Two weekends back, my extraordinary friend V—who has not seen Black Sails but who’s been enthusiastically helping me learn about Queen Anne’s London and the Navy of the period—took me on a wonderful tour of St James & Westminster circa 1705. For Reasons.
All right, some additional information, for @sea-changed and anyone else who is interested! Fact-checked + additions by V!
1) In 1698, Whitehall mostly burned to the ground; before that, it had been ~A Scene~; in V’s words, like “an amusement park with big hotel suites, foyers, eating zones, gardens.” This is an important way of contextualizing what’s built after in the Whitehall area, and on the Westminster and St James edges of it. (Side note: Collier and the moral reformers took this fire as a signal from God, as they did the Great Storm of 1703, because of course they did.)
2) Politically—and, I guess, socially—this period marked a shift in where in London elites lived and gathered, at least on the Whiggish side of of the aisle. (Generally in this period, the Whigs were invested invested in building a sort of urban elite, in opposition to Tory landed gentry.) Parliament convened more often, meaning MPs were more likely to live at least part-time in London. So building in Whitehall and Westminster in this period reflected that.
3) Historically contextualizing television show characters has its limits—a real-life James McGraw would likely have had a room within walking distance of Greenwich and Deptford, thus making it totally unlikely that Miranda could like, swing by in her carriage, but if you enjoy historical fiction then you probably let some of that go for the sake of the plot. I certainly do (or actually, I kind of like to hold both in my head simultaneously). But V took me to the Westminster street in the top images for prime examples of the kind of houses the Hamiltons would have lived in, were they real people. We chose them the biggest one that kind of spans the corner of the row, with the original double doors.
4) The next two images are a bluecoat school built in 1709, now owned by the National Trust and occupied by a fashion designer’s boutique. The exterior decorations were *delightful*, in a way that photo doesn’t do justice: who knew you could do such exquisite things with onions! V said it was very period-appropriate. As in:
5) These Westminster streets nestle up south of St James’s Park, which would have been central to the lives of people (aristocrats!) living in style in the new western London developments. At the park’s far end was Buckingham House, built in 1703, which sits at the core of the greatly expanded (in Victorian times) Buckingham Palace we see today. At the start of the 18th century, westwards of St James was countryside; and Westminster, like the City of London and its eastern docks along the Thames, extended inland from the river. You can get the feel (tree by tree) with this.
6) The final image in this batch is from the walls of Andrew Edmunds, the wonderful restaurant in a 1710 townhouse where we ended the day. Obviously it’s a modern restaurant, but they’ve kept the guts intact, so you can see the basic layout of the service basement (now the lower dining room area plus bar and kitchen) as it would have been in the era, which was a delight after looking at exteriors all day.
30, She/her. Used to be DreamingPagan a long time back. Multi-fandom, mostly Black Sails these days but with a lot of Tolkien and funny things interspersed. Complete language and history nerd - be warned. I write fic and occasionally I talk about ships.
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