The Streets Of London – Part Forty

Pickering Place, SW1

If you walk down St James’s Street towards the point where it meets Pall Mall and look at the last opening on the left you will see a marvellous 18^th century oak-panelled tunnel with a number three above the entrance. If you walk through the tunnel, stopping to admire the panelling, you will reach a small square, Pickering Place, said to be the smallest courtyard in London. It is easy to miss but as you might anticipate its original gas lighting has many a tale to tell.

Despite it now being an oasis of calm and tranquillity, it once had a racy history. The area was notorious for its gambling dens and was also where you could go to watch a bit of bear baiting. As it was even then slightly off the beaten track, it was a venue for duels. The proximity of many gentlemen’s clubs where immense fortunes were won or lost on the throw of a dice or a hand of cards, meant there were doubtless many scores to be settled amongst the young bucks of the time. Beau Brummell is said to have fought a duel there and the Place, or Court as it was known until 1812, hosted the last public duel in the capital. Alas, my researches have been unable to unearth who the contestants were or what the outcome was.

Our court was described in the rate books of 1736 as a new court and was probably built by James Pickering, son of William, a wealthy trader, who secured the lease on the land from Sir Thomas and Lady Hanmer in May 1732. William died in 1734, leaving the business and land to James and his brother.

The family business was Berry Brothers and Rudd, still trading, the entrance to what is thought to be the oldest extant wine and spirit merchant is on St James’s Street just before Pickering Place. It was established in 1698 by James’ mother-in-law, the widow Bourne. Berry’s was originally a purveyor of coffee to the fashionable coffee houses in the area and by 1765 at the Sign of the Coffee Mill as it was known had added another string to its bow, weighing customers on the giant coffee scales. Records of the mass of such illuminati as Lord Byron, William Pitt and the Aga Khan exist to this day. Apparently, this rather unusual service is still available to customers. Their extensive wine cellars, containing some 200,000 bottles of vino run underneath Pickering Place and down into Pall Mall.

The square also contains an interesting plaque, bearing the legend, “In this building was the legation for the ministers from the Republic of Texas to the Court of St James, 1842 – 1845”. The Republic of Texas covered what is now Texas as well as parts of New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming and was created on March 2^nd 1836 after successfully revolting from Mexican rule. Unlike the French the Brits never officially recognised the Texan state due to their then friendly relations with the Mexicans but, nonetheless, Sam Houston established an embassy there. The independent state ceased when the territory was annexed by the United States on December 29^th 1845.

For such a small square it has a fascinating history.

I Don’t Want To Belong To Any Club That Will Accept People Like Me As A Member – Part Twelve

The Watier Club

It is better to burn out than to fade away. So sang Neil Young and on the whole I tend to agree with him. In the firmament of Georgian London’s club land, none shone brighter nor had as brief an existence as the Watier Club or, as it was affectionately known, the Dandy Club. It lasted only 12 years, from 1807 to 1819, but in its brief existence was one of the most fashionable and notorious of clubs.

Anyone who has dined in many of London’s gentlemen’s clubs will realise that you don’t go there for gastronomic excellent. Much of the fare is reminiscent of school dinners, stodgy and unexciting. And it seems as though it was ever thus. In 1807 the then Prince Regent conducted what we would call a bit of market research by asking his chums, members of White’s and Brooks’s, about the fare dished up at these establishments. The response was that quality was awful and selection monotonous – “the eternal joints, or beef-steaks, the boiled fowl with oyster sauce, and an apple tart – this is what we have, sir, at our clubs and very monotonous fare it is”.

The Prince’s solution was to establish a new club which would eschew any political allegiances but would rather concentrate on the French art of gastronomy. Beau Brummel, the Prince’s best mate, was appointed President in perpetuo and the Regent’s personal chef, Jean Baptiste Watier, was brought in to advise on culinary matters. Although the club was to bear his name Watier declined (or wasn’t allowed) to cook there, the chef-in-residence being another member of the royal staff, Monsieur Labourie.

The club’s premises were on the corner of Bolton Street at 81, Piccadilly and through its royal patronage attracted the cream of English society. Although Watier’s was billed as a musical society and singing club, it made its name as the finest dining establishment in London with food of the quality that surpassed the best that Paris could offer. So good was the fare that it was to ruin many a man’s figure.

What caused greater damage, though, was the club’s emergence as the place to go to for a game of Macao, a form of pontoon or vingt-et-un. A couple of stories will serve to illustrate the sums gambled, won and lost on the premises. Tom Sheridan popped in and decided to wager £10 at macao. Beau Brummell, whose skill at the game was well known, offered to take his place and would split any winnings 50/50, adding £200 to Sheridan’s modest stake. Within ten minutes Brummell had won £1,500.

But Brummell didn’t always win. One evening he had lost spectacularly and striking a tragic pose asked the waiter for a flat candle and a loaded pistol. Bligh, a member who was known to be five cans short of a six-pack, produced two loaded pistols, saying that he would save the waiter the trouble. Brummell didn’t go through with his threat but the members were a little perturbed to learn that a known madman was visiting the club with two loaded guns in his possession!

Macao was the cause of Brummell’s and the club’s ruin. Brummell sustained heavy gambling losses and in 1816 fell out with the Prince Regent and without royal protection, fled to France to avoid his creditors. Without its President the club was taken over by unsavoury sorts who fleeced many a a member at the gambling tables. In 1819 it closed down, although 10 years later the baton for gastronomic excellence was taken up by Crockford’s.