Pickering Place: Duels, Bears & the Last Texan Embassy

Pickering Place in London is the city's smallest public square, famous for housing the Republic of Texas legation from 1842 to 1845 above Berry Brothers and Rudd. Originating as a 1660s garden, the historic courtyard features working gaslights and Georgian architecture. In the 1840s, future Emperor Napoleon III plotted in the cellars while Texan diplomats operated upstairs, leaving a 160-pound rent debt settled in 1986.

London Β· from the walk β€œLondon Through the Eyes of a Black Cab Driver” Β· audio ~4 min Β· Generated

Pickering Place, London SW1A 1EA

When was the Republic of Texas legation located in Pickering Place, London?

Right, now look at this... See that narrow passageway with the little number three above it? Most people walk straight past. Even half the cabbies I know have never set foot in here. But step through that dark, oak-panelled tunnel and you'll find yourself in Pickering Place... London's smallest public square.......... This land was once part of Henry the Eighth's real tennis courts, annexed to his residence at Saint James's Palace. But the square you're standing in now? It's the covered remains of a garden from the mid sixteen sixties, when the Earl of Saint Albans secured a lease from King Charles the Second.......... Now. Have a look around. The original Georgian architecture, the quaint railings, and those gaslights... they still Work. One of the few spots in London still lit by gas. At night, this place glows like something out of a Dickens novel.......... But don't let the prettiness fool you. Despite its high society neighbours, Pickering Place was a hotbed of illicit activity in the eighteenth century... renowned for gambling, bear baiting, cock fighting, bare-knuckle boxing, and duelling. The proximity of the gentlemen's clubs, where immense fortunes were won or lost on the throw of a dice, meant there were plenty of scores to settle among the young bucks.......... Legend has it that Beau Brummell himself... the dandy who took Five hours to get dressed every day... once fought a duel right where you're standing. Though like many London legends, it's slightly uncertain whether that duel took place at all. Other sources say the Last London duel actually happened in a field near Camden in eighteen forty-three... and those sources come complete with the names of the duellists, while the Pickering Place battlers always remain nameless.......... Now here's the bit that really gets people. See the wine shop you just walked past? That's Berry Brothers and Rudd... Britain's Oldest wine and spirits merchant, founded in sixteen ninety-eight. Around seventeen sixty-five, they started weighing customers on their giant grocer's scales. This free service, offered to notable patrons who previously had to Pay a doctor for a weigh-in, became a social ritual among the elite. Their weight books still record the likes of Lord Byron, Beau Brummell, and William Pitt the Younger.......... But Here'S the story that'll stop you in your tracks. Look for the plaque at the entrance to the alley. It reads: "Texas Legation... In this building was the legation for the ministers from the Republic of Texas to the Court of Saint James, eighteen forty-two to eighteen forty-five." That's right... the Republic of Texas had its Embassy right here, above that wine shop. President Houston sent Secretary of State Doctor Ashbel Smith to serve as the Texas representative, establishing legations in Washington, Paris, and London.......... And when Texas joined the Union in eighteen forty-five? The Texan delegation departed the capital leaving a one hundred and sixty pound rent bill outstanding. That debt hung over the books for over a Century... until nineteen eighty-six. To mark the Texas sesquicentennial, twenty-six members of the Anglo-Texan Society visited the wine shop, dressed in full buckskins, to settle the outstanding debt.......... Oh, and one more thing. Louis Napoleon, later Emperor Napoleon the Third, held clandestine meetings in the cellars beneath this very building during his exile in the eighteen forties, plotting his return to France. So at the exact same time Texas was running its embassy Upstairs... a future emperor was scheming in the basement. You couldn't make it up.

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