1900s

Selfridges opens

Views Of Baker Street.

Past residents of Baker Street include William Pitt the Younger, the novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and Sir Richard Burton, the explorer and orientalist – though its most famous residents were perhaps Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson…

William Henry, 2nd Viscount Portman, lived to the age of 90. After serving as an MP for 33 years he became the first Chairman of Dorset County Council for a further 28 years, acted as Master of the Portman Hunt for over 50 years and rebuilt Bryanston House, seeing through many changes to the family’s estates, both in London and in the west country. His London home was at Montagu House in Portman Square. Throughout his life he also showed notable generosity towards his poorer tenants in the Church Street and Lisson Grove area of the London Estate.

Many more mansion blocks added

Gradual sale of all the west country estates including Bryanston.

After the People’s Budget of 1909 death duties became a serious threat to every large estate in the country. Many were unable to survive. As a result of six viscounts dying within the space of less than 30 years, from 1919-1948, in order to meet the demands of taxation the Portman family was forced to sell all its west country estates, once over 30,000 acres, including Bryanston, the family’s main home.

The Portman Burtley Estate acquired

Sale of the northern part of the London estate

Resettlements of the London Estate

Over 1,000 properties on the London Estate were destroyed or seriously damaged by bombing in the Second World War, providing an opportunity for a major programme of redevelopment in the 1950s and 1960s which has continued right up to the present day. In Portman Square, Orchard Court, which was built as early as 1930, was followed after the war by Fitzhardinge House and Carisbrooke House on the north side of the square and in 1970 by the Churchill Hotel. The south side of the square has been rebuilt most recently. A great deal of rebuilding has been carried out elsewhere and more is planned all over the Estate.

Description – The enormous changes within society caused by the war were to go several stages further during the cultural earthquake of the 1960s. New York with its multi-cultural verve had been the dominant city of the ’40s, and Rome, with its blend of chic and antiquity, the city of the ’50s, but London was unquestionably the world capital of the ’60s. Time Magazine’s cover story labelled it ‘Swinging London’ – reflected in a stylish youth culture that was forward-looking, irreverent and self-confident.

Bell-bottoms, the Beatles, and boutiques were dotted across London, and The Portman Estate was home to some of the most distinguished movers and shakers in that cultural revolution.

The Beatles’ Apple shop at 94 Baker Street lasted for only a few months, closing in July 1968. In the end its psychedelic mural was thought to be a step too far, even in the London of the 1960s.

Home House becomes a private club

Unveiling of the Wallenburg statue by the Queen.

Paralleling the emergence of an Arab community on the Estate during the 1970s has been a consolidation within the Jewish population, a feature of the area for much longer. In Upper Berkeley Street, close to the corner of Edgware Road, is the West London Synagogue, which was built in 1870 for the congregation of Jewish ‘dissenters’. The Marble Arch synagogue in Great Cumberland Place came into existence in 1957 and was joined in 1991 by the congregation of the former Western Synagogue. Renamed the Western Marble Arch Synagogue and formerly the seat of the previous Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, it can be described as one of the oldest and the newest congregations in the country.

Outside the synagogue is the statue of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish saviour of thousands of Jews from Nazi death-camps. In the words of Sidney Jaque, historian and member of the Western Marble Arch Synagogue: ‘Wallenberg saved thousands of Jews from slaughter; he pretended that they were under Swedish control and nationality, and the Nazis didn’t dispute it. But in 1945 Budapest fell to the Red Army and Wallenberg was taken under guard to Moscow where he vanished into the Soviet prison system. The unveiling of the statue in 1997 was a tremendous occasion: the Swedish royal family, the Secretary General of the United Nations, and the Queen and Prince Philip were all in attendance. In fact it was the first time the Queen had ever entered a synagogue, and the former Chief Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks, made a special prayer for her. So it was an historic day to honour a truly great man.’

Christopher, 10th Viscount Portman, inherits the title.

When the title passed to Christopher, 10th Viscount Portman, in 1999, a more dynamic and active management strategy was adopted for managing the Estate. New trustees were appointed, the new post of Chief Executive was created and there was a restructuring of the staff. All this has led to a much more imaginative development of the Estate.

In spite of successive governments, rent acts, estate duty and capital transfer tax, leasehold enfranchisement and town and country planning acts, the geography of central London west of the City is still recognisably the same as it has been for a number of centuries. The great London estates have survived because they have learned to manage their London property in a commercial and proactive way, always looking to the future. This ability to achieve the right balance between short term returns and long term growth has also allowed the estates to focus on their stewardship role – to deliver more to their communities, to public realm and to the environment. This has been especially important in a recession. With the absence of public money, it has been the estates who have continued to invest in their neighbourhoods; for the good of London as a whole. The Portman Estate aims to maintain this investment for the foreseeable future.