel
- Coordinates: 51.496874, -0.167561 · open in Google Maps
History
In 1785 the architect Michael Novosielski took fourteen acres of the Smith’s Charity estate at Brompton on building leases. Along the Brompton Road he built a terrace he called Michael’s Place, and between two of its houses he opened a new road, Michael’s Grove, which at first ran only about 135 yards south-eastwards from the main road. A terrace of ten houses went up on its north-east side, some of them finished only after Novosielski’s death in 1795.
The street took most of its present form after 25 July 1843, when the builder James Bonnin senior contracted with the trustees for a large development on the site of Brompton Grange, Novosielski’s own house. It produced Brompton (now Egerton) Crescent and eighteen houses in Michael’s Grove, all occupied by 1848, to which two more were added in 1850 under an agreement with the builder Benjamin Watts. The Survey of London considers the architect George Basevi’s part in these houses uncertain; the borough’s appraisal of 2016 treats them as his design. They have stuccoed fronts, and they are the houses the Historic England list protects today: No. 6, Nos. 8–24, Nos. 23 and 25, and Nos. 27–41.
In the mid-1880s the trustees decided not to renew the short leases of Novosielski’s remaining houses in Michael’s Place, Michael’s Grove and Brompton Crescent, but to pull them down and let the ground for building. Alongside the large agreement that created Egerton Gardens, the sites of Nos. 209–225 Brompton Road, of Egerton Gardens Mews and of Nos. 17 and 19 in what was still Michael’s Grove were taken under several separate agreements. The builder of Nos. 217–225 Brompton Road, Mark Manley of St Pancras, was “also the builder, at this time, of Nos. 17 and 19 Egerton Terrace”. The street received its present name in 1898.
The hotel’s own website describes the building as “a red-brick Victorian townhouse dating from 1843”, and the English Wikipedia entry repeats that date. The year belongs to the development of the rest of the street; for Nos. 17 and 19 we follow the Survey of London. We have not found when the two houses became a hotel.
What you see
We have not found a free photograph of Nos. 17 and 19 that we could publish, nor a heritage inventory that describes them, so we cannot describe their fronts in detail. The hotel calls the building red-brick, and the Wikipedia entry speaks of two adjoining red-brick townhouses. That would set them apart from their neighbours: the borough’s appraisal describes the houses of the 1840s in Egerton Terrace as fully stuccoed, with Georgian-paned sash windows and shallow porches, and red brick was the material of the 1880s rebuilding of this part of the estate, as in Egerton Gardens close by. We leave this as an observation until a photograph or a record confirms it.
Practical information
- The building is a hotel, the Egerton House Hotel; the interiors are for guests.
- The front can be seen from Egerton Terrace at any time. The street is a quiet cul-de-sac; the borough’s appraisal notes the mature trees, mostly magnolias, in its front gardens.
- The houses are not listed; what is described here is their history, not a protected interior.
Getting there
Egerton Terrace opens off the south side of the Brompton Road, a short walk from the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Brompton Oratory. South Kensington Underground station (Piccadilly, District and Circle lines) is about a ten-minute walk to the south-west; Knightsbridge station (Piccadilly line) lies to the north-east along the Brompton Road. Buses run along the Brompton Road.
Nearby
- Nos. 23 and 25 Egerton Terrace, a pair of three-storey villas of the 1840s with a bracketed eaves cornice, and No. 6, whose first occupant was the antiquary and dramatist James Robinson Planché; both are listed Grade II (list entries 1080650 and 1358146).
- Egerton Place, the deep crescent of red-brick and stone houses begun in 1892 to designs by Mervyn Macartney and completed by the builder William Willett by 1897, and Egerton Gardens, built in 1887–90, both on ground cleared in the same rebuilding.
- Holy Trinity Brompton, about 200 metres to the north-west, across the Brompton Road.
- Harrods and Michelin House, each about 400 metres away, to the north-east and to the south.
Do you know more?
On this page we have published what the Survey of London records about Nos. 17 and 19 Egerton Terrace: that they were built by Mark Manley in the rebuilding of the mid-1880s, not in 1843 as the hotel says. We have no photograph of the building that we are free to publish, and we could not find the name of its architect, the first people who lived in the two houses, or when they became a hotel. If you know something — a name, a date, the people who lived here, an old photograph, a document, a book that mentions these houses — or if you can send us a photograph of the building, write to Sofia, who looks after these pages.
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Please start your message with the title of this page, so it reaches the right file. Every contribution is checked against independent sources before it goes on the page, and we always say where a piece of information came from.
Sources
- F. H. W. Sheppard (ed.), Survey of London, vol. 41, Brompton, London, 1983, “The Smith’s Charity Estate: Brompton Road and Egerton Gardens area”, pp. 120–126 (British History Online): the mid-1880s decision to demolish Novosielski’s houses, the separate agreements for the sites of Nos. 17 and 19 Egerton Terrace, and Mark Manley of St Pancras as their builder (citing the district surveyor’s returns, 1886, 363–4).
- Survey of London, vol. 41, “The Smith’s Charity Estate: Bonnin, Basevi, and Pelham and Egerton Crescents”, pp. 91–101 (British History Online): the agreement of 25 July 1843, the eighteen houses of Michael’s Grove and the two of 1850, the numbering of 1877 and the renaming of 1898, the houses at Nos. 6 and 23–25.
- Survey of London, vol. 41, “The Smith’s Charity Estate: Development up to the early nineteenth century”, pp. 87–91 (British History Online): Novosielski’s leases of 1785, Michael’s Place and Michael’s Grove.
- Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Thurloe Estate and Smith’s Charity Conservation Area Appraisal, adopted 25 October 2016, paragraphs 3.32–3.36 and 3.157: Egerton Crescent and Terrace built 1843–50, their stuccoed fronts, the trees of the front gardens.
- Historic England, National Heritage List for England (listed building points, open data): entries 1358146 (No. 6), 1293726 (Nos. 8–24), 1080650 (Nos. 23 and 25) and 1300823 (Nos. 27–41) in Egerton Terrace; no entry for Nos. 17 or 19.
- The Egerton House Hotel, official website, “About”: the hotel’s description of “a red-brick Victorian townhouse dating from 1843”, part of Red Carnation Hotels.
- Wikipedia (en), Egerton House Hotel: two adjoining red-brick Victorian townhouses, dated there to 1843.
- OpenStreetMap / Nominatim: position, returned as Egerton House Hotel, 17-19, Egerton Terrace, Hans Town, Chelsea.
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