This undated design for a chimneypiece by Robert Adam is for an unknown residence in Pall Mall for a Mr O’ Bryne. Bolton suggests the client may have been the printer mentioned in Edmund Burke’s correspondence of 1792: ‘Byrne’s publication of my letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe was so blundering as to vex me’. Burke’s reference is possibly to William Byrne, the landscape engraver and printer based at 79 Titchfield Street, London.

It is not known if this design for a chimneypiece was executed.

The current line of Pall Mall was laid out in 1661 across old Pall Mall Alley. The route replaced a parallel road to the south which led from Charing Cross to St. James’s Palace. This earlier highway may have been of Roman or Saxon origins and is mentioned in twelfth-century records. Robert Adam produced schemes for several Pall Mall properties including Carlton House, Cumberland House and 34 Pall Mall, the house of Andrew Millar, interestingly also a printer.

Literature:
A.T. Bolton, The architecture of Robert and James Adam, 1922, Volume II, Index pp. 43, 64; F.H.W. Sheppard, ‘Pall Mall’, Survey of London: Volumes 29 and 30, St. James Westminster: Part I, 1960, pp. 322-24; The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume 3: July 1774-June 1778, 1961, p. 429; D. King, The complete works of Robert and James Adam & unbuilt Adam, 2001, Volume I, p. 264; ‘William Byrne –printmaker’, www.britishmuseum.org (accessed February 2021)

Anna McAlaney, 2021