The Estate Of The Royal Commissioners For The Exhibition Of 1851.

The acreage of the unappropriated land is as follows : — Frontage . Acres . Prince Alhert ' s-road AV . ( about ) 6-JKensington-road K " . „ 5 Exhibition-road E . „ 3 : , Over the entrance to the Horti-. cnltural gardens , which would

have to he arched over , W , „ \ Total 15 In a Parliamentary paper , ordered by the House of ¦ Commons to be printed February 15 1860 , is a report from a Special Committee of the Trustees of the British Museum . It is there assumed that a site can be had at

South Kensington for £ 5 , 000 an acre . The joint ownership was cancelled in January , 1859 , and from that time the Commissioners have bad a absolute right to dispose of this land on any terms they please . "When their attention was drawn to the above-given statement , * they considered what sum the / would be prepared to take for .. these ( or any portion of these ) 15 acres , if application

were made to them , they decided to ask £ 10 , 000- } - an acre , ¦ and £ 5 , 000 per acre for that part—a quarter of an acre —• where the necessity of arching over the ground under the agreement with the Horticultural Society would leave no . ground floor space available . The marketable value of the land would , it is believed , be understated at £ 20 , 000 -an acre ; for a piece of about 2 £ acreson the west side of

, Prince Albert ' s road and south of Gore-road , is let on lease for 99 years at a ground rent equivalent to £ 20 , 000 . Here the frontage was valued at £ 3 per foot by a depth of about 200 feet , and that on . the east side of Prince Albert ' s-road is considered to be also worth £ 3 , whereas the frontage to Kensington-road cannot be put at less than £ 4 a foot b 200 feet deep so thatadopting the

y ; , same proportion , the value per acre would actually be be £ 26 , 000 or £ 27 , 000 ; and this for land which was bought ten years ago at £ 3 , 000 . The main square of the estate , bounded by the four great roads , contains about 55 or 56 acres , of which 53 belong to the Commissioners . The remainder , about 2

acres , is ( as already stated ) the property of Lord Auckland , and situate at the north-east corner , fronting to Kensington-road . The property is laid out upon the principle of erecting buildings round the border only of the square , leaving the centre unbuilt upon . The latter , to the amount of 22 ^ - acres , is let to the Horticultural Society on a lease of

31 years from the 1 st of June , 1861 , at a contingent rental if they earn profits . The lease is renewable for a further period of 31 years , on application being made two years previous to the expiry of the first term . In case the Commissioners decline to renew the lease they are to payto the Society , by way of compensation , a sum of not less than £ 15000 and whichin certain contingencies

-,, , , may be greater . The Commissioners , having undertaken to erect arcades and execute earthworks at a cost of £ 50 , 000 , raised this amount by a second mortgage loan from Greenwich Hospital , at the rate of 4 £ per cent , interest . _ The 16 acres lent to the Society of Arts for the International Exhibition , are granted , rent free , tip to the 31 st of December , 1862 , and ivill be reserved for another

Exhibition in 1872 , on payment of £ 10 , 000 . A plot , on which stand tho picture galleries facing Cromwell-road , is let on lease for 99 years to the Society , on condition that the permanent buildings shall be used solely for holding exhibitions , that they do not cover more than an acre of ground , and that they have a sum expended on them at first of not less than £ 20000 to be increasedif required

,, , , by the Commissioners , to £ 50 , 000 , at the close of tbe Exhibition , in order to give the fa 9 ade a suitable architectural character , and to avoid any disfigurement of the estate . The Trustees of the Exhibition subsequently obtained four more acres between the Horticultural

Gardens and Prince Albert ' s-road , with the stipulation that they should build permanent walls to two arcades and a roof to the south arcades in place of the temporary structures which the Commissioners had agreed to erect . In consideration of thc saving effected , the latter have agreed to credit the Trustees with a sum of £ 1 , 300 , if the Exhibition of 1862 should yield no profit .

Mr . Bowring , in his evidence before the committee on the British Museum , speaks of the cost of the estate as £ 5 , 000 an acre . It will bo seen , from the items already given relating to the Gore House and Villars estates , that 69 acres were bought at rather more than an average rate of £ 3000 an acre . With the plan before one , it is impossible to be blind to the fact that it is precisely the

two just mentioned properties with which tbe public will have to deal , if at all . The nation could have had—indeed , did own—the Gore estate at £ 3 , 000 an acre . Granting that from first to last the cost has exceeded £ 5 , 000 on the average over the whole property ; still , hei-e is an advance of price to double the amount . "We are to pay £ 10 , 000 , and this ( as we have seen ) is half , or less than half , the marketable value . The Commissioners say that they " offer the land , at a

lower price than the market value , because they consider the British Museum to be an important national institution . If Parliament wish to remove any part of the collections to Kensington , the Commissioners are anxious to afford every facility in their power , and feel that they should not deal with the question as a purely mercantile transaction . " Yet the sum asked has something

exceedingly like a " mercantile" look of 100 per cent , profit . The Government can most certainly be alleged to be perfectly free from any commercial taint , for they have evidently , somehow or other , made rather a dubious bargain in tho public interest . It should be borne in mind that tho money spent on the Commissioners' estate has been applied in the most

extraordinarily profitable manner . The outlying land is let on building leases for ground-rents which pay the interest of the loan from Greenwich Hospital . It is calculated that the fee simple of them would , if sold , produce £ 120 , 000 . The main square is valued at £ 500 , 000 . Here , then , we have tbe enormous amount of £ 620 , 000 , exclusive of the 12 acres retained by tbe Government , and which are now supposed to be worth £ 100 , 000 . The utmost penny that the estate has cost has been £ 382 , 05113 s . 9 d . *