ABSTRACT
In a Discourse of 1873, the Treasurer of the Royal Institution, William Spottiswoode, regretted the loss but described that Laboratory as 'probably the very worst, and certainly all but the worst, chemical laboratory in London'. In order to explain how the Royal Institution came to acquire the mixture of leaseholds and freeholds it is necessary to go back to the seventeenth century. The house was demolished at once and Dover, Stafford, Albemarle, and Bond Streets began to be laid out on the freehold land with the intention of disposing of building plots for the construction of substantial houses. Upon the site the Earl of Clarendon built Clarendon House and, in addition, acquired a 99 year lease from the City in 1668 on 24 acres of the Conduit Meads estate, north of his freehold, to provide a park worthy of the house.
