| Content Description | For more detailed descriptions see groups Pl E10/1-15 below.
The material here falls into three major groups, and three minor. The most important of these concerns the Soho estate, granted (in reversion) to the 1st Earl of Portland by King William III, coming into the family's possession in the 1730s and sold piecemeal in the time of the 3rd Duke of Portland under the terms of the 1777 trust which vested his 'paternal' (i.e. Bentinck) estates in a trust to liquidate his debts.
The Soho material has been divided as follows: Pl E10/1, financial affairs and estate management - sales, leases, rentals, vouchers, etc.; Pl E10/2, leases and related papers; Pl E10/3, drafts and copies of sale deeds, with abstracts of title and related papers; Pl E10/4, Soho Square, particularly the management of the garden in its centre; Pl E10/5, maps and plans; Pl E10/6, miscellaneous.
Section Pl E10/8, mainly 18th century, concerns the Marylebone estate, part of the Holles-Harley inheritance of the 3rd Duke of Portland through his mother, acquired by the Duke of Newcastle in the reign of Queen Anne. This estate passed out of the family again in 1879 upon the death of the 5th Duke of Portland when, under the terms of the 4th Duke's will, it descended to the 5th Duke's sisters as coheirs. It is now vested in the family of the only one of them to leave issue - Lady Howard de Walden. The local street names are clear indicators of this pattern of ownership. Included in this group are some few documents relating to the site and environs of Newcastle House in Clerkenwell, the other part of the 'maternal' estates in the metropolis.
The last major group, sections Pl E10/10-13, concerns the London houses (leasehold) occupied by the Dukes of Portland between the Napoleonic and First World wars: Pl E10/10, Roxburgh House, St James's Square (4th Duke of Portland); Pl E10/11, 13 Hyde Park Gardens and, briefly, 11 Hyde Park Gardens (5th Duke of Portland, who used them to store furniture); Pl E10/12, 13 Grosvenor Place (6th Duke of Portland); Pl E10/13, miscellaneous.
The minor groups are: Pl E10/7, concerning the Portlands' leasehold house in Privy Gardens, Whitehall (there are further references in section Pl F5/4); Pl E10/9, concerning the mortgage interest of the Marquess of Titchfield (future 4th Duke of Portland) in Brunswick Chapel and adjacent properties on the Portman estate to the north of Marble Arch; and Pl E10/14, relating to litigation involving various of the London properties, but particularly Harcourt House, Cavendish Square in the time of the 5th Duke of Portland (see the introduction to that section for more details).
Also included here (at Pl E10/15) is a small amount of material concerning a church at Hendon, Middlesex.
For the metropolitan properties of the Holles family, Earls of Clare, not forming part of the inheritance of the Dukes of Portland, see section Pl E1/3 above.
For references to Burlington House, occupied by the 3rd Duke of Portland, see bundles Pl F5/13/4-6 and Pl F5/15/3. |