Foreword
Our thanks to the Portman Estate Archives team for their assistance with reference documents and images for this section. All images should be considered the property of the Portman Estate unless stated otherwise.
Timeline
Completed projects
under construction
Projects underway
Joint ventures completed
1787 - 1810: The First Lord's Cricket Ground
Before the Georgian terraces and central garden were laid out, the land now occupied by Dorset Square Dorset Square was open ground on the northern edge of the built-up West End—known locally as “Dorset Fields.” In 1787, Thomas Lord Thomas Lord leased part of this ground and fenced it in to create what became his first London cricket venue: the earliest “Lord’s.” The Cricket Ground is shown in Norwood’s Map (1797).
That first ground quickly became the home base for the newly forming Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club, with early matches recorded in the late spring and summer of 1787 (including fixtures involving the White Conduit Club). Contemporary accounts emphasise not just the cricket but the spectacle: the field was sized to hold thousands of spectators, and Lord—ever the entrepreneur—controlled access and refreshments through his own on-site wine shop at the entrance. If you’re thinking “nearby pub,” the sources are clearer about food and drink being sold at the ground than they are about a single named tavern; still, with the New Road (now Marylebone Road) close by, it’s a fair inference that crowds would also have flowed to local inns and coffee-houses after play (but that part is less firmly documented).
The same open space that suited cricket also suited drilling. Talks and local-history notes about the site record that the cricket pitch and surrounding field were used by volunteer troops for drill practice—exactly the kind of ad-hoc training you’d expect in late-18th/early-19th-century London, when open ground near the city was at a premium. This adds a slightly different “origin story” to the square: not only an early cradle of organised cricket, but a practical parade-ground landscape that briefly served civic defence as well.
By the 1810 season the cricket ground closed (commonly linked to a rent dispute), and Lord shifted the venue first to Lisson Grove and then onward to the present Lord’s Cricket Ground Lord’s Cricket Ground. Not long afterwards, the Portman Estate Portman Estate redeveloped the former fields into the planned residential square we recognise today
1810: Houses Committed to Building
The Portman Estate followed a traditional building method, whereby the Land Owner would appoint a master planner to create a layout for the Estate, specifying the core design aesthetic for streets including the grandeur of the houses (from homes of the 1st Rate to homes of the 3rd Rate). The Layout was then subdivided into building plots. Speculative Builders would acquire the rights, build the houses to a finished shell state (including roads, etc), at which point the Estates Surveyor signed an affidavit confirming completion, and the property could be sold (and the first Lease Issued).
Whilst Thomas Lord is widely cited as remaining at Dorset Square until 1810, it is clear from Surveyor Affidavits, Lease Records, and Resident (Boyle’s) Address Books, that Houses were already being completed on the south side of the Square by 1809. It is unclear how Thomas Lords cricket ground continued during this time, though it is likely they were gradually pushed north by developments to the south before relocating altogether.
1890: Marylebone Station
Plan of the Parish of St Marylebone 1869 (Pre Marylebone Station)
Plan of Marylebone, 1902 (Post Marylebone Station
The Lost Harewood Square (where Station now stands)
1921 Aerial Photo Showing Blandford Square Alterations
In the last decade of of 19th Century, Dorset Square would lose its two neighbouring squares.
Plans for Marylebone Station were effectively finalised in the mid-1890s, following Parliamentary approval of the Great Central Railway’s London Extension. The key legal authority came with the Great Central Railway Act of 1893, supplemented by further Acts in 1895 and 1897, which fixed the alignment, authorised land acquisition, and enabled construction of a new London terminus at Marylebone. Physical works began in 1896, and the station opened for passenger services in March 1899.
The station was required despite the existence of Euston Station and Paddington Station because the Great Central sought its own direct route into London. Its line was engineered to a larger continental loading gauge, intended to accommodate through traffic and goods from the industrial Midlands and North, with long-term ambitions (never realised) of Channel Tunnel connectivity. Operational independence, rather than redundancy, was the driver: existing termini were controlled by rival companies and unsuitable for Great Central’s strategic aims.
The railway’s impact on the land north and west of Dorset Square was significant but highly localised. Dorset Square itself remained physically intact and visually unchanged from the surrounding streets, but the railway approach, goods depot and sidings required extensive land immediately to the north and west.
Most notably, Harewood Square, directly to the west of Dorset Square was lost entirely, cleared between 1896 and 1898 to make way for the new Station. A little to the north, Blandford Square lost its eastern half to the station platforms, with only a small garden remaining bordered by houses on 3 (instead of 4) sides. It was fully demolished some 70 years later to make way for densified housing.
Construction of the station, approach cuttings, and ancillary buildings was substantially complete by 1899, bringing the project from legislative approval to operation in roughly six years. In urban terms, the result was not a wholesale reconfiguration of Marylebone’s Georgian core, but a selective erasure of northern estate land. Dorset Square survived as planned and legible as ever; neighbouring squares such as Harewood Square did not—making Marylebone Station both a late Victorian addition to London’s rail network and the final major chapter in the reshaping of the area’s historic garden-square landscape.
1940-1945 Blitz & Subsequent bombings
During the Blitz (1940–41) and subsequent bombings, Dorset Square experienced limited but real bomb damage, reflecting its proximity to strategic targets rather than any intrinsic military value. The square lay close to Marylebone Station, associated rail infrastructure, and the Marylebone Road corridor—all of which increased exposure during air raids on transport and industrial networks.
Contemporary records and post-war mapping indicate that several buildings around the square suffered blast damage, with a small number experiencing direct hits or near misses. Damage ranged from shattered windows and roof loss to partial structural failure of individual properties. Importantly, the garden square itself and its overall Georgian layout survived intact: there was no wholesale destruction of terraces or loss of the central garden comparable to bombed areas elsewhere in Westminster.
As across much of Marylebone, damaged buildings were repaired or rebuilt largely to their original footprints and scale in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This continuity explains why Dorset Square today reads as architecturally coherent from the street, despite wartime disruption. The Blitz therefore represents an episode of interruption rather than transformation in the square’s history—significant in human and material terms, but leaving its urban form fundamentally unchanged.
1949-1951: Disputes over access
During the Second World War, many of Marylebone’s private garden squares—including Dorset Square—underwent a temporary but profound change in status. Railings were widely removed as part of the national scrap metal drives of 1940–42, and the physical separation between private gardens and the street was, in many cases, lost. Several squares were also adapted for civil defence purposes, including the digging of open trench air-raid shelters within garden enclosures. These practical wartime measures blurred long-established distinctions between private and public space and accustomed local residents to a more open, communal use of the squares.
In the immediate post-war period, this temporary openness became the backdrop to a broader civic debate. Facing acute shortages of public open space and under pressure to improve welfare provision, St Marylebone Borough Council explored whether private garden squares might continue to be used more widely. From 1949, the Council made formal approaches to the trustees and committees of several squares—including Dorset Square—seeking “joint user” arrangements, particularly to benefit invalids, elderly residents, and local workers. While compulsory acquisition was discussed internally, Council resolutions of late 1949 made clear that persuasion and negotiation were the preferred route, at least initially.
The trustees’ response, coordinated across multiple squares, was largely resistant. Committees argued that wartime access had been exceptional and temporary, justified only by national emergency. They emphasised that garden squares were privately funded, maintained, and legally protected amenities, paid for by the surrounding “frontagers.” Opening them permanently, even on a limited basis, was seen as undermining both property rights and the financial model that sustained the gardens. Nearby public parks—particularly Regent’s Park and Hyde Park—were repeatedly cited as evidence that wider public need was already met.
This resistance was not merely rhetorical. Correspondence and meeting notes show active coordination between squares in 1949–51, with Dorset Square householders formally consulted and a clear majority opposing any dilution of private control. While a minority were prepared to consider restricted access under trustee discretion, the dominant position was that reprivatisation after the war was a restoration, not a withdrawal—a return to the pre-war legal and social settlement rather than a renegotiation of it.
By the early 1950s, the Council’s efforts had largely stalled. The railings were eventually reinstated, gardens repaired, and control firmly re-asserted by trustees. What remains significant is that this episode marks the last serious attempt by a local authority to reframe London’s private garden squares as semi-public assets. Dorset Square emerged from the process physically intact and legally unchanged, but the correspondence reveals how narrowly that outcome was secured—and how the legacy of wartime openness briefly challenged assumptions that had shaped the square since its Georgian origins.
1951: Reduction of Portman Estate
In the post-war decades, the Portman Estate undertook a significant shift in how it managed its holdings north of Marylebone Road. Traditionally, much of the estate had been held on long leases rather than sold outright, preserving long-term control over development and character. By the 1950s, however, a combination of economic pressure, changing tax regimes, and a transformed property market led the estate to reconsider this model.
The aftermath of the Second World War brought rising repair liabilities, particularly for older Georgian and Victorian housing that had suffered bomb damage or prolonged wartime neglect. At the same time, new fiscal pressures—including Estate Duty and other post-war taxes—made it increasingly attractive for large landed estates to realise capital value rather than retain income-producing but maintenance-heavy assets. Selling freeholds offered a way to convert long-term, incremental ground rents into immediate capital receipts.
As a result, during the 1950s, the Portman Estate began to sell off freeholds across parts of Marylebone north of the road, often to existing long leaseholders or to resident-controlled companies. The following Gallery provides a snapshot of the auctioned-off freehold titles.
This process transferred responsibility for repair, insurance, and long-term stewardship away from the estate and onto individual owners or newly formed management bodies. While this marked a retreat from direct estate control, it also enabled a more localised and often more engaged form of property management.
Importantly, this sell-off did not represent a wholesale withdrawal from Marylebone. The Portman Estate retained substantial holdings elsewhere and continued to influence the area’s development through retained land, planning engagement, and covenants where applicable. North of Marylebone Road, however, the 1950s disposals marked a decisive transition—from aristocratic estate management to a more fragmented pattern of ownership that still underpins the governance of squares, terraces, and resident bodies today.
Famous Former Residents
Over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Dorset Square attracted a striking range of residents whose work helped shape British literary and cultural life. Its combination of proximity to the West End, relative calm, and architectural dignity made it especially appealing to writers and professionals who wanted to live close to London’s intellectual heart without being immersed in its noise.
Dorset Square has historically housed doctors, artists, musicians, and senior civil servants, many of whom played influential roles in their respective fields even if they are less widely known today. Taken together, these former residents reinforce the square’s character not just as an elegant piece of Georgian town planning, but as a place quietly embedded in the cultural and intellectual life of London for more than two centuries.
Perhaps the most celebrated resident was author Mary Shelley, who lived at 10 Dorset Square with here father, William Goodwin, from 1812 until 1814 when she eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, penning Frankenstein two years later. The address is one of the few London locations firmly associated with her literary career.