History notes: House of Vanheems, Berners Street

Tucked away below street level are two foundation stones I had not seen before. They reveal an interesting story about a building at 47-48 Berners Street in Fitzrovia West.

The upper foundation stone inscription reads: “This stone was laid by Martin S Vanheems on the 8th day of Jan 1955. This building replaces one recorded on the stone below demolished by enemy action on Nov 30th 1940. Architects Slater Uren & Pike. Builders Gee Walker & Slater.”

Below it, another stone reads: “This stone was laid by Sidney Martin Vanheems on the 9th day of Sept 1916.”

The current building is at least the third to have stood on this site since the land was developed in the early 18th century.

Several generations of the Vanheems family ran an outfitters for the clergy at this address.

The firm was founded by Martin Vanheems, who was baptized at Bavinchove, near Cassel, France in 1767. He was imprisoned as a Royalist and anti-revolutionary at Arras but somehow escaped and started business as a tailor in London in 1795, and was later appointed resident tailor at St Edmund’s College, a Catholic private school in Ware, Hertfordshire.

From there he went on to open a tailors’ shop near Golden Square in Soho. After he died in 1836 his son took over the business which later moved to Berners Street sometime in the mid- to late-1800s.

For some time during the 1800s the business went under the name Vanheems & Wheeler. But the partnership between Martin W Vaneems and Frederick Wheeler was formerly dissolved by mutual consent in July 1892. The London Gazette reported that their business was a clerical outfitters, at 47 Berners Street.

The business continued to expand under the Vanheems’ brand, which the Survey of London describes as the “grandest of clerical outfitters”. By the early 20th century Berners Street was flourishing as a centre of the clothing industry with one-in-three addresses specialising in the trade.

This boom led to many of the Georgian and Victorian buildings being swept away in a rebuilding spree. In 1916-1919 architects John Slater and J Melville Keith built Berners House at 47-48 Berners Street for Sidney Vanheems who was now leading the family firm. The Survey described it as having a “pompous five-storey pillared front, central entrance and suitably subfusc showroom”.

In the spring of 1918 this grandiose building was blessed by Father C Hanifin, Rector of St Charles’, Ogle Street, reported The Tablet in April that year. Two years previous he had even blessed the foundation stone.

Vanheems continued to be held in high regard by the Catholic church, and in May 1937 The Tablet reported:

“The wedding took place on 20 May 1937 at St Benedict’s Priory, Ealing, of Mr. Martin Vanheems, younger son of Mr Sidney Vanheems and the late Mrs Vanheems, and Miss Margaret Evelyn D’Arcy, daughter of Mr and Mrs Arthur D’Arcy, of Ealing.

“Dom Oswald Vanheems, OSB, a Housemaster at Ampleforth and the elder brother of the bridegroom, celebrated the Nuptial Mass. Mr Martin Vanheems, two of whose sisters are nuns, is partner with his father in the House of Vanheems, clerical tailors and outfitters, of 47-48 Berners Street, Wl. He represents the fifth generation of his family in the firm,” stated the report.

Martin Vanheems took part in the Normandy Landings on 6 June 1944 as a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve aged 29. In 1958 he recounted the experience to the journalist Cornelius Ryan for his book, The Longest Day.

Number 47-48 Berners Street can be seen in the archive photo above with scaffolding in front of it after it was bombed in 1940. If you look very closely you can just make out a sign with the word Vanheems in the rubble on the ground.

Vanheems no longer occupies the new building that still stands and bears the two foundation stones that give a clue to its history. The “grandest of clerical outfitters”, like much of the rag trade associated with Fitzrovia West, has moved on or ceased to exist.

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