The return of the bolt hole

From The Albany on Piccadilly to Bertie Wooster’s bachelor pad in Mayfair, the London pied-à-terre has had many incarnations. Could the rise of a part-time commute herald a new golden era, asks Clive Aslet

-  Clive Aslet

THERE is no English word for pied-à-terre. That is as it should be, because the flats that are now an essential part of city life in this country originated in the apartments of the Continent and the US. London looked towards Paris. As were other cities on the mainland of Europe, Paris was, in the 18th and 19th centuries, more densely developed within its city walls than London, which had spilled out into suburbs such as Southwark by the Tudor period. Soon, London found it did not need its wall. Vienna had to wait until the 1860s before replacing the old fortifications with the Ringstrasse; Paris was still building walls in the 1840s (the last section was not demolished until after the First World War).

The tradition was different in Scotland, where Edinburgh and Glasgow were built to high density and most city dwellers lived in tenements. What appear to be houses in Edinburgh New Town are often purpose-built flats (better for modern circumstances than old terrace houses that have been converted, as found in London).

The Albany, on Piccadilly, was a variation on this theme. It began life as Melbourne House, built by Sir William Chambers in 1771– 74, although the extravagant Melbournes were forced to sell it to the no less extravagant Duke of York. In 1802, it was acquired by the architect Henry Holland and young building contractor Alexander Copland. They kept Chambers’s forecourt, built shops onto Piccadilly and turned the interior of the house into apartments, reached from somewhat prison-like staircases (Copland had experience of building barracks).