Westmoreland Street, London

This article is about the street in London. For the street in Dublin, see Westmoreland Street.

Westmoreland Street is in the Marylebone district of the City of Westminster in London, England. The street was built from the 1760s by William Franks and runs from Beaumont Street and Weymouth Street in the north to New Cavendish Street in the south. It was formerly the location of the Welbeck Chapel, which became St James's Church. In 1968, it was the site of Britain's first heart transplant when the National Heart Hospital was located there. The hospital is now known as University College Hospital at Westmoreland Street.

Westmoreland Street

Westmoreland Street looking south
Former name(s)	Woodstock Street (north part)
Area	Marylebone
Location	City of Westminster
Postal code	W1G
Coordinates	51°31′11″N 00°09′00″W / 51.51972°N 0.15000°W / 51.51972; -0.15000
Other
Known for	Welbeck Chapel (St James's Church) National Heart Hospital

Origins and location

Westmoreland Street is located in the Marylebone district of the City of Westminster, London, and runs from Beaumont Street and Weymouth Street in the north to New Cavendish Street in the south. Woodstock Mews is accessed from its eastern side, and Wheatley Street and De Walden Street join it on its western side. It was built from the 1760s by the local builder William Franks.^[1] The origin of its name is unknown.^[2]

The northern section above Wheatley Street was originally named Woodstock Street,^[1][3] which is still the name of the adjoining mews, and was a separate and narrower street. It was widened in 1862 and 1874 until the two streets became one.^[1]

Another location with the same name, Westmoreland Street, SW1, was renamed to Westmoreland Terrace in the 1930s.^[4]

Buildings

 

Design for St James's Church by George Gilbert Scott Jr., published in The Building News, 1879.^[5]

 

Historic image of The National Heart Hospital, Westmoreland Street, now University College Hospital.

 

Bomb damage map for the Marylebone Street, Wheatley Street, and Westmoreland Street vicinity

The street was formerly the location of the Tichfield Chapel,^[6] which was built by William Franks facing Wheatley Street. In 1773, he sold it to John Sarson who owned the stable-yard in Little Marylebone Street. It became the Welbeck Chapel around 1800 and in 1817 was transferred to the Crown. It was renovated and in 1831 was renamed St James's Church.^[1] Thomas Hartwell Horne spent part of his early clerical career there^[7] and Hugh Reginald Haweis officiated from 1866,^[1] who has been described as the "most prominent exponent of spiritualism among London clergy".^[8] The church was highly successful under Haweis and was renovated again in 1870–71 with the installation of new stained-glass windows and later in the decade George Gilbert Scott Jr. drew-up designs for a new exterior.^[9] The church stagnated under the later years of Haweis's tenure after he was affected by scandal, and it closed two years after his death in 1901. It was demolished around 1907.^[1] Records relating to the church are held by the British National Archives.^[10]

It is the former home of the National Heart Hospital, which moved there from Soho Square in 1914,^[11][12] and occupies the site left vacant by the demolition of St James's Church.^[1] During the First World War it became a centre for the treatment of military recruits with heart problems.^[13] In 1968, Donald Ross and his team carried out Britain's first heart transplant there.^[13][14] That day, on 3 May 1968, traffic stood still while the ambulance arrived with the donor heart, and photographs of the street appeared in the Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Express.^[15] The hospital moved to the Fulham Road, London, in 1991^[12] and after a period of private ownership the hospital in 2001 re-entered the National Health Service,^[16] where it is known as University College Hospital at Westmoreland Street.^[17]

Westmoreland Street and Wheatley Street were seriously damaged by German bombing during the Second World War with the whole of Wheatley Street marked as damaged to some degree. Numbers 18 to 28 on the south side of Wheatley at the Westmoreland end were hit in September 1940 during the Blitz and marked as "damaged beyond repair" on the London County Council's bomb damage maps^[18] but were rebuilt in duplicate in 1948.^[1] The maps also show blast damage to other buildings on the west side of Westmoreland Street and to a row of six buildings on the east side of the street opposite the entrance to Wheatley Street, including the hospital.^[1][18] The King's Head public house at 13 Westmoreland Street, on the corner with Wheatley Street, was badly damaged and required partial rebuilding.^[1]

References

1. "Chapter 16: Beaumont Street to New Cavendish Street" 31 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine in South-East Marylebone, Survey of London Vols. 51 & 52, London, 2017.
2. "Westmoreland Street" in Gillian Bebbington (1972) London Street Names. London: B.T. Batsford. p. 343. ISBN 0713401400.
3. Laxton, Paul & Joseph Wisdom. (1985) The A to Z of Regency London. London: London Topographical Society. p. 24. ISBN 0902087193
4. "A-Z Old to New Street names".
5. The Building News, 17 October 1879.
6. Smith, Thomas. (1833) A Topographical and Historical Account of the Parish of St. Mary-le-Bone &c. 7 March 2022 at the Wayback Machine London: John Smith. p. 125.
7. "The Late Rev. T. Hartwell Horne", The Illustrated London News, Vol. 40, No. 1132 (22 February 1862), p. 190.
8. Jacob, W. M. (2021). Religious Vitality in Victorian London. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 187. ISBN 978-0-19-289740-4. from the original on 17 March 2022. Retrieved 11 March 2022.
9. 1879 – St James's Church, Marylebone, London 7 March 2022 at the Wayback Machine archiseek. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
10. St. James' Chapel. (Welbeck Chapel) Westmoreland Street. 7 March 2022 at the Wayback Machine National Archives. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
11. "Nova et Vetera". British Medical Journal. 1 (5034): 1528. 29 June 1957. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.5034.1528-a. ISSN 0007-1447. S2CID 220146496. from the original on 10 March 2022. Retrieved 10 March 2022.
12. "National Heart Hospital" 7 March 2022 at the Wayback Machine in Christopher Hibbert; Ben Weinreb; John Keay; Julia Keay. (2008). The London Encyclopaedia (3rd ed.). London: Macmillan. p. 570. ISBN 978-0-230-73878-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
13. Nathoo, Ayesha (2009). Hearts Exposed: Transplants and the media in 1960s Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-4039-8730-3. from the original on 17 March 2022. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
14. "Man of 45 gets new heart in first British transplant", The Times, 4 May 1968, p. 1.
15. Nathoo, A. (2009). Hearts Exposed: Transplants and the Media in 1960s Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 112–114. ISBN 978-0-230-23470-3. from the original on 17 March 2022. Retrieved 11 March 2022.
16. NHS buys private heart hospital. 17 January 2008 at the Wayback Machine BBC News, 8 August 2001. Retrieved 10 March 2022.
17. University College Hospital at Westmoreland Street (formerly the Heart Hospital). 9 October 2015 at the Wayback Machine University College London Hospitals. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
18. Ward, Laurence. (2015) The London County Council Bomb Damage Maps 1939–1945. London: Thames & Hudson. p. 92. ISBN 9780500518250

External links

  Media related to Westmoreland Street, London at Wikimedia Commons