Building    To 1938

8 Grenville Street

Categories: Property

The Marchmont Association thoroughly research their plaques and they found some interesting information about Barrie’s home:

“Barrie (1937) writes (in the third person) about his first residences in London in The Greenwood Hat: Being a Memoir of James Anon 1885-1887. Here we learn that after a brief period residing in Guilford Street in March/April 1885, he moved to cheaper lodgings at Grenville Street. According to the respected Mackail (1941), Barrie was at 8, Grenville Street in 1885, then again from September 1886 to August 1888. According to Barrie (1937: 20), Barrie ‘was in that Grenville Street house . . . off and on for years, sometimes in its finest apartments (all according to the state of his finances)’. Although Peter Pan was not written from his Grenville Street address, Barrie places the Darlings’ home in Grenville Street in his own words, in the first scene of the play ..., thus confirming that the ‘imaginary Bloomsbury’ of Peter Pan and the Darling family draws extensively on Barrie’s time at Grenville Street, in particular, in relation to the location of the Darlings’ family home, and its views overlooking Brunswick Square. The c.1929 image of 8-10 Grenville Street, cross-referenced to the Horwood map of 1799, shows that No. 8 was on the corner of Grenville Street and Bernard Street, with windows facing into Brunswick Square - a perfect fit with the narrative suggested by Barrie scholars. Grenville Street was never re-numbered and 8-10, Grenville Street, which had been a Nurses' Home run by the Throat Nose & Ear Hospital in Gray's Inn Road, was demolished in 1938 and replaced the following year by the present-day Downing Court.”

The house at the very left of the photo still exists in Grenville Street and is still a shop, at the corner with Colonnade.

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This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
8 Grenville Street

Commemorated ati

J.M. Barrie - WC1

Sir James Matthew Barrie, Bart. OM, 1860 - 1937, novelist, dramatist and crea...

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Other Subjects

Henerye Gouldingy

Henerye Gouldingy

Married to Agne Bolden in 1574.

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1 memorial
Mill Hill Estate

Mill Hill Estate

Mill Hill Park Acton provides a good history: Richard White's widow sold the estate in 1859 and the fields north of the big house were developed (Mill Hill Road) while the house and grounds were oc...

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1 memorial
William Leverton

William Leverton

Architect, builder and surveyor. Churchwarden at St Giles Church in 1800.

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1 memorial
Manor House, Mare Street

Manor House, Mare Street

Built on the site of the New Mermaid Tavern for John Robert Daniel-Tyssen .  By the 1890s the house had been divided into shops and by 1877 Brett Road had encroached into its gardens.

Building, Property

1 memorial
St Mary’s Girls' Club

St Mary’s Girls' Club

See Gospel Lighthouse Mission for all we have on this.

Building, Education, Property, Social Welfare

1 memorial