Grand Hotel in Trafalgar Square - London Picture Archive

Title

Grand Hotel in Trafalgar Square

Reference

SC_PHL_01_537_76_11371 (Collage 141234)

Date

Collection

London Metropolitan Archives: LCC Photograph Library

Description

The Grand Hotel, Trafalgar Square, City of Westminster, looking east. The Grand Hotel, on the corner of Charing Cross and Northumberland Avenue, was designed by F. & H. Francis and James Ebenezer Saunders and built between 1882 and 1887. The hotel had seven floors, 500 rooms, a large ballroom and was decorated with Antonio Salviati mosaics. The building was taken over by the British government in World War I to house military officers, and in the 1930s it became a retail headquarters. By 1972, not only had the stone facade weathered, but the whole building was damaged by the new Jubilee Underground line. It was demolished in 1986 and replaced with the similarly styled Grand Buildings designed by the Sidell Gibson Partnership. Originally built on the site of Northampton House which had been built in 1605 by Henry Howard 1st Earl of Northampton on the site of a former nunnery. It was sold to the Earl of Northumberland in the 1640s when it became Northumberland House. Although no longer a fashionable address in the nineteenth century, the Duke of Northumberland of the day was reluctant to leave his ancestral home, despite pressure from the Metropolitan Board of Works, which wished to build a road through the site to connect to the new roads along the Embankment, now Northumberland Avenue. After a fire, which caused substantial damage, the Duke accepted an offer of £500 000 and the building was demolished in 1874. On the left are two of the four lions of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson's memorial column and sculpture. Built in 1839-1842 to the design of William Railton, with a fluted granite column and Corinthian capital. The statue was by E.H Baily; and the bas-relief panels around the base depicting Nelson's famous naval battles by J.E. Carew, J. Ternouth, M.L. Watson and W.F. Woodington. The lions by Sir Edwin Landseer were cast by Baron Marochetti and added in 1867. The monument is Grade I listed, number 1276052. On the right, at the corner of Northumberland Avenue and Whitehall, is the ‘Second Empire’ hotel block built in 1881-82 by F. and H. Francis in stone, with slate roofs. Five storeys and a dormered mansard with two Trench square dome pavilion-roofs. It is now offices with shops on the ground floor and is Grade II* listed, number 1266434. On a traffic island is an equestrian statue of Charles I in half armour. Commissioned in 1630 by Charles I's Lord Treasurer Sir Richard Weston for his house at Mortlake Park, Roehampton. Cast in 1633 by Hubert Le Sueur, the Portland Stone pedestal is by Joshua Marshall carved in 1674-5 when the statue was moved to this position. It is Grade I listed, number 1357291. Adjacent to the statue is an 1880 cast-iron lamp standard and vent with an ornate bell-shaped base decorated with griffins. Surmounted by an urn on which stand a group of three putti holding festoons and forming the base of the shaft which carries three lamps on curved, scroll-ornamented brackets. It is Grade II* listed, number 1066283. In the street are horse-drawn omnibuses and Hansom cabs.