Devonshire House - Legacy

Legacy

A new office building, fronting Piccadilly, was completed by Holland, Hannen & Cubitts in 1924. It is known as Devonshire House. During World War II, it was the headquarters of the War Damage Commission.

Some of the paintings and furniture are now at the Devonshires' principal seat, Chatsworth House. Surviving fragments of Devonshire House include the gateway at the entrance to Green Park and the wine cellar (now the ticket office of Green Park underground station). Other architectural salvage included doorways, mantelpieces and furniture which were relocated to Chatsworth. Some of these stored items were included in a Sothebys auction, 5-7October 2010. In the sale, five William Kent chimneypieces from Devonshire House, were described by the auctioneer Lord Dalmeny as being of special interest and value as: " "You can't buy them because they are all in listed buildings now. It's like being able to commission Rubens to paint your ceiling."

The wrought-iron entrance gates, between piers with rusticated quoins topped with seated sphinxes, have been reerected across Piccadilly, to form an entrance to Green Park.

Of the short series of great detached houses of aristocrats which once populated the West End of London, where even the grandest were likely to live in a terraced house, most, with Devonshire House, Norfolk House and Chesterfield House, have today joined the ranks of England's thousands of lost houses. Lansdowne House lost its front to a street-widening scheme.Just a few remain, but in corporate or state ownership: Marlborough House passed to the crown in the 19th century; Apsley House remains, but is a museum on a small traffic bound island, its gardens long gone, with the family only occupying the uppermost floor. Spencer House is an event venue. Manchester House houses the Wallace Collection. Bridgewater House, Westminster by Charles Barry is now used as offices. Clarence House, by John Nash, is the last of the London's great architecturally important town houses to be occupied and used as its design intended.