History notes: the Cartwright St Pancras Estate

The latest edition of Camden History Society’s annual journal has an interesting article entitled: “The Cartwrights and Fitzrovia’s forgotten estate.”

The Cartwrights were a wealthy family who had a large country home on the boundary of Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire called Aynhoe Park, and for over 130 years they owned a number of streets in Fitzrovia.

The Cartwright St Pancras Estate was “bounded by Maple Street in the north and Chitty Street in the south, and included substantial blocks of Charlotte Street and Fitzroy Street in the west, and Whitfield Street in the east”, writes Nick Bailey, author of the journal article.

It is likely that the land and its buildings were acquired by the Cartwright family after the death of Charles Fitzroy, the third Lord Southampton, in 1872. But how and when they were acquired “remains uncertain”, writes Bailey.

The Survey of London Volume 21 notes that the land, which was known before its development as Culver Meadow, passed from the Southampton Estate to the Bedford Estate and then to the Cartwrights through two marriages.

First in 1669 when William, Lord Russell married Lady Rachel, daughter of Thomas Wriothesley, fourth Earl of Southampton; then via a series of successions through the Bedford Estate and Robert Palmer, the Duke of Bedford’s agent.

It was Palmer who, in 1777, contracted builder William Gowing to construct many of the houses of the estate which were completed by 1792. Gowing lived at 21 Howland Street from 1779 to 1783.

In 1800 the estate passed to Henry Jones of Bloomsbury and then in 1810 it was inherited by his grand-daughter Mary Ann [sic] Jones who married William Cartwright of Aynho [sic], states the Survey.

Adding to the confusion and uncertainty the Survey refers to Cartwright as being the MP for Northants from 1754 until his death in 1768. However, Jones — who was not born until 1802 — married Lieutenant General William Cartwright (1797-1873) in 1822 but pre-deceased her husband in 1860.¹

On William’s death the estate passed to their son Fairfax William Cartwright.

The Cartwrights did little in the way of regular maintenance on the buildings but the poor quality accommodation and its low rent “helped promote the Bohemian image of Fitzrovia” attracting artists and social reformers, states Bailey.

The estate remained mainly residential up until the Second World War when much of it was badly damaged by bombing. However, as some post-war photos show — including the five from 1945 and 1961 above² — much of it was still standing and recognisable as a former dense residential area.

Change came rapidly after 1955, though, when Max Rayne bought the whole estate, including the Globe pub which was on the southeast corner of Maple Street and Whitfield Street and the Carpenters Arms which is still standing on the next street corner to the south.

Rayne’s property company, London Merchant Securities, redeveloped the whole estate and demolished the mostly Georgian and early Victorian terraced houses, creating a commercial sub-district either side of Howland Street.

In 2003, LMS was subsumed by Derwent Valley, and a new property developer called Derwent London was formed which carried on the tradition of demolishing buildings.

“The Cartwrights and Fitzrovia’s forgotten estate”, by Nick Bailey. Camden History Review 48 (2025) published by Camden History Society.

1. There is a lengthy discussion of the Jones family and the Cartwrights in the Dulwich Society Journal. In the article Jones’s first name is spelled Anne and her birth year is referred to as 1802 but elsewhere as 1801. ↩︎
2. The first photograph is from 1945 and shows the west side of Whitfield Street looking north to its junction with Howland Street, which is just visible. The second, also from 1945, shows the west side of Whitfield Street looking north from the junction with Howland Street. The third and fourth show the west side and east side of Fitzroy Street in 1961 (NB: the captions are transposed). ↩︎