Suzi Love

The Old Operating Theatre Museum in St Thomas Street, London, UK – This fascinating museum was my absolute Favorite Place to visit in London. I spent hours listening to what happened in the operating theatre before anaesthetics and studying the primitive instruments used on patients. Continue reading →

St. Thomas’s Hospital, London, UK, is one of London’s most fascinating places to visit, especially the Herb Garrett and Old Operating Theatre.

Old St. Thomas’s Hospital, Southwark: a bird’s-eye view look St Thomas’s Hospital began as an Augustinian infirmary during the twelfth century and was refounded by royal charter in 1551, one of five major royal hospitals established in the mid-sixteenth century. Continue reading →

The Royal London Hospital – London’s Best Places to Visit

The hospital was founded in September 1740 and was originally named The London Infirmary. The name changed to The London Hospital in 1748 and then to The Royal London Hospital on its 250th anniversary in 1990.

The first patients were treated at a house in Featherstone Street, Moorfields in November 1740. In May 1741, the hospital moved to Prescot Street, and remained there until 1757 when it moved to its current location on the south side of Whitechapel Road, Whitechapel, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.The Royal London is part of the Barts and the London NHS Trust, alongside St Bartholomew’s Hospital (“Barts”), located approximately two miles away.

The London Hospital became Britain’s largest voluntary hospital with its story is told in the crypt of St Philip’s Church. Exhibits feature dentistry, surgery, paediatrics, nursing, the NHS, uniforms, helicopter ambulance, x-rays and videos. The lives and works of individuals such as Edith Cavell, Eva Luckes, Sydney Holland and Joseph Merrick (The ‘Elephant Man’) are also featured.

History of The Royal London Hospital

It began life in September, 1740, when seven men met in the Feathers Tavern in Cheapside, London to found The London Infirmary. Like other charities, the London Infirmary was founded by professional men, businessmen and philanthropists. However, The London was intended for the sick poor among ‘the merchant seaman and manufacturing classes’: the East End community of the time. In November 1740, the first patients were received at a house in Featherstone Street, Moorfields. The following May, the hospital moved to rented premises in Prescot Street, near the Tower of London.

Five new general hospitals in London

Between 1720 and 1745 five new general hospitals were founded in London. All became great institutions and all were the products of the voluntary hospital movement, that is, charity hospitals supported by the voluntary contributions of the public. The London was one of these new hospitals, which were unique to England and North America and were inspired by a mixture of social, scientific and humanitarian motives.

The London relied on public generosity for over 200 years, from its opening in 1740 with only 1 shilling (5p) in the bank until its running costs were taken over by the State under the National Health Service in 1948. The support of members of the Royal Family and leading members of society was important in inspiring benefactors to help the charity hospital.

Building the new hospital

The Hospital Governors appointed a committee under the Earl of Macclesfield to choose a site for a purpose built Hospital. Mount Field in Whitechapel, which was owned by the City Corporation, was selected and building began in 1752.

The Royal London has a museum which is located in the crypt of a 19th century church. There is a forensic medicine section which includes original material on Jack the Ripper, Dr Crippen and the Christie murders. There are also displays on Joseph Merrick (the ‘Elephant Man’) and former Hospital nurse Edith Cavell. A former Curator of the Museum was the noted surgeon Thomas Horrocks Openshaw.

The Royal London’s archives contain documents dating back to 1740, including complete patient records since 1883.

Apsley House – London’s best Places. The 8th Duke of Wellington still uses part of the building as a part-time residence. Continue reading →

Claridge’s Hotel – London’s Best Places to Visit

Claridge’s was founded in 1812 as Mivart’s Hotel at 51 Brook Street, Mayfair, London, UK.

Lord William Beauclerk leased the terrace house from the Grosvenor Estate with permission to turn it into a hotel run by James Edward Mivart, the anglicized name for French chef Jacques Mivart. By 1838, the hotel grew to buy five consecutive houses along Brook Street, knocking down the walls to create one large hotel and Mivart prospered by introducing English county families to subtle French cooking to replace their traditional stodgy fare.

Mivart designed the hotel for guests who wished to stay longer, so apartments were let by the month to foreign royalty and nobility who enjoyed the ambiance of the well-run hotel yet had the privacy of their own suites. The Prince Regent, who succeeded to the throne as King George IV in 1820, had a suite of rooms permanently reserved for him so he could discretely carry on his playboy lifestyle. 

In 1827, The Morning Post noted that Mivart’s was the fashionable rendezvous for the high Corps Diplomatique.

The Great Exhibition of 1851brought an influx of famous visitors,

Queen Victoria opens Great Exhibition

including the Grand Duke Alexander of Russia and King William III of the Netherlands, until by 1853, The Times decided London had just three first-class hotels- Mivart’s, The Clarendon in Bond Street and Thomas’s in Berkeley Square.

In 1854, the hotel was sold to Mr and Mrs Claridge who ran a separate hotel at 49 Brook Street. They combined the two operations to trade as “Mivart’s at Claridge’s” until, after Mivart’s death, the hotel changed its name to Claridge’s in 1856, adding “late Mivart’s” underneath. In 1860, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited the Empress Eugènie of France, who had made Claridge’s her winter quarters, and Queen Victoria was so impressed that she wrote to her uncle, Leopold I, King of the Belgians, in glowing terms of Claridge’s. The hotel became so connected to royalty it was called an “extension to Buckingham Palace”.

Claridge’s Hotel

In 1881, William Claridge’s failing health forced them to sell to a consortium, but the hotel consisted of several private houses and couldn’t be upgraded to compete with purpose built hotels cropping up all over London. The Savoy, built in 1889, offered lifts to all floors, electricity, en suite bathrooms and the best chef in Europe, Auguste Escoffier.

So in 1894, Richard D’Oyly Carte, founder of the rival Savoy Hotel, purchased Claridge’s and commissioned CW Stephens, designer of Harrods, to rebuild the hotel from the ground up. The new Claridge’s opened in November 1898.

Ball at Savoy Hotel, New Year’s Eve, 1907

After World War I, Claridge’s flourished due to demand from aristocrats who no longer maintained a London house and Carte’s son, Rupert D’Oyly Carte, added a new extension. During World War II, Peter II of Yugoslavia and his wife spent their exile at Claridge’s until on 17th June 1945, suite 212 was ceded by the UK to Yugoslavia for a single day to allow their heir, Crown Prince Alexander, to be born on Yugoslav soil.

Well-known actors, directors and entertainers who have used Claridge’s include Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Alfred Hitchcock, Brad Pitt, Mick Jagger, U2 and Mariah Carey.

Grosvenor Square – London’s Best Places to Visit

As some of my historical romance books are set in a house in Grosvenor Square, its history fascinates me. How about you? Do you love the history associated with Grosvenor Square?

Grosvenor Square - Pronounced ˈɡrovna’, is a large garden square in the exclusive Mayfair district and the centrepiece of the Mayfair property of the Duke of Westminster and takes its name from their surname, “Grosvenor”.

The Grosvenor family -

• 1761 Sir Richard Grosvenor, the 7th Baronet, was created Baron Grosvenor of Eaton in the County of Chester
  
• 1784 – Became Viscount Belgrave and Earl Grosvenor under George III.
  
• 1831- At coronation of William IV, Robert Grosvenor, the 2nd Earl Grosvenor, became Marquess of Westminster
  
• 1874 – Queen Victoria created the title Duke of Westminster and bestowed it upon Hugh Grosvenor, 3rd Marquess of Westminster.
  Caricature of Hugh Grosvenor Image via Wikipedia
  
• Current title holder is Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster and his seat is at Eaton Hall, Cheshire
  
• The Dukedom and Marquessate are in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
  
• The rest are in the Peerage of Great Britain.
  
• The courtesy title of the eldest son and heir to the Duke is Earl Grosvenor.
  

  

  Grosvenor Square History Plaque
  

  History of Grosvenor Square - In 1710, Sir Richard Grosvenor obtained a licence to develop Grosvenor Square and the surrounding streets and development started around 1721. Grosvenor Square became one of the most fashionable residential addresses in London from its construction until the Second World War, with numerous leading members of the aristocracy in residence. The early houses had five or seven bays, basement, three main stories, and an attic. Colen Campbell produced a design for a palatial east side to the square featuring thirty Corinthian columns but this was not carried out and in the end most of the houses were built to individual designs. There were mews behind all four sides. Many houses were rebuilt later and acquired an extra storey.
  

  Number 23 (later 26) was rebuilt in 1773–74 for the 11th Earl of Derby by Robert Adam and shows how grandeur of effect and sophisticated planning might be achieved on a confined site. It was demolished and rebuilt again in the 1860s. Nearly all of the older houses were demolished during the 20th century and replaced with blocks of flats in a neo-Georgian style, hotels and embassies. The central garden was originally reserved for the occupants of the houses but is now a public park managed by The Royal Parks.

  

  Grosvenor Square has been the traditional home of the official American presence in London since John Adams established the first American mission to the Court of St. James’s in 1785. Adams lived, from 1785 to 1788, in the house which still stands on the corner of Brook and Duke Streets. During World War II, Eisenhower established a military headquarters at 20 Grosvenor Square, and during this time the square was nicknamed “Eisenhower Platz”.
  

  The former American Embassy of 1938–1960 on the square was purchased by the Canadian government and renamed Macdonald House. In 1960, a modern USA Embassy was built on the western side of Grosvenor Square and caused controversy in the mainly Georgian and neo-Georgian area. In 2008, the United States Government chose a site for a new embassy in the Nine Elms area, south of the River Thames with with relocation completed by 2016 or 2017. In October, 2009, English Heritage granted Grade II listed status to the building which means new owners will not be allowed to change the facade.
  

  Grosvenor Square in Literature
  

• In Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens the Barnacles are said to live at “four Mews Street Grosvenor” which “was not absolutely Grosvenor Square itself but it was very near it”.
  
• Caroline Bingley makes a comment regarding the local dance in Pride and Prejudice ”We are a long way from Grosvenor Square, are we not, Mr Darcy”.
  
• It appears in the title of several novels including The Lonely Lady of Grosvenor Square by Mrs. Henry De La Pasture (1907) and The House in Grosvenor Square by Linore Rose Burkard (2009)
  
• In Oscar Wilde’s play Lady Windermere’s Fan, the Duchess of Berwick says, “I think on the whole that Grosvenor Square would be a more healthy place to reside in. There are lots of vulgar people live in Grosvenor Square, but at any rate there are no horrid kangaroos crawling about.”
  
• Grosvenor Square – Pa
  
• Walking Through Mayfairby guest blogger Diane Farr (lesleyannemcleod.blogspot.com)
  
• Grosvenor Prints (onelondonone.blogspot.com)