46, Lord Herschell.

On the west side, at the corner of Buckingham Palace Road, are Belgrave
Mansions, built from designs by Cundy in 1868, a large block in French
Renaissance style, with a frontage of nearly 300 feet. The ground-floor
is occupied by shops, and above are five floors of flats. The centre of
the open space is occupied by two triangular enclosed gardens, and is
crossed by Ebury Street, once an open lane leading over the fields to
Chelsea. Houses were built on it after 1750, and in 1779 the
north-eastern end was named Upper Ranelagh Street and Ranelagh Street.
The south-western end was Upper Ebury Street, but the whole was renamed
Ebury Street in 1867. It is an uninteresting street of unpretending
houses and shops. In Upper Ebury Street lived: Rodwell the composer;
William Skelton, engraver, d. 1848; No. 174 is the Boys' School
belonging to the parish of St. Barnabas.

At the north-east end of Ebury Street is Victoria Square, a small square
of plain houses built about 1837, out of which Albert Street leads to
Grosvenor Place. In the square lived, at No. 8, Thomas Campbell,
1841-43; 5, Earl of Mount Edgcumbe.

At the other end, near Ebury Bridge, is Ebury Square, built about 1820
on the site of Ebury Farm. This ancient property, which derives its name
from the Saxon _ey_, water, and _burgh_, a fortified place, is mentioned
in 1307, when permission was granted by Edward I. to John de Benstede to
fortify it. In Queen Elizabeth's time it consisted of a farm of 430
acres, let on lease for L21 per annum. In 1676 it came into the
possession of the Grosvenor family, and in 1725 embraced a long narrow
area, reaching from Buckingham House to the Thames between the
Westbourne and the present Westmoreland Street.

The square was partially destroyed in 1868, but the old houses remain on
the north-west and south sides. In the centre is a garden, and the
ground between it and Buckingham Palace Road is occupied by St.
Michael's National Schools, opened in 1870, a spacious building,
accommodating about a thousand scholars; there is a large playground.
The site had been previously occupied by the Pimlico Literary
Institution, built in 1830 from designs by J. P. Deering.

On the remaining side a handsome block of industrial dwellings (Ebury
Buildings) was built in 1872, when the old Flask Lane (1785) was swept
away. The approaches on the north-west are Semley Place (1785), late
Flask Row, and Little Ebury Street (1823).