Page 44 - An account of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 2012UGLE

44 An Account of the

The Tavern, as a place of resort, though there are notable exceptions, has come
down in the world, but in the eighteenth and earlier centuries, before the great
era of Clubs, the Tavern was the general meeting-place and many of the taverns
were buildings of considerable pretension.
At the date when the Lodge was founded the Thatched House was one of the
most esteemed. It stood near the foot of St James’s Street, on the west side. St James’s
Street was then on the extreme western confines of London, separated by parks and
open country from the village of Kensington. Little remains that a member of
1777 would recognise. St James’s Palace of course was there much as we see it;
Lock’s hat shop and its neighbours; Boodle’s Club, built in 1765; White’s, fresh
from the builders; and Brooks’s; nothing more.
Walford’s Old and New London gives a woodcut of the Tavern; the front showed
an unadorned face of plain brickwork with sash windows; the entrance was by a
simple arch on the left, and the rest of the ground story had a row of small shops.
Tallis’s Street Views, which began publication in 1838, shows the same in minute
diagrammatic form.
Walford also states that the Tavern was pulled down in 1843 and rebuilt a few
doors nearer the palace; another account says it was pulled down in 1814; not
much is really known about the building.
According to Beresford Chancellor’s Memorials of St James’s Street, 1922, p. 158,
The Thatched House Tavern occupied a considerable area of irregular outline,
with a good frontage to St James’s Street, and an alley, known as Thatched House
Court, ran by the side of it and opened into Park Place .... The old tavern obviously
took its rustic name from the character of the roof. When it was first erected is a
question, but it seems pretty clear that it must have dated from the period when
the Duchess of Cleveland sold a portion of the grounds of Cleveland House for
building purposes ... during the latter part of King Charles II’s reign.
This was the notorious Barbara Villiers, favourite of King Charles II.
It was not the only occasion on which, anticipating later ducal land owners,
she was fain to raise money in this way; it was she who sold Nonsuch Palace,
near Cheam in Surrey, which Charles had given her – one of the most costly