Alfred Noyes was an English poet and traditionalist, best remembered for lyrical and narrative verse including The Highwayman.
Alfred Noyes
Two Worlds For Memory
Sheed & Ward, 1953.
Lived at 13 Hanover Terrace from 1927 to 1937, when he sold it to H.G. Wells.
Your house seems to be perfectly delightful. It is the kind that one sees but never gets. Still, you must take one consideration with another. You have the ornamental water, but is not our dear Mr. Gosse also of Regent's Park? Eau et Gosse à tous les étages, as they say in the advertisement. Be careful
Noyes, best known now for his poem The Highwayman, does not himself mention the park. Here he is quoting a letter from his friend Barry Pain, whose warning is a pun on 'Eau et Gaz à tous les étages', the sign advertising 'Water and Gas on all floors' that used to appear on the facade of Paris apartments. 'Be careful' may be a reference to Gosse's bisexual inclinations. Though happily married he had a long relationship with the sculptor Hamo Thorneycroft. Asked about Gosse's sexuality, his fellow critic Lytton Strachey said he was a 'Hamo-sexual'.
Noyes only mentions the house when distinguished folk are invited there, e.g. a lunch to discuss a forthcoming BBC talk in praise of James Joyce's recently published Ulysses. The guests included the Director of the BBC, Sir John Reith; they all agreed it was 'a foul chaos', and ought to be banned.