The Site
Devonshire House was built on the site of Berkeley House, which John, Lord Berkeley, erected at a cost of over £30,000 on his return from his tenure of the viceroyalty of Ireland; it was constructed from 1665 to 1673. The house was later occupied by Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, a mistress of Charles II. The house, a classical mansion built by Hugh May, had been purchased by William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire in 1697 and subsequently renamed Devonshire House.
On 16 October 1733, the former Berkeley House, while undergoing refurbishment, was destroyed by fire. The cause was attributed to careless labourers. Ironically, the Duke's former London residence, Old Devonshire House, at 48 Boswell Street, Bloomsbury, survived both its successors until the Blitz of World War II.
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Famous quotes containing the word site:
“That is a pathetic inquiry among travelers and geographers after the site of ancient Troy. It is not near where they think it is. When a thing is decayed and gone, how indistinct must be the place it occupied!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is not menstrual blood per se which disturbs the imagination—unstanchable as that red flood may be—but rather the albumen in the blood, the uterine shreds, placental jellyfish of the female sea. This is the chthonian matrix from which we rose. We have an evolutionary revulsion from slime, our site of biologic origins. Every month, it is woman’s fate to face the abyss of time and being, the abyss which is herself.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)