Issue 39 Sept 23 - Journal - Page 19
A Heritage Win
Handel and Hendrix in London reopened to the public earlier this year following a £2 million,
fifteen-month construction project to complete the restoration of George Frideric Handel’s
(1685-1759) home at 25 Brook Street and to carry out works within No. 23, where Jimi Hendrix
lived. No. 25 was reconfigured, recreating its interiors and both buildings were re-serviced.
The ground-floor front and rear parlours and Handel’s lower-ground floor kitchen were recreated
along with the basement front area and railings. Gaining approval to reopen the area, despite
resistance from the local authority highways department was a significant heritage victory.
For decades the internal spaces had been used for retail
following their conversion in 1905 by Charles Duveen,
who had gutted the building to create a showroom for the
historic interiors he stripped from great English houses
and exported to America. Executing damaging changes,
he demolished the front façade up to second floor and
introduced a double-decker glazed shopfront. Removing
the front door-case, he installed a new east entrance,
covered over the area and removed the railings. Covering
areas was ubiquitous with the creation of retail space to
enable people to get close to windows and view displays.
Duveen converted the ground-floor into two rooms: a
shop to the front and a large room behind, extending
beyond the 1723 planform to the back of the site
encompassing later extensions. Although today we
recognise the harm done and the loss of historic fabric, at
the time there was no public outcry. Further external and
internal alterations followed, including removing the
main stair’s basement to ground flight, and there were
substantial structural and fabric changes. On lower floors,
save floor beams and joists, Handel’s House was erased.
The change to retail was widespread in Mayfair and the
scene along Brook Street changed as areas were covered
in and ground floors were converted to shopfronts.
Completed in 1723, Handel House was a speculative
terrace house, three bays wide, and of three storeys plus a
basement with a kitchen facing the area and an attic. It
comprised the common, post-Great Fire plan: basement
Below, front ground floor parlour at 25 Brook Street
