Estates in Bloomsbury

1 Duke of Bedford
2 City of London Corporation
3 Capper Mortimer
4 Fitzroy (Duke of Grafton)
5 Somers
6 Skinners' (Tonbridge)
7 Battle Bridge
8 Lucas
9 Harrison
10 Foundling Hospital
11 Rugby
12 Bedford Charity (Harpur)
13 Doughty
14 Gray's Inn
15 Bainbridge–Dyott (Rookeries)

Area between the Foundling and Harrison estates: Church land

Grey areas: fragmented ownership and haphazard development; already built up by 1800

About the Lucas Estate

This seven-acre estate in the north-east of Bloomsbury was originally part of the Peperfield area of the Harrison estate, but became separated from it in the eighteenth century (Survey of London, vol. 24, 1952)

Its owner at the beginning of the nineteenth century was Joseph Lucas, a tin plate worker, who decided in 1801 to develop the land (Survey of London, vol. 24, 1952)

The estate was a small strip with a curved top, stretching from the area of the Boot pub to Gray’s Inn Road

Its main street when developed was Cromer Street, which was begun in 1801, and known as Lucas Street after the landowner until 1834 (Survey of London, vol. 24, 1952)

The origin of other street names on the estate remains obscure

Black Horse Yard

Not to be confused with any of the other numerous Black Horse Yards in London, 13 of which are listed in James Elmes’s A Topographical Dictionary of London and its Environs (1831) and at least one of which was near Tottenham Court Road

From its listing in the 1841 census, it is evident that it was somewhere near Cromer Street, but it is too small to be named or shown on most maps of the time

It does, however, appear on the Ordnance Survey map of 1867–1870, which shows it leading off Gray’s Inn Road between Cromer Street and Harrison Street

It was presumably named after an adjacent Black Horse pub, although no pub appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1867–1870

The 1841 census shows its few inhabitants to be mainly carpenters, sofa makers, and cabinet makers

It apparently no longer exists