Northumberland House, the last of the old houses of the great earls stood at the entrance of Northumberland Avenue, the new thoroughfare from Charing Cross to the Victoria Embankment.
Laying no claim to architectural beauty, this massive and unpretending-looking residence of the Percys had endeared itself to the hearts of all true Londoners, and when its doom went forth from the Metropolitan Board of Works, an indignant outcry was raised on all sides.
Even the stiff and grim old lion above its gateway, so often the butt of ridicule, came in for its share of regret, and Landseer's four modern beauties were considered but poor compensation for its loss.
Northumberland House removed in 1874 is supposed to have occupied the site of a chapel, or hospital, dedicated to St. Mary, and suppressed and restored at intervals, till the time of the Reformation, when it was given by Henry VII. to Sir Thomas Caverden, from whose hands it passed first into those of Sir Robert Brett, and then of Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton.
The earl built a fine residence in its stead, inherited first by his kinsman, the Earl of Suffolk, and then by that kinsman's daughter, Elizabeth, who married Algernon Percy, Earl of Northumberland, the celebrated nobleman who took charge of the children of Charles I. during the Commonwealth.
On the death of this earl, in 1688, Northumberland House descended to his son, and from that time till its sale and removal, it remained in the same family, and has witnessed many a gathering of historic notabilities, and been more than once in danger from the violence of a London mob.
The original house, completed in 1605, was of brick, and consisted of a principal quadrangle on the north, entered by a porter's lodge from the Strand, and two wings going down to the river, but it was so much altered by subsequent additions that its first form was lost. It will probably be best remembered by the well-known drawing by Canaletti, so often engraved, giving it and part of the Strand as they appeared early in the eighteenth century.
It may be of interest to note that the "blue lion" - the Percy crest - was set up in 1749. According to Thornbury, Legend has it that the faithful creature, when one of his owners was insulted by royalty, turned his head away from the Palace of St. James and gazed mournfully towards the city of London. Later the insult was taken back and he wheeled round and resumed his former position, retaining it unmoved through the succeeding agitations till he was taken down in July, 1874, and transferred to Sion House, at Isleworth.
The presiding genius gone, the work of destruction began, and in September of the same year the remains of Northumberland House were sold for building materials.