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The Hampton Site.
In the sixteenth century this site adjoined the royal mews and was an area of stables and coach houses. Whitcomb Street was known as Hedge Lane. The Duke of Monmouth owned property here and gave his name to Monmouth Court which was shown on plans of the area as late as 1874. Throughout the nineteenth century the street remained residential.

Shop fronts then appeared on the ground floors and numbers 14 to 18 Whitcomb Street on this site were occupied by Hamptons the builders, decorators and furniture suppliers. This later became Hamptons furniture store which was bombed in 1940 during the Second World War. In 1959 the site was acquired by the government for an extension to the National Gallery.

In March 1985 three brothers, John, Simon and Timothy Sainsbury offered to commission a new building for the site as a gift to the nation. The Sainsbury Wing designed by Venturi Scott Brown Associates of Philadelphia USA opened in July 1991.