Front elevations of 1-14 St Christopher's Place, Westminster, looking south towards Barrett Street and Gee's Court. St Christopher's Place dates to the 1760s. Thomas Barratt of Brentford, a prosperous brick and tile maker, owned Great Conduit Field on which the street was built. In 1765, after Barrett's death, his partners – Richard Forster, a bricklayer, and John Crowther, a plasterer – built houses on the field and created Barrett’s Court, a narrow street. By the 1830s it had become a run-down slum. In 1869-70, housing reformer Octavia Hill along with Julia, Countess of Ducie, and Emma Brooke began purchasing properties and refurbishing or replacing them. In 1884 the street was renamed St Christopher’s Place, known for its second-hand furniture trade and later for antique shops. In this view, Number 14 is on the left-hand side, with an antiques dealer, A. Cook Antiques, occupying the ground floor. The four-storey building has Tudor-esque fretwork, two pedimented Corinthian columns either side of the doorway and a Victorian-style street lamp affixed to the wall. Further along, a mix of eighteenth century, nineteenth century and modern buildings, including a sign for Hiroko, one of the first Japanese restaurants in London, opened 1967.