New Stables for Cross & Blackwell, Crown Street, Soho

From - The Builder, April 15th, 1876.

Later - Cross & Blackwell's Pickle Warehouse - The Astoria Theatre

So much information has been recently given in our pages about Soho, and particularly about Crown-Street (see vol. xxxiii., p. 882), that it is almost unnecessary to occupy space with any further observations upon the various transitions through which that street, originally called Hog-lane, has passed from the olden time, when it was a road or way through a deer-park, as shown upon an old map, engraved some time during the reign of Henry VIII, and which park most probably belonged to the adjoining wealthy monastery of St. Giles-in-the-Fields before the suppression of the religions houses, which took place about that period. In a subsequent map it is shown as a wide, half-enclosed lane, leading from Cockspur-street and Charing-Cross up to the road to Reading, now Piccadilly, bending off to Holborn, and called Hog's-lane, which name the upper portion retained long after it had been built upon.

Right - The former Cross and Blackwell Stables, designed by Robert Lewis Roumieu, situated between Soho Square and Crown Street - From The Builder April 1876.

The restrictions against building upon new foundations had during the protectorate been removed. During the two following reigns the then fashionable district of Soho, the Belgravia of the later Stuarts, had been erected, and houses of respectable pretension were erected along its sides. It, however, in spite of its fashionable neighbours, soon degenerated, and in Hogarth's time it is represented as inhabited much as it is at present.

The site of the building we now illustrate (Messrs. Crosse & Blackwell's new stables) is as near as possible upon the spot where Hogarth painted his "Noon," with the Huguenot congregation coming out of the church of Pastor Herve (the original founder of the National Society). The site of these stables was, until lately, occupied by a very old inn (the Plough), with its dormitories and stables, at one time standing on the skirts of London, and which, like its neighbour, the Black Horse, in Rathbone-place, had a large yard, round which there was a gallery with bedrooms, and stables underneath them. This yard had become a cow and stable yard, surrounded with semi-ruinous buildings, when the whole was pulled down, to make room for the present building.

The great value which is now attached to land makes it necessary to economise space in every way, particularly surface, and the London stables are following the example set by the London houses of shooting up vertically, instead of spreading horizontally. The premises, of which a plan is given, have a central open space, the height from floor to ridge being 40 ft., round which, on the ground-floor, are recesses for eighteen vans and stabling for four horses, with store-spaces for straw and fodder, harness-rooms, and a yard for dung, water-closet, &c., with a double inclined plane, of an easy ascent, to the principal stable-floor, 13 ft. above the ground-level.

On the stable-floor there are stalls for thirty-five horses, and a loose box for a sick horse, with a fodder, hay, and chaff room. In the front, towards the street, on the floor above, are the stablemen's living and bed rooms, &c., with windows looking into the open space above the stable, so that a view can be taken at any moment, of the whole of the stables on the upper floor.

The floors throughout, except the inclined plane, which is of binding gravel, is laid with Messrs. Wilkinson's, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, new patent gravel concrete cement, which has shown itself to be an enduring flooring for stables. This is spread upon a layer of finely-broken bricks, covering the arching. The stalls are the ordinary iron stalls, of the best forms, the divisions resting upon small stone blocks, so as to raise the cill-pieces about 3in. above the floor-level, to allow a free ventilation through the litter. There is a large iron tank, so placed as to flow into the water-troughs, and by a hose to wash down the stalls; with a hydrant for use in case of fire.

The whole area is lighted by a continuous lantern, with lights to open upon centres, to insure good ventilation and gas is to be laid on for night. The front is built of red brick, with stone dressings, and an admixture of Pether's ornamental bricks. The architect is Mr. R. L. Roumien; the builders are Messrs. Southgate, of Highgate, and the clerk of the works is Mr. Cornish. The carving was done by Mr. Frampton. The stable fittings were provided by Messrs. Andrew McLaren & Co., of Upper Thames-street.

The above text and image were first published in The Builder, April 15th, 1876.