Houses in Bentinck Street
Houses in Bentinck Street
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Houses in Bentinck Street
SC_PHL_01_298_74_21978 (Collage 99525)
London Metropolitan Archives: LCC Photograph Library
View of front elevations of four-storey townhouses at 6-9 Bentinck Street, Marylebone. Numbers 8 and 9 are Grade II listed; listing numbers 1218344 and 1357188. Number 9 was built c1780-90 with some mid-nineteenth century alteration. Front entrance doorway with panelled door and fanlight in stucco architrave with segmental arched head. Cast iron area railings with urn finials. James Smithson, founder of the Smithsonian Institute, lived at number 9 in 1825-26. It was here in October 1826 that he wrote his famous will to establish the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, the world’s largest museum and research complex. Number 9 was occupied in 1854–60 by the Convent of the Holy Child Jesus, which moved there from Queen Square. Number 8 front entrance doorway has a semicircular arch with double panelled door and fanlight with wrought iron balcony on first floor, cast iron area railings with foliated spear head finials. The Historian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) lived at number 7 in 1773-83, writing much of his great work 'The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire', which was published on 17 February 1776.
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