Waterloo Place is a short but broad street in the St James's area of the City of Westminster, London. It forms a plaza-like space and is a southern extension of Lower Regent Street. Towards the northern end it is crossed by Pall Mall and at the southern end, by Carlton House Terrace, where it ends at the Duke of York Steps which lead down to The Mall. Located on the Place are several 19th and 20th century monuments to royalty, explorers and military people.
History
Waterloo Place in 1830, looking northwards into Regent Street towards Piccadilly Circus.
Included in the plan for London prepared by architect John Nash in 1814 was a broad plaza intended as a space for monuments,[2] It would be the southern end of a prestigious new thoroughfare, later known as Regent Street,[3] and would create a grand open area in front of Carlton House, the London residence of the Prince Regent, which stood on the south side of Pall Mall. The site had previously been occupied by St James's Market,[4] and several "low and mean houses" had to be demolished to make way for the development.[5] Construction was financed and managed by the property developer, James Burton. The first leases on the new buildings in the street were taken out in 1815,[4] by which time it was thought appropriate to name it after the British victory at the Battle of Waterloo which had taken place in June of that year, perhaps as a military counterpart to Trafalgar Square.[6]
Residences in Waterloo Place quickly became fashionable due to the proximity to Carlton House. Charlotte Lennox, Duchess of Richmond lived at Number 7, while Lady Elizabeth Egremont, the estranged wife and former mistress of George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont, lived at Number 4.[4] Following a fire in 1824, Carlton House was demolished and part of the vacant plot on the western corner of Pall Mall and Waterloo Place was offered by Parliament to the Athenaeum Club who were in temporary premises nearby. Accordingly, in 1826, Decimus Burton, the son of the developer, was commissioned to design an elegant building for the club. Parliament also offered the opposite site to the United Service Club with the specification that both buildings should be of a uniform design. However, the latter club were able to get agreement to some modifications that the Athenaeum were unwilling to follow, so that the two finished buildings were dissimilar.[7]
The focal point of Waterloo Place is the 120 feet (37 m) Duke of York Column, commemorating Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, the commander-in-chief of the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars. It stands above a flight of steps leading down to The Mall in a space between the Western and Eastern terraces of the Carleton House Terrace, designed by Nash and Decimus Burton and built between 1827 and 1832. The column itself was designed by Benjamin Dean Wyatt and was completed in 1832.
