Estates in Bloomsbury
1 Duke of Bedford
2 City of London Corporation
3 Capper Mortimer
4 Fitzroy (Duke of Grafton)
5 Somers
6 Skinners' (Tonbridge)
7 Battle Bridge
8 Lucas
9 Harrison
10 Foundling Hospital
11 Rugby
12 Bedford Charity (Harpur)
13 Doughty
14 Gray's Inn
15 Bainbridge–Dyott (Rookeries)
Area between the Foundling and Harrison estates: Church land
Grey areas: fragmented ownership and haphazard development; already built up by 1800
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About the Lucas Estate
This seven-acre estate in the north-east of Bloomsbury was originally part of the Peperfield area of the Harrison estate, but became separated from it in the eighteenth century (Survey of London, vol. 24, 1952)
Its owner at the beginning of the nineteenth century was Joseph Lucas, a tin plate worker, who decided in 1801 to develop the land (Survey of London, vol. 24, 1952)
The estate was a small strip with a curved top, stretching from the area of the Boot pub to Gray’s Inn Road
Its main street when developed was Cromer Street, which was begun in 1801, and known as Lucas Street after the landowner until 1834 (Survey of London, vol. 24, 1952)
The origin of other street names on the estate remains obscure
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Whidborne Buildings
It is a block of flats to the west of Whidborne (Brighton) Street, in the north-east of Bloomsbury
It was built by the East End Dwellings Company in the 1890s as model housing for the deserving working class, to replace earlier tenements on the site which had become slums
It was named after the new name of Brighton Street, Whidborne Street, which in turn was named after Sir George Ferris Whidborne, benefactor of nearby Holy Cross Church
Information about this and the other buildings constructed in the area by the East End Dwellings Co can be found in London Metropolitan Archives, ref. P90/PET/83
In the twentieth century it became part of the Hillview Estate
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