Portland Place

Portland Place

Number 1, Portland Place
Maintained by Transport for London
Location London, United Kingdom
Postal code W1
Nearest tube station
Other
Known for

Portland Place is a street in the Marylebone district of central London.

History and topography

The street was laid out by the brothers Robert and James Adam for the Duke of Portland in the late 18th century and originally ran north from the gardens of a detached mansion called Foley House. It was said that the width of the street was conditioned by the Duke's obligation to his tenant, Lord Foley, that his views to the north would not be interfered with.[1]

In the early 19th century Portland Place was incorporated into the royal route from Carlton House to Regent's Park via Langham Place, developed for the Prince Regent by John Nash. The street is unusually wide for central London (33 metres / 110 feet).[2] The ambitious plans included a third circus to complement Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Circus known as Regent's Circus; the remains of this plan survive today in the wide space surrounding the street's junction with Marylebone Road.[3]

Portland Place still contains many of the spacious Georgian terraced houses built by the Adams, as well as some early 20th century buildings and a few post World War II bombing

Portland Place is the wide street at the top of this 1790s map. At that time it terminated abruptly to the south at the gardens of Foley House.

In administrative terms, Portland Place lies within the City of Westminster's Marylebone High Street Ward as well as the Harley Street Conservation Area.[4]

The Royal Institute of British Architects headquarters, a 1930s Grade II* listed building designed by architect George Grey Wornum, at 66 Portland Place in August 2012.

Residents and buildings

Many of the houses are now occupied by company headquarters, professional bodies, embassies and charities (including Arthritis Research UK and the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund). The landmark building of the Royal Institute of British Architects sits directly opposite the Chinese embassy; for years practitioners of Falun Gong have mounted a silent protest in front of the former and facing the latter. Other foreign diplomatic institutions include the Polish Embassy, a Portuguese Consulate, the High Commission of Kenya, the Swedish Ambassador's Residence and the Colombian Consulate. In addition, Portland Place remains a fashionable address with some very exclusive blocks of mansion flats. Number 1 houses the Institution of Chemical Engineers, number 41 the Academy of Medical Sciences and number 76 the Institute of Physics. The Institute of Physics building replaced two earlier Georgian terrace houses, one of which – number 76 – was the home of John Buchan, the author and politician who lived there from 1912 until 1919, which resulted in Portland Place being the London home of Richard Hannay, the hero of Buchan's most famous novel "The Thirty-Nine Steps".[5]

Its northern end opens into Nash's elegant stucco semicircular Park Crescent, which in turn leads on to Park Square and Regent's Park. There are two landmark buildings at the south end of the street, although both are technically in Langham Place: the grand late Victorian Langham Hotel, and Broadcasting House. Langham Place is a short road which connects Portland Place to Upper Regent Street, although on the ground they all appear to be one street.

A Grade II listed memorial to Quintin and Alice Hogg erected in 1906 stands opposite Broadcasting House at the south end of Portland Place.[6]

There are a number of international independent schools on Portland Place, including Abercorn Upper School, Queens College and the Southbank International School.

Langham Place in Charles Booth's 1889 map was a short road which connected Portland Place to Upper Regent Street

Literary references

See also

References

  1. "Broadcasting House – before it was built". Miketodd.net. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  2. Norrie, Ian; Bohm, Dorothy (1984). Walks Around London – A Celebration of the Capital. London: Andre Deutsch. ISBN 0-233-97979-4.
  3. Plan of a Street Proposed from Charing Cross to Portland Place (Map). Commissioners of Woods and Forests. 1811. Retrieved 21 November 2016.
  4. "Harley Street Conservation Area Map September 2007" (PDF). Westminster City Council. Retrieved 21 May 2010.
  5. "John Buchan the Presbyterian Cavalier", by Andrew Lownie
  6. "Statue of Quintin Hogg". English Heritage list. English Heritage. Retrieved 1 December 2014.
  7. Woolf, Virginia (1981). Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-15-662870-9.
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Coordinates: 51°31′13″N 0°08′42″W / 51.52023°N 0.14499°W / 51.52023; -0.14499

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