Millionaire Houses Along The Strand with Dr. Paula Henderson

The Strand, a major street in the City of Westminster, London was, from the middle ages, the most prestigious place to live in London. Running from the Temple on the east to Charing Cross on the west (just as it does today), the Strand was strategically placed between two power centres: the City and Westminster. Furthermore, from the 1530s, leading courtiers and aristocrats acquired the magnificent medieval bishops’ inns and their spacious gardens, adapting the houses and beautifying the gardens as showpieces, visible to all who travelled on the Thames. Like the palaces along the Grand Canal in Venice, these great houses were seen as powerful expressions of the city’s wealth and grandeur. While most of these houses were on the south side of the Strand, Lord Burghley built a new house along the north side. A recently discovered plan of his house and garden is the most important source of information about the splendour and complexity of these houses and gardens, a short period in London’s history of true rus in urbe. Dr. Paula Henderson, architectural and garden historian will talk about the history of this area of London and its architecural treasures.