Newlands – The Berners Estate

Newlands Farm

The second act of prescience that Josias showed was on 21^st March 1654. He bought a small country farm of about 25 acres, comprising mostly fields, meadows and orchards off the Tyburn Road. There were a couple of streams and springs on the property. Two footpaths crossed the fields. There seem to have been two houses or “messuages”.  There were also outbuildings: stables, barns, yards and woods. The area was known as “Newlands”. At the time, this part of Middlesex was very much in the country. Highwaymen lurked in the shadows along the rutted lanes; footpads plied their trade on unwary travellers. It was an area known for murder and robbery. Many of these “bad characters” ended their lives hanging from nearby Tyburn Tree, or gallows, watched by massive crowds. Ironically, one of Josias’ ancestors, Sir James Berners, had been executed here in 1388. To the North, Marylebone Park, a one-time royal hunting ground, was sequestered during the period of the Protectorate and returned to the people as farm land before, two hundred years later, becoming Regent’s Park.

Josias purchased the property for “the sume of nyne hundred and seventies Pounds of lawfull English money to him in hand”. Just in the previous 5 years, Josias four “Adventurers” shares had earned him over £1,000. Perhaps he was looking for somewhere solid to invest his money. I wonder if he had any inkling that within a few decades, Tyburn Road would be renamed Oxford Street and, through the rapid spread of London, his fields would be developed into fashionable housing and commercial premises, then become the most valuable real estate.

Developing Newlands – The Berners Estate

In 1716, the northern close of Newlands, around 12 acres, was let to Edward Huddle, a gardener. As William was only six at the time, this must have been at the behest of his guardians. Around 1732, the lease on the northern close, described as “garden ground”, was let to Thomas Huddle,  a gardener and likely the son of Edward Huddle. Thomas also had permission to dig for brick earth, gravel and sand. This landscape can clearly be seen in the John Rocque’s (c1705 – 1762) map of London published in 1746.

The opposite side of Tyburn Road, now known as Oxford Street, had been built up by developers and William was quick to see the potential in property and developing his land. Perhaps his ideas were stalled until he reached his majority in 1731.

On 21^st  May 1838, William came to an agreement with Thomas Huddle about developing the southern close. On a ninety-nine-year lease he let the “whole frontage of 655 feet to Oxford Street” and mostly 100 feet deep for 4 shillings per foot per annum. William Berners agreed to build a sewer down Oxford Street from Wells Lane to Rathbone Place. Huddle, who was also a brickmaker and dug some of the materials for making bricks from the fields to the north of the estate, started to build houses at a terrific rate along the frontage. The first lease was granted in 1739. The annual rent from the houses on Oxford Street received by Berners was £135 8s per annum. Adding this to the income from NRC shares, William’s twin assets were earning a little over one thousand pounds per annum. Perhaps it was Huddle who planned the three main streets running north-south to Oxford Street within the depth of the plot that had been leased: Wells Street, Berners Street and Newman Street.

In 1754 a block of land to the north of the Berners Estate was leased to the Middlesex Hospital for 999 years at £15 a year.

Following the development of the frontage, William’s mind turned to the remainder of the available land. Building continued apace. William worked with a number of different building contractors, architects and surveyors on the Berners Estate with small parcels of land being leased.

 From 1750 onwards there must have been continuous works in progress across the site. There does not seem to have been a master plan as such and much building work was in small pockets and ad hoc. However, the existing street layout was established between 1750 and 1764 and to some extent mirrored the street plan on the opposite side of Oxford Street. Wells Street, at a slight curving angle follows the original field boundary.

By 1750, Newman Street was leasing property, Berners Street by 1763, and Suffolk Street, which became Nassau Street, by 1764.

Around 1766, William Berners began a working relationship with another building contractor and architect, John Johnson. By the time William bought Woolverstone Manor there were 208 completed houses on the estate.