Microcosm of London Plate 083 – Tattersall’s Horse Repository.
Tattersall’s or “Tatts”, where gentlemen could talk sports, place bets, and share stories without fear of being overheard by women.
Even to this day, the most fashionable sporting resort and renowned equine bloodstock auction house is Tattersall’s of London, where the purchase and sale of horses, hounds, and carriages took place (The Sporting Magazine, 1811). Well-heeled aristocrats with a passion for horse racing and breeding set up their own stables on their estates with the best of the breed from Tatts.
During the Regency period, Tatt’s was located across from Hyde Park in London. Founded in 1766 by Richard Tattersall (‘Old Tatt’), the former groom and trainer to the Duke of Kingston secured a 99-year lease from the Marquess of Westminster to use rural land behind St. George’s Hospital, close to Hyde Park Corner.
In 1857 Tattersall’s relocated to nearby Fulham Bridge Yard, where horse-dealing was already well-established. Richard and Edmund Tattersall, great-grandsons of the original Tattersall’s founder, oversaw the construction of the new auction yard at Knightsbridge Green beginning the summer of 1863 with completion by the spring of 1865. A stone archway with iron gates marked the grand entrance to the new location where the Tattersall’s remained for over seventy years. The main entrance was located at the south-eastern corner of St George’s Hospital, where Grosvenor Crescent is currently located close to Apsley House, home of the Duke of Wellington from 1817.
Tattersall’s was a sizable venue with stables to accommodate up to 120 horses. While awaiting auction days, sellers paid Tattersall’s a moderate fee for boarding their livestock. From 1865 to 1939, meetings at Tattersall’s were held weekly and increased to two times a week during the season to hold horse sales and social gatherings. Horses and carriages to be sold in Monday’s auction arrived the prior Friday so gentlemen could view the items for sale in advance.
The Microcosm of London, a publication of London life in the 1800s, indicates that on mornings when there were no sales, the Repository served as a fashionable lounge for sporting gentlemen who could talk sports, place bets, and share stories without having to be mindful of women overhearing their conversations.
Historically, Tattersall’s was originally part of a land development funded by Sir Robert Grosvenor, who became Earl in 1802. A statue in honor of Lord Grosvenor was erected at Tattersall’s Repository near Hyde Park Corner. The area, now known as Belgravia, is one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in London.
Betting on The Races
Betting took place in a room south of the grand entrance. To preserve the privacy of individuals placing bets on the races, the entrance to the building on the north side was railed off from the public. Fearful of offending aristocratic patrons, the practice of betting continued even after the 1853 Betting Act, which was intended to eliminate such a vice.
Tattersall’s was not directly involved in betting, which was controlled by the Jockey Club, a high-society social club similar to a gentleman’s club for horse owners, horse-breeders, horse racing nobility and the gentry. The Jockey Club (show below) gathered inside Tatt’s, where members could “win one another’s or anybody else’s money by acquiring, whether for a price or from breeding, the best horses in creation” (Black 1891, p. 15).
Inside, the betting room’s decor boasted green and gold walls set off by a decorative, tiled floor, similar to the extravagant Genoise style of palaces in Italy. Glass domes provided natural lighting and the west end folding doors, flanked by stone lion statues guarding the entrance, opened onto a courtyard for outside betting.
Immanuel Giel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
A granite road led to the auction yard at the center of the complex. A rectangular court, flanked by galleries and covered by a glass ceiling, sat at the center of a two-story building 60 feet by 108 feet (see above). Panes of the famous glazed Hartley’s patented glass, which opened for ventilation, rested on iron girders lining the roof.
The Fox
In the center of the auction court yard stood a stone cupola topped by the bust of George IV. Underneath the cupola roof is a drinking-fountain statue, affectionately known as “The Fox”, depicting a fox with a raised paw. The fox is said to symbolize royal fox hunting, when hunters and hounds gathered for the hunt.
Auctions are held from a wooden podium pit in the north-west corner facing the ‘long trot’, where the horses showed their paces (pictured below). Carriage and harness sales were held separately in the arcaded gallery.
Auctions continued at Knightsbridge Green up to the beginning of the war in September 1939, when the marketplace was relocated to Newmarket in Suffolk.
During the war, the Fox was placed in Newmarket for safe-keeping and avoided being damaged when the auction yard and stable was struck during a bomb raid in 1944. In 1955, the entrance arch and the Fox both were re-erected at Newmarket, where they remain to this day.
Life Off Leash with Working Pack Hounds by Lilla Mason and Glenye Cain Oakford.
Today Tattersalls is still the leading auctioneer of thoroughbred race horses in Britain and remains at Newmarket in Suffolk.
A Royal Patron: Tattersall’s & The Prince of Wales
The Prince of Wales was often seen at Tattersall’s with a trainer by the name of Porter, who made purchases on behalf of the prince. The Prince, who never bid himself, was generally present at auctions with a Newmarket beauty. Below is a satirical caricature of the Prince of Wales in a waggonette with his entourage in tow:
(Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, ‘Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum’, VI, 1938)
The artistic rendition depicts a ramshackle coach conveying the Prince of Wales from Carlton House to Brighton with two horses of the team of four shown in the print. Louis Weltje, who became cook to the Prince of Wales in the 1780s, drives the coach with his box-seat crammed full of provisions. Seated inside the coach is the prince’s mistress, Mrs. Fitzherbert and the Prince of Wales, who gazes amorously at his lover. On the coach’s outside panel are two stars and the Prince of Wale’s royal feathers and motto, turned upside-down.
The satire makes fun of the time when the Prince closed half of Carlton House and refused to pay his debts. The Prince then traveled to Brighton in a hired post-chaise on July 11th, 1786, with Mrs. Fitzherbert following on July 24th. It was rumored that Mrs. Fitzerbert was pregnant at the time.
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References:
Black, Robert, The Jockey Club and Its Founders, 1891.
Knightsbridge Green Area: Knightsbridge Green in Survey of London: Volume 45, Knightsbridge, (London, 2000) p. 88-91. British History Retrieved at https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol45/p. 88-91 on March 18, 2024.
Survey of London, Volume XLI, page 5 and Plate. Reproduced in Survey of London, Volume XLI, Plate.
Davis, pp.144–6: Chancellor, p. 19, 78–9: MDR 1724/4/260; 1726/6/175.
MDR 1784/1/558; 1784/2/404–5; 1784/3/464; 1784/4/102; 1785/5/289: R. Horwood, Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster …, 1792–9 Edition.
LMA, MBO/Plans/446: DSR: MDR 1853/9/474; 1856/4/478–9: Annual Report of the United Vestry of the Parishes of St. Margaret and St John … 1899, p. 15–16.
MDR 1737/3/214–26; 1738/2/260–2.
The Times, March 20, 1879, p.11b: CERC, Church Commissioners’ file 46300: Vincent Orchard, Tattersalls, Two Hundred Years of Sporting History, 1953. p. 304.
RB: WCA, Acc.1188, bundle II.
KLS, MSS 3785, 3798: DNB: Davis, p. 146.
Orchard, op.cit., pp.92–6 passim: RB: WCA, 1049/4/50, p.72; 1049/5/14, p. 410.
Hermione Hobhouse, Thomas Cubitt, 1971, p.137: ILN, February 19, 1857, p. 147: MDR 1857/5/527–8.
BN, July 3, 1863, p.509: B, January 9, 1864, p.31: ILN, April 22, 1865, p. 382.
Illustrated Times, April 22, 1865, p.245: B, July 24, 1869, p. 590.
Colvin, p.958: Sporting Review, April 1865, p. 275.
Sporting Review, April 1865, p. 275.
Penny Illustrated Paper, July 2, 1869, p. 6–7.
B, January 9, 1864, p.31: Illustrated Times, April 22, 1865, p. 245.
Sporting Review, Feb 1865, p. 84.
Survey of London, vol.XXXIV, 1966, p.342, Pl .
Sporting Review, April 1865, p.277. January 9, 1864, p. 31:
Sporting Review, April 1865, p.276: Illustrated Times, April 15, 1865, p. 245.
Orchard, op.cit., pp.302–4: Peter Willett, The Story of Tattersalls, 1987, p. 91–2, 95: The Sphere, June 12, 1948, p. 340.
WA, Register Book LXIII, ff. 134N–5: BAL Archives, PoFam/1/4, p.32: The Times, Feb 20, 1841, p. 5e.
CERC, Church Commissioners’ file 46300: The Architect, Oct 30, 1875, p. 242: DSR 1875/443.
CERC, National Society file no.5755: LMA, GLC/AR/BR/23/ 027279; GLC/AR/BR/22/032227.
