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Lady Pembroke stayed only a short time before the house was then let on a long lease (from 1802) to Robert Knight (1768-1855), illegitimate son of the Earl of Catherborough. The Earl's legitimate son having died, it was arranged by an Act of Parliament that Robert would take the surname Kinght and inherit his father's property.
Alterations and additions for Mr Knight were made in two phases: alterations to the house including its enlargement by 14 feet, 1801-5, and new offices and stables, 1818-19. The first phase saw the entrance (which was in Charles Street) enlarged so that the canted bay of the first and second floors became continuous to the ground thus allowing for a larger entrance hall. The existing library was taken down, the columns preserved for further use, and the entire building extended into the garden by 14 feet. Subsequently there was a proposal for refitting the library as a dining room (previously on the ground floor front) with its curved wall replaced by very large niches. On the first floor, the 14 feet extension allowed for a large drawing-room facing the garden while the second floor had the addition of a bedroom and dressing room. The second stage of alterations and additions, 1818-19, was for a new kitchen and laundry as well as stables with coach house and covered way.
Litererature. Survey of London, The Grosvenor Estate in Mayfar, volume XL, pp. 161-4 and 'Grosvenor Square: Individual Houses built before 1926', in Survey of London: Volume 40, the Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair, Part 2 (The Buildings), ed. F H W Sheppard (London, 1980), pp. 117-166 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol40/pt2/pp117-166
Jill Lever
June 2015
Level
Sir John Soane's collection includes some 30,000 architectural, design and topographical drawings which is a very important resource for scholars worldwide. His was the first architect’s collection to attempt to preserve the best in design for the architectural profession in the future, and it did so by assembling as exemplars surviving drawings by great Renaissance masters and by the leading architects in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries and his near contemporaries such as Sir William Chambers, Robert Adam and George Dance the Younger. These drawings sit side by side with 9,000 drawings in Soane’s own hand or those of the pupils in his office, covering his early work as a student, his time in Italy and the drawings produced in the course of his architectural practice from 1780 until the 1830s.
Browse (via the vertical menu to the left) and search results for Drawings include a mixture of Concise catalogue records – drawn from an outline list of the collection – and fuller records where drawings have been catalogued in more detail (an ongoing process).
Contents of London: No. 49 (formerly 44) Grosvenor Square: alterations for Robert Knight, 1801-2 and 1818-19 (47)
- Survey drawings and plans for alterations, 1801-2 (19)
- Designs for fitting out the rooms, 1802-5 (17)
- Contract drawings for new offices stables and coach house 1818-19 (11)