Pont Street

21 Pont Street, home of Lillie Langtry
St Columba's Church on Pont Street

Pont Street is a fashionable street in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, traversing the areas of Knightsbridge and Belgravia. The street is not far from the Knightsbridge department store Harrods to its north-west. The street crosses Sloane Street in the middle, with Beauchamp Place to the west and Cadogan Place, and Chesham Place, to the east, eventually leading to Belgrave Square. On the west side, Hans Place leads off the street to the north and Cadogan Square to the south.

History

View centred on no. 57, Pont Street, showing Pont Street Dutch houses.

The actress Lillie Langtry (1852–1929) lived at 21 Pont Street from 1892 to 1897, recorded since 1980 by a blue plaque. The building became part of the Cadogan Hotel in 1895, but she still stayed in her old bedroom even after this. Oscar Wilde was arrested in room number 118 of the Cadogan Hotel on 6 April 1895.

Politician Harry Crookshank, 1st Viscount Crookshank (1893–1961) lived from 1937 until his death at 51 Pont Street.[1]

St Columba's Church in Pont Street was designed in the 1950s by the architect Sir Edward Maufe (1883–1974), who also designed the brick Guildford Cathedral. It is one of the two London congregations of the Church of Scotland. The original St Columba's Church building of 1884 was destroyed during the Blitz of World War II on the night of 10 May 1941.

Portmeirion had an antiques shop in Pont Street, later to become the headquarters of Portmeirion Pottery. A section of railing from the Liverpool Sailors' Home was installed outside the shop by Clough Williams-Ellis.

The Challoner Club, an exclusively Catholic gentleman's club, was based in Pont Street.

A restaurant called Drones is located at 1 Pont Street (not to be confused with the fictional Drones Club of P. G. Wodehouse).

Pont Street Dutch

Pont Street Dutch is a term coined by Osbert Lancaster to describe the architectural style typified by the large red brick gabled houses built in the 1880s in Pont Street.[2] Pevsner writes of the style as "tall sparingly decorated red brick mansions for very wealthy occupants, in the semi-Dutch, semi-Queen Anne manner of Shaw or George & Peto".[3]

Transport

The nearest tube stations are Knightsbridge to the north and Sloane Square to the south.

Fictional references

Blue plaque commemorating the actress Lillie Langtry in Pont Street
  • In P.G. Wodehouse's The Code of the Woosters (1938), Mrs. Wintergreen, widow of the late Colonel H. H. Wintergreen and fiancée of Sir Watkyn Bassett, lives in Pont Street.
  • In Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited (1945), Pont Street is referred to as a place related to typical English snobbery. In the novel, the character Julia and her friends say that "it was 'Pont Street' to wear a signet ring and to give chocolates at the theatre; it was 'Pont Street' at a dance to say, 'Can I forage for you?'".
  • In Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate (1949), the heroine's aunt, who is bringing her up to mix in the best society, is said to "keep her nose firmly to Pont Street".
  • In Agatha Christie’s The Secret of Chimneys, character Virginia Revel lives on Pont Street.

References

  1. ↑ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 14. Oxford University Press. 2004. p. 402. Article by S.J. Ball.
  2. ↑ Sailing to Byzantium: An Architectural Companion (London, John Murray, 1969)
  3. ↑ Nikolaus Pevsner- London 3 North West p578 London- Penguin books 1991

Coordinates: 51°29′49″N 0°09′37″W / 51.49702°N 0.16019°W / 51.49702; -0.16019

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