Manor House, 21 Soho Square

In 1678 a lease was granted on a plot in Soho Square to John Dunton by Richard Frith (who laid out the rest of the Square in 1681) and William Pym. Dunton built two houses on the site which were later converted into a single dwelling with the address of 21 Soho Square. For the next 90 years the house was lived in by a succession of prominent figures including from 1685, James Grahme, and then briefly in 1691 by his brother Richard Graham, Viscount Preston. Between 1730 and 1734, Manor House was the home of Sir Rowland Winn 4th Bart of Nostell Priory, Yorkshire. During Winn's tenure George Vertue recorded that a "large family picture of Sir Thomas More" was hung there, this was a copy by…

In 1776 the house, known then as The White House, was bought by Thomas Hopper, who, between 1778 and 1801 styled it as a hotel although all contemporary accounts point to its real business being as a high-class magical brothel. and wrote: <blockquote>Some of the apartments, it is said, were furnished in a style of costly luxury; while others were fitted up with springs, traps, and other contrivances, so as to present no appearance other than that of an ordinary room, until the machinery was set in motion. In one room, into which some wretched girl might be introduced, on her drawing a curtain as she would be desired, a skeleton, grinning horribly, was precipitated forward, and caught the…