Albany

Piccadilly (W1) This most comfortable and well-regulated set of chambers, now known as The Albany, stands partly on the site of two houses and long gardens which originally reached as far as Vigo Lane. The first was inhabited in 1715 by Sir John Clarges, and the one toward the east by Lady Stanhope. They were taken down, and another mansion erected, which, in 1725, according to the plans in St. George's Vestry-room, was inhabited by the Earl of Sunderland. The first Lord Melbourne, father of the Whig Premier, expended vast sums upon this spot; his lordship had the ceiling of the ballroom painted by Cipriani, and those of the other best rooms by Wheatley and Rebecca. The Duke of York, who had much improved Lord Amherst's house at Whitehall, exchanged houses with Lord Melbourne ; it then received the appellation of York House, and when his Royal Highness left it, the house was divided into chambers, the garden built upon, and, in compliment to its last Royal owner, it received the name of his Scottish dukedom of Albany. Among famous people who have lived in the Albany are Lord Byron, George Canning, Lord Clyde (Sir Colin Campbell) , Lord Lytton, Lord Macaulay, Lord Melbourne, Lord Glenelg, etc. (Reference: Smith's Streets of London, p. 16)