No. 49 Pall Mall, London

[Formerly] Brook's Club

Architects: Henry Hyman Collins and Marcus Evelyn Collins

Builder: Henry Lovatt

1894-97

No. 49 Pall Mall, Westminster, on the north side of Pall Mall

Very much of its time, 49 Pall Mall stands on the opposite side of the road to the present Oxford and Cambridge Club in the very heart of London's club-land. The building on this spot was once the home of Brook's Club, and later that of the Traveller's Club, though it was rather shabby by then. [Commentary continues below.]

Photograph by Robert Freidus, text by Jacqueline Banerjee.

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

The late-Victorian architects responsible for the present fashionable façade designed their building for mixed use, as shops, offices and service apartments. An account of it in "Pall Mall, North Side" reads:

Above the altered ground storey, which embraces No. 48, rises a stone front of frilly French Renaissance character, containing three principal and two attic storeys. A pair of wide canted bays rise through the three principal storeys and are linked in the third by an arch with a cartouche keystone. The bays are flanked by Corinthian columns on tall pedestals, carrying an entablature which continues round the bays and above the linking arch. Each attic storey contains three two-light windows, the middle forming part of an accented feature flanked by superimposed pairs of Doric pilasters. In the sloping roof are three pedimented dormers and, above them, three circular lights.

The back of the building was damaged in the Second World War, and the "the whole premises, together with those of No. 48 Pall Mall, were converted into offices for the headquarters of the British Legion" in 1945-52. No. 48 was rebuilt, but "[t]he original façade of No. 49 was retained unaltered, and that of the new No. 48 designed to blend with it" ("Pall Mall, North Side"). The headquarters of the British Legion has now moved to Southwark.

Related Material

Bibliography

Hatton, Joseph. Club-Land London and Provincial. London: J. S. Vertie, 1890. Internet Archive version of a copy in the University of Toronto Library. Web. 22 April 2013.

"Pall Mall, North Side, Existing Buildings.'" Survey of London: volumes 29 and 30: St James Westminster, Part 1 (1960), pp. 339-345. British History Online. Web. 22 April 2013.

"Pall Mall, South Side, Existing Buildings: The Traveller's Club." Survey of London: volumes 29 and 30: St James Westminster, Part 1 (1960), pp. 399-408British History Online. Web. 22 April 2013.

Last modified 28 April 2013