Pall Mall Court, Including Raised Piazza And Podium To The West Side

Pall Mall Court is an office building located on a sloping plot bordered by King Street to the south, Marsden Street to the north, Brown Street to the east, and the former Pall Mall to the west. The western road space is now occupied by the unlisted number 35 King Street, with the highest ground level on the eastern side and the lowest on the western side.

The building has a Z-shaped plan consisting of three main sections: a six-storey block fronting King Street, a twelve-storey spine block attached at right angles to the rear, and a six-storey block fronting Marsden Street. The separately listed 73-79 King Street is attached to the eastern end of the King Street block. Two service-core towers containing lifts and stairs are positioned at each change in axis, with additional stair towers at each splayed end of the building.

A raised, paved public piazza called Pall Mall Court occupies the infill space on the western side of the building. At the northern end of this piazza stands a massive brick planter podium built over a basement garage. On the eastern side, surrounded by the spine block, Marsden Street block and neighbouring 73-79 King Street, is a service yard accessed from Brown Street.

The building has a raised ground floor with a lower ground floor level clad in blue brick, visible on the King Street and spine blocks. On the piazza side, this lower level appears sunken due to the raised nature of the piazza, and the floors above project outward, creating a covered walkway for pedestrians passing through the square. Originally intended to be blank, the lower ground floor had windows inserted due to changes in occupancy before the building's completion.

The external elevations consist of fully-glazed square bays, stepped in tiers in places, separated by narrow glazed recesses that give the appearance of oriel windows. The bays contain sash windows, now sealed shut, which originally enabled natural ventilation in sheltered conditions. They follow a repetitive paired pattern on a six foot, two foot six inches, four foot grid. The service-core towers, containing lifts and stairs, have blank facades clad with small ceramic mosaic tiles specially made with a bronze flash on a gun-metal colour. Stairs are lit by narrow vertical glazed bands running the full height of the towers, and the main service tower also incorporates windows on the west side facing into Pall Mall Court, which light the lift lobbies. Air-conditioning plants are located on the building's flat roofs.

The King Street block is a six-storey, six-bay block facing south onto King Street, set back from the street line due to objections during the design process from the owners of neighbouring 73-79 King Street, who were concerned about the new building masking theirs. The top two storeys are set back from the main face on both north and south sides behind a parapet, a design feature intended to reduce the scale and impact upon Victorian neighbours. As the block's west end is splayed, the elevation is eight bays on the south side and six bays on the north side facing into the piazza. Set back and attached to the far right of the south elevation is the building's main service-core tower, which is twelve storeys high with an irregular angled shape that articulates the main spine and King Street blocks, and has later signage lettering attached to the west side.

Attached in front of the service tower is the building's two-storey, flat-roofed main entrance, which is fully glazed and has a raised ground floor entrance accessed by a flight of steps. Early 21st century revolving doors have been installed, along with new signage to a flat canopy above. A very narrow, gated alleyway to the left of the main entrance passes through the lower ground floor level and links King Street with the piazza. A further glazed entrance exists to the south-west corner of the lower ground floor. The roof of the main entrance projection is slightly angled with a drainage channel at the northern end, which was designed to allow rainwater to fall onto a stepped roof at the rear below, where another channel then flowed onto a further stepped roof below and then into a drain in the rear service yard. Unfortunately the roofs are not sufficiently angled to enable this process to take place successfully.

The piazza-facing spine block fronts into the Pall Mall Court piazza and is twelve storeys and eleven bays, with the upper eight storeys projecting outwards. The northern end of the block faces onto Marsden Street and the upper ten storeys project outwards over the street's pavement with angled sides. A service-core tower lies to the east side of the block and incorporates a secondary entrance to the raised ground floor, accessed by a flight of steps.

The Marsden Street block is six storeys and six bays with a stepped elevation to both north and south sides. Later signage lettering in the same style as that to the main service tower adorns the blank stair tower at the east end of the block. Attached to the western end of the Marsden Street block is the north end return of the spine block and attached service-core tower.

The raised piazza on the western side of the building was originally accessed via flights of steps from both King Street and Marsden Street. The stair off King Street has since been replaced by ramped access, and the stair off Marsden Street has been altered, reduced in width and a ramp inserted alongside. The piazza is paved in Staffordshire blue-brick and stone, and the northern end is occupied by a very large and high blue-brick podium planter containing trees and tall plants. The planter occupies approximately one third of the overall piazza space and underneath is a car park, accessed via a roller-shuttered entrance in the north side of the planter off Marsden Street. The far western side of the piazza, beyond the podium, has lost its original Staffordshire blue-brick and stone paving and is not considered to be of special interest.

Internally, screed and board floors can be found throughout, except in the stairwells and lift lobbies, which have blue-brick floors, many hidden under later coverings. The service-core towers contain original painted-brick and concrete dog-leg stairs with simple timber and metal rail balustrades, and stairwells incorporating original smoke chutes to enable smoke to escape out of the building and aid evacuation. Both the stairwells and upper lift lobbies retain their original mosaic-clad walls in the same style as those to the exterior. The lifts themselves have replaced cabs and machinery.

The remaining areas of the interior have been altered or modernised and are not considered to be of special interest. These include the office floors, which are largely plain and open plan, and have been modernised and refurbished, including replaced lighting, modern suspended ceilings, new radiators in the window bays, and the installation of new services in the north-east corner of the King Street block. The principal communal areas have also been altered, including the main ground-floor lift lobby, entrance foyer and toilets on each floor. The main entrance foyer is double-height and originally had a blue-brick floor, but this has since been replaced by a tiled floor. The walls were also originally clad with mosaic tiles in the same style as those to the exterior, but these have been removed, along with a small mosaic sculpture by Josephine Reid, which originally adorned one of the entrance foyer's walls and incorporated Sun Alliance's corporate logo of three interlocked hexagons, depicted on a photograph dating to 1969. A derelict principal ground-floor and lower-ground floor space in the King Street block contains a large central open well overlooking the lower-ground floor, which is accessed by a stair located at the eastern end of the well. The basement below contains a reinforced concrete vault, retained from the space's previous use as a building society, and a small goods lift which travels between the lower-ground and ground-floor levels.