Grosvenor Square

London Online has many interesting articles about London in the past.

There's a whole section about Grosvenor Square, a fashionable place in the 18th century and now.

There's a list of the residents in 1751
" the Rate Books for 1751 show that the Marchioness of Blandford, the Earl of Halifax, Sir James Dashwood, Lord Guernsey, the Duchess of Somerset, the Countess of Thanet, Lord Maynard, Peter Delmé, Lord Carpenter (who probably moved from Hanover Square where he was living in 1725), Dudley North, Lord de la Warr and the Earl of Jersey all resided here, all paying rental rates varying from £130 to £140. "


The section also says, "The earliest mention of any individual house in the Square is in 1739, when, according to the Gentleman's Magazine, the centre house on the east side, which had been built by a Simmons, was raffled for and won by two people named Hunt and Braithwaite. The possessors valued it at £10,000, but two months later they sold it to the Duke of Norfolk for £7,000."


So raffling off houses isn't a new thing.


Explore and enjoy!

An Unlikely Countess has absolutely no scenes set in London, never mind Grosvenor Square, but it is out now.

Jo :)