This building, just a few seconds walk south from Oxford Street, is dirty and that is probably due to the grime and pollution in the city post war. Moore Buildings, built in 1892, was one of the many properties built in this area for the working classes.
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Stalbridge, Balderton, Chesham, Cavendish,Hanover and Moore Flats.
After 1875 the pace of building improved working-class dwellings on the Grosvenor estate slackened. The Improved Industrial Dwellings Company was keen to take more sites, but apart from a small building erected near the Chelsea Barracks in 1877, nothing could be found for them until a big block of leases in appropriate places fell in. Plainly this was what both parties were waiting for. For its part, the Estate encouraged a further small block in Bourdon Street, built in 1883–4 by the St. George's Workmen's Model Dwellings Association, while the company was well enough capitalized to have £150,000 to invest in Grosvenor estate developments in 1880. Late in that year, James Moore, the I.I.D.C.'s secretary, was shown 'the houses between Grosvenor Square and Oxford Street' with a view to submitting a rebuilding plan. Here, leases for a large and motley group of premises were due to expire in 1886, and it seems that from the start much of the area east of Duke Street, where Seth Smith's leases of the 1820's were also due to expire in 1885–6, was included in the company's sphere of activities as well. Thus in an area bounded by Oxford Street on the north, Balderton Street on the west, George Yard, Duke's Yard and St. Anselm's Place on the south, and Davies Street on the east, the I.I.D.C. was to promote one of the most substantial transformations in the Mayfair estate's history.
In 1882 Moore was still anxious to proceed either here or in Pimlico, but the draft plan prepared early the previous year had to stand over until 1884. That year marked renewed national outcry over the condition of working-class housing, culminating in a Royal Commission. The poor condition of some parts of the Mayfair estate, notably in the area destined for rebuilding, was briefly mentioned to the Commission by Andrew Mearns, but the Duke's London properties were not implicated in any of the more serious revelations. Nevertheless, the Estate took the opportunity to review the working-class dwellings so far erected, and the crisis may also have speeded up their activity in northern Mayfair. In May 1885 Thomas Cundy III produced an amended plan for the development, and the rest of the year and much of the next one were spent in working out arrangements.
In such a large scheme, comprising nine different buildings on seven separate plots, there were many problems involved. For one thing Duke Street, a major thoroughfare, split the site in two. Here it was decided to treat the street separately, keep the industrial dwellings away from the frontages, and allow lessees to build shops with flats over. Another difficulty was the accommodation of displaced tenants. To facilitate this, the I.I.D.C. agreed to become tenants of the old houses at a fixed rent until rebuilding reached them. Reconstruction was to proceed roughly from west to east, starting with Stalbridge Buildings in the present Lumley (then Queen) Street in 1886. Close upon this followed Balderton Buildings, in two blocks with ends facing what is now Brown Hart Gardens, and in 1887 Chesham Buildings on the south side of Brown Hart Gardens. Only when these were completed did building operations begin east of Duke Street.
All these blocks were built to a uniform system of plan and elevation, but with what appears for the I.I.D.C. to have been a new arrangement. Unfortunately neither designer nor builder can be traced. By this time the company had its own staff of contractors, while as usual no mention was made of an architect. One possibility for this role is the firm of Borer and Dobb, who assisted in the I.I.D.C.'s previous big venture, Sandringham Buildings in Charing Cross Road, but the Mayfair blocks are in every respect superior. Surviving drawings are all signed by the secretary, James Moore, and it is safe to say that his was the lion's share in the undertaking. In December 1885 he produced standard plans for the estate showing how the tenements would be arranged lengthwise, in shallow blocks of only twenty-eight feet in depth, with the scullery and water closet in each one positioned off a lobby next to the door. This differed from Clarendon Buildings and marked a departure from the old 'gallery system'. The staircases were ventilated from open balconies, but placed at the backs of the buildings. Elevations were symmetrically designed in a minimal Gothic, with prominent stringcourses and aprons to the windows. Unusual were the picturesque gable features set into 'curbed' or mansard roofs, executed at the Duke's request. These roofs were tiled rather than slated, and detail drawings show that a good deal of iron was used in the structures, both indications of the qualities of strength and appearance aimed at in these dwellings. The Duke also insisted upon red brick, though he was informed that it would cost £2,500 more than picked stocks with red stringcourses. The blocks were six storeys high including the inhabited basements, and there were wash houses on the flat parts of the roofs.
By December 1888 Stalbridge, Balderton, and Chesham Buildings were all completed and named. The only trouble had arisen over Chesham Buildings, where in order to get the curbed roof and red-brick elevations he approved of on all sides, the Duke had to reduce the ground rent. In conjunction with these buildings, the Duke desired to have a 'cocoa house' or coffee tavern and a public garden. The coffee tavern was dropped for want of an applicant, but the I.I.D.C.'s contract included an undertaking to clear a space and provide a communal garden on the site between Brown Street and Hart Street. The Duke soon took over the garden scheme except for the surrounding railings, and in 1889 it was constructed to the layout of Joseph Meston on the site of the present electricity sub-station. The simple garden included a small drinking fountain at the east end, a urinal at the west end and a shelter in the centre; trees were also planted. None of these features was to survive long.
Attention now turned to the area further east. The plans for the three I.I.D.C. sites here had to fit in with reconstruction on the east side of Duke Street itself, where Nos. 55–73 (odd) and the King's Weigh House Church were being built in 1889–92. A lithograph dated 1887 showing an axonometric view of the whole I.I.D.C. estate suggests that at that time their plans were at the ready. In 1889 work began on Cavendish Buildings on the east side of Gilbert Street, with an elevation like that of Stalbridge Buildings. Hanover Buildings, in two blocks on either side of Binney Street south of Weighhouse Street, followed in 1890–1, and in 1891–2 the scheme was completed by Moore Buildings between Gilbert and Binney Streets, again in two blocks with a garden in between. The east part of Hanover Buildings and both blocks of Moore Buildings were T-shaped in plan, with the staircases planned centrally. Moore Buildings were named at Boodle's suggestion after James Moore, and opened on 1 November 1892 by the Duke.
The progress of these later buildings was slightly delayed by an outcry over the question of shops. Among those displaced by operations in this area were several tradesmen, but the I.I.D.C. had not provided shops in any of the earlier blocks, nor did they do so in Cavendish Buildings. In October 1889 Mr. Deignan, 'the son of the second-hand clothes dealer', aired the tradesmen's grievances in The Star; as a result the Estate asked the I.I.D.C. to provide shops and, if possible, separate workshops. The company was not at first convinced of this need and asked for compensation, but yielded to pressure sufficiently to provide five shops each in the eastern section of Hanover Buildings and the southern part of Moore Buildings. This was still only a third of the number that Thomas Cundy III had thought appropriate, and indeed there was some further trouble with excluded tradesmen.
Over the question of the ordinary tenancies for the new buildings, the minister of St. Mark's, North Audley Street was consulted as before. In 1888 Moore suggested that tenants of old houses should move into Clarendon Buildings and that inmates of Clarendon Buildings should go into the new blocks, so that 'those who had not been used to a model lodging house would be gradually improved before moving into new buildings'. This was approved, but it cannot have been generally done. Though no figures are available, the rents for those displaced and rehoused were fixed below market value and indeed below what they had paid before, while for newcomers the terms were higher. This was only possible because of the low grounds rents charged by the Duke on all the buildings on both sides of Duke Street, amounting to £502 per annum as against £2,193 for old leases of the same sites.
Altogether 332 families were accommodated in the developments of 1886–92. Together with Clarendon Buildings, this meant that the Duke and the I.I.D.C. had between them settled nearly 2,000 people on the Grosvenor estate in Mayfair. In Pimlico an equivalent number had also been housed in their developments. 1892 marks the end of this collaboration, for though the company did ask the Estate for more sites there were none forthcoming, and with the setting up of the London County Council in 1889 the days when the burden of working-class housing fell mainly upon voluntary organizations were numbered. In record of this partnership, after the Duke's death a plaque was placed on Chesham Buildings, where it still remains, commemorating his achievement in 'accommodating nearly 4,000 persons of the working class' in I.I.D.C. developments on his London estates.
In recent years the blocks have been taken over by the Peabody Trust, and their names changed from 'Buildings' to 'Flats'. Their inclusion in the redevelopment area under the Grosvenor Estate's strategy of 1971 provoked some protest, and their future remains in question.
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