IT takes pluck and vision to build a large swathe of London almost single-handedly. Developer James Burton had both and the figures of what he accomplished remain dizzying even 300 years later. In the 38 years between 1785 and 1823, he built (or supervised the building of) 2,366 townhouses, rising to riches and success from relatively modest origins.
Born James Haliburton in London in 1761, he was the son of a developer of Scottish origins and it was in Southwark that he began his career in 1785. Blackfriars Bridge had joined the two banks of the Thames in 1769 and this offered an opportunity for speculative development in south London that Burton seized with gusto, first in his native neighbourhood, then in Clapham Common. Soon, however, the sirens of Bloomsbury lured him across the river, where the New Road linking Paddington to
