The sale was concluded in June, 1874, and, in September and October of that year, "the fine old mansion underwent its final stage of degradation." Its materials were sold by auction. The lots consisted of 3,000,000 bricks, the grand marble staircase, the elaborate ornamentation of the various apartments and corridors, and lead to the weight of 400 tons. The sale realised but £6500, and of this sum the great staircase--subsequently removed to No. 49 Prince's Gate--brought £360. Some of the pictures had been removed to Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, others to the ducal town residence, No. 2 Grosvenor Place. "The progress of wealth and luxury," said a writer in the _Standard_ at the time of the projected demolition, "has long since dimmed the splendours of what was once the proudest of the London houses of the English nobility. The march of fashion westward had left it isolated amidst an uncongenial neighbourhood of small shops. Commerce had overtaken and overwhelmed it, so that it stood somewhat abruptly in the full stream of London life, making it too violent a contrast with the surrounding houses, and destroying whatever of felicity there might have been in the situation. In the days when the Strand was but a road between London and Westminster, lined with private houses of the great and noble on either side, and with gardens going down to the river, it might have been an abode fit even for the proud Earls of Northumberland, to whom it descended. But with the Thames Embankment on one side, and Trafalgar Square on the other, with omnibuses perpetually passing its front door, Northumberland House was a standing anachronism, if not an impediment, which was destined to succumb to the influence of time and the Metropolitan Board of Works." It may be added that during the Great Exhibition of 1851, the public were admitted by ticket to view the house at the rate of ten thousand a week. Northumberland Avenue was opened in March, 1876. It is 950 feet long and 84 feet wide, the width between the pavements being 60 feet. The Strand portion of the house is marked by the Grand Hotel, the opening of which, in 1880, was considered of so much importance that its initiation was attended by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, who was accompanied by the sheriffs. Two other of the Gordon hotels in this Avenue, the Métropole and Victoria, opened in 1885 and 1887 respectively, indicate the site of the extensive gardens of Northumberland House. The handsome building of the Constitutional Club, the offices of the Royal Colonial Institute, and the headquarters of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, are also in Northumberland Avenue.