Thomas Lord's Second Ground

When in 1810 he was forced from the Dorset Square ground he established for the newly formed Marylebone Cricket Club in 1787, Thomas Lord moved a few hundred yards north. While for the purposes of the book I have attributed the landlords to be the Harding family, what is true is the length of the lease (88 years, for which he received very generous compensation) and the fact the building of the Regent Canal forced him to move again, this time to a duck pond he purchased another few cricket fields further north in St John's Wood – now the home of cricket. Lord Byron's report of the first Eton v. Harrow match at Lord's first ground in 1808 summed up the gregarious nature of the sport in the Regency. It took the Victorians to impose order – it is not for nothing that while most sports have a rule book, cricket has laws. Pictured above is the memorial in Lisson Grove and another plaque to the north end of Lisson Green estate.


Nearest tube Baker Street or Marylebone.

St Mary-le-Bone church

The third church in Mary-le-Bone was built in 1740 and replaced another small church on the same site. Charles Wesley, composer of Hark the Herald Angels Sing among other great hymns, was the Rector of St Mary-le-Bone. He died on 29 March 1788 and his body laid to rest St Mary-le-Bone Church graveyard. A memorial stone to him stands in the gardens in the High Street in modern Marylebone, close to where he was buried. Lord Byron was baptised there in 1788. and Admiral Lord Nelson worshipped there and his daughter Horatia was baptised in that church. The Chapel in Portman Square (long gone) was attached to St Mary-le-Bone. The church was replaced by the current one at the tip of the High Street in the 1820s. Nearest tube Baker Street or Marble Arch.

Hunterian Medical School

Set up by the eminent physician William Hunter in Soho's Great Windmill Street in the 1760s, the school which Decimus Doyle attends was one of several in London educating gentlemen in the medical arts. Medical practices were often barbaric, using similar methods that had been common for centuries, which yielded little other than killing the patient with a different affliction than the original ailment. Leeching (or blood letting), purgation and cold water dousing were common. There were three medical institutions: the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Surgeons, and the Society of Apothecaries. Physicians were university-educated and considered the most knowledgeable about medicine. They were not permitted to act as surgeons or dispense drugs as apothecaries. They were only permitted to examine patients, diagnose disease, and prescribe medications, and in 1800 there were 179 licensed physicians, though there were many more unlicensed ones. Decimus Doyle, therefore, was entering a rarified world. Surgeons performed operations, set broken bones, and treated accident cases and skin disorders. Apothecaries were not only druggists responsible for the sale, compounding, and supply of drugs but, thanks to the Apothecaries Act of 1815, were able to provide medical advice and prescribe medication themselves. 


Nearest tube Piccadilly.

Portman Square

The square was built between 1674-1684 on the land of Henry William Portman. The most notable properties were Home House, built by Robert Adam for Elizabeth, Countess of Home, and Montagu House, built by James Stuart for Mrs Elizabeth Montagu and destroyed during the Blitz. In the book Home House is occupied by the Duke of Atholl, Grand Master of the Ancients. Here is a drawing of the main staircase of Home House, from the Sir John Soane Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields, to give a taste of the grandeur of the properties.

The Honourable Basil Cochrane's mansion in Portman Square was described as being among the largest in the square, at the south west corner, and also accommodated the ambassador of the Ottoman Sultan (Turkey). Cochrane also set up his Indian vapour baths to the side of the property.


Nearest tube Marble Arch.

The Hindostanee Coffee House

From The Times:

HINDOSTANEE COFFEE-HOUSE, No. 34 George-street, Portman square - MAHOMED, East-Indian, informs the Nobility and Gentry, he has fitted up the above house, neatly and elegantly, for the entertainment of Indian gentlemen, where they may enjoy the Hoakha, with real Chilm tobacco, and India dishes, in the highest perfection, and allowed by the greated epicures to be unequalled to any curries ever made in England with choice wines, and every accommodation, and now looks up to them for their future patronage and support, and gratefully acknowledges himself indebted for their former favours, and trusts it will merit the highest satisfaction when made known to the public.


Spelling is subjective, though the plaque makers might have referred to the coffee house name as in Mahomet's original advertisement (above). That said, I have retained the first version of his name as published in the 1780s book (the T for a D) throughout. 34 George Street became 92 in 1872 and was completely re-built in 1957. The green plaque resides at 102 for practical reasons! The picture below was taken in the 1950s before the terrace was re-built. The Hindostanee Coffee House was in the property to the far right, on the corner.

Nearest tube Marble Arch.

Sake Dean Mahomet

Born in Patna in 1759, around the age of eleven Mahomet was taken on by a young Irishman, Godfrey Evan Baker, who was quartermaster of the 3rd European Regiment of the Bengal Army – the British East India Company's military force in India. As a follower of Mr Baker, Mahomet rose through the ranks to become a subadar (a mid-ranking officer and the highest an Indian could achieve). When Baker returned to Ireland in the 1780s Mahomet joined him, settling to run Baker's small estate outside Cork. During this time he became the first Indian to write and publish a book in English – The Travels of Dean Mahomet. Here he fell for and eloped with a "pretty Irish girl of respectable parentage", Jane Daly. They married in Dublin when Mahomet converted to Christianity. After the untimely death of Mr Baker, Mahomet journeyed to London where he managed the household of the Nabob, the Honourable Basil Cochrane. He opened The Hindostanee Coffee House in 1810, which purveyed Indian dishes "allowed by the greatest epicures to be unequalled to any curries ever made in England".