Saville House

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Venue Type & Location

Various

Site Name: Saville House
Location: London
County: London (city-county)
Location Type: Town - in town at determined location

Overview

  • Address: The Middle of the North Side of Leicester Square (next to Leicester House). For a current map, Click Here.


  • Alternate Names: Saville House contained a range of performance spaces, including: Saville House Gymnasium (aka Green's Gymnasium, Green's Gymnasium & Shooting Gallery), The Linwood Gallery (aka Walhalla), and the Grand American Hall.


  • Performance Space Description: Information about this venue has not yet been compiled; however, some sense of the performance space may be gleaned by following the links at right. In particular:


  • See the 'Bibliographic Sources' link for a provisional list of venue-relevant resources (both primary and secondary). Wherever possible (i.e. when the pertinent text is relatively short and/or easily condensed) this material has been transcribed, and appears beneath the appropriate bibliographic citation.


  • See the 'Events at venue' link for a listing of blackface/minstrelsy-related events that took place in this performance space (with attached bibliographic references).


    Beth Marquis

  • Events at Saville House

    Event Date Venue Location Troupe
    Variety 26 December 1848 - 30 December 1848 London, London (city-county) Tremont Serenaders
    Variety 26 February 1849 - 3 March 1849 London, London (city-county) Juba Polka Troupe (Linwood Gallery, 49)
    Concert 5 March 1849 - 10 March 1849 London, London (city-county) Juba Polka Troupe (Linwood Gallery, 49)
    Cultural Performance 8 January 1851 - 8 January 1851 London, London (city-county) Young Sambo
    Cultural Performance 13 January 1851 - 18 January 1851 London, London (city-county) Young Sambo
    Cultural Performance 27 January 1851 - 1 February 1851 London, London (city-county) Young Sambo
    Cultural Performance 5 February 1851 - 5 February 1851 London, London (city-county) Young Sambo
    Cultural Performance 21 April 1851 - 26 April 1851 London, London (city-county) Young Sambo
    Cultural Performance 4 August 1851 - 9 August 1851 London, London (city-county) Young Sambo
    Cultural Performance 11 August 1851 - 16 August 1851 London, London (city-county) Young Sambo
    Cultural Performance 12 August 1851 - 12 August 1851 London, London (city-county) Young Sambo, Sutton, Sambo
    Cultural Performance 18 August 1851 - 23 August 1851 London, London (city-county) Young Sambo
    Cultural Performance 25 August 1851 - 30 August 1851 London, London (city-county) Young Sambo
    Variety 10 October 1851 - 10 October 1851 London, London (city-county) Havanna Troup Operatic of Real Negroes
    Minstrel Show 20 October 1851 - 25 October 1851 London, London (city-county) Havanna Troup Operatic of Real Negroes
    Minstrel Show 10 November 1851 - 15 November 1851 London, London (city-county) Original Jim Crow & His Son, & ...

    Bibliographic Sources

    • Black’s New Guide to London and its Environs. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1863.




      “…at the middle of the north side [of Leicester Square] is Savile House, at which exhibitions of various kinds have taken place, including Miss Linwood's curious needlework imitating pictures that pleased our mothers and grandmothers so much. It had been the residence of Sir George Savile, whose books, paintings, and furniture were burned in the square by the rioters of 1780” (327-8).
    • Dictionary of Victorian London Online. 07/27/2008 (http://www.victorianlondon.org/)

      (Under Entertainment - Theatre & Shows - Theatre - Linwood Gallery)

    • Howard, Diana. London Theatres and Music Halls 1850-1950. London: The Library Association, 1970.

      pp79-81

    • Timbs, John. Curiosities of London (1868). London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1868.




      “ “… Walpole tells us that Frederick, Prince of Wales added to Leicester House the mansion westward - Savile House - for his children; a communication being made between the two houses, as Sir John Fielding phrased it, in 1777, ‘for the more immediate intercourse of the royal family.’ Hence much of the celebrity of Leicester House became extended to Savile House, wherein, probably, was performed Addison's play of Cato by the junior branches of the Prince of Wales's household, Prince George playing Portius. […]


      At the commencement of the present century, Savile House was rebuilt by the late M. Samuel Page of Dulwich, an architect of some eminence at the time. The famous Chancery suit of ‘Page v. Linwood and others,’ which lasted forty years, related to this property. Lord Chancellor Cottenham, when Mr Pepys, was counsel for the plaintiff; and Mr Sugden, now Lord St. Leonards, was counsel for Miss Linwood.


      Miss Linwood's Needlework was exhibited at Savile House from the commencement of the present century until the year after her death in 1845, in her 90th year. She worked her first picture when thirteen years old, and the last piece when seventy-eight years. […]


      At Savile House the National Political Union held its Reform meetings; and here was exhibited, in 1849, an extensive moving Panorama of the Mississippi River, &c. The place has since been a very Noah's Ark of exhibitions, of greater variety than delicacy. The large building, Savile House, was destroyed by fire in less than two hours, on the night of February 28, 1865” (511-13).