Gardens Hotel and shops

Gardens Hotel and Shops

Nos. 51 and 53

This building comprises offices and warehousing, now converted to a hotel, with ground floor shops. It was built in 1904 by architects W and G Higginbottom, and has undergone late 20th-century alterations.

The structure is prominently sited at the south-east corner of Piccadilly Gardens, terminating long views up Portland Street. It has a Portland stone façade with a slate roof, arranged in a long C-shaped plan at right-angles to the street.

The building is five storeys high and two bays wide, designed in Baroque style. Above the modern ground-floor shop frontage, the façade is symmetrical, comprising two side-by-side four-storey canted bays with sides slightly recessed. The windows to each floor are transomed with a central mullion in the principal window. Cartouche panels fill the spandrels below the second-floor windows. The third-floor bays feature a balcony with iron balustrade, supported on consoles reaching down to the second-floor transom. Above this are open-pedimented segmental architraves with central cartouches. The windows are timber casements.

The façade is framed by broad pilasters in two vertical stages. The lower half is panelled with cartouches at the top; the upper half is treated as pairs of Ionic pilasters on panelled pedestals. Panels lettered 'AD' and '1904' flank a pulvinated frieze below a prominent modillioned cornice with egg-and-dart enrichment and small lion-head grotesques. The parapet has two pierced panels with very large Flemish gables framing a garlanded cartouche lettered 'CB 1904', with a fruity broken semi-circular pediment with central obelisk. Tall end chimneys are enriched with cornices and corner baluster-carvings.

The elevations to the courtyard shared with Nos. 55–57 are of white glazed brick or tile with late-20th-century windows and corrugated metal sheet roofs. The rear elevation to Back Piccadilly is set back from the pavement, in the same brick with wide strip-windows and a full-width dormer, and a stone basement-area wall. The party walls are of red brick with stone parapet copings.

The interior shows the former offices and warehousing heavily subdivided for hotel use, accessed through the side elevation from the courtyard shared with Nos. 55–57, with bathroom fittings in each room. The original well-winder stair survives with its glazed-tiling dado (some painted) and some architraves, plus a later wrought-iron lift cage. The front block interconnects at each floor with Nos. 55–57 via inserted openings through the party walls. The shop unit is very tall with a corniced ceiling visible above some suspended sections. There are some iron columns visible in the lower levels at the rear, in an irregular pattern.

The architects were Walter Higginbottom (1850–1924) and George Harry Higginbottom (1852–).

Nos. 55, 55a and 57

This building is a cotton shipping warehouse, later used as offices and now a hotel, with ground floor shops. It dates from the mid-to-late 19th century and has undergone late 20th-century alterations.

The structure is prominently sited at the south-east corner of Piccadilly Gardens, terminating long views up Portland Street. It has a buff sandstone façade with a slate roof, arranged in a long reverse C-shaped plan at right-angles to the street.

The building is four storeys plus an attic, three bays wide, designed in an eclectic style with Gothic accents. The façade is symmetrical, with a narrower central entrance bay and wider outer bays, all framed by hollow-chamfered pilasters with volute stops. Moulded head and sill bands separate the floors, with a double dentilled frieze over each bay. The balustraded parapet is broken in the centre by a gable flanked by chamfered square pinnacles, with hipped dormers to either side.

The ground floor has a tall segmental-headed doorway with moulded surround, flanked by early-21st-century shop windows. On the upper floors are three-light windows in the outer bays and two lights in the centre, all with ovolo mullions between. The attic gable has a pointed-arched window with a transom and Y-tracery, and the dormers have three-light casements; the windows are uPVC. There are apex finials to the attic (stone to the gable and lead to the hipped roofs) with stone end chimneys. Late-20th-century signage has been affixed.

The elevations to the courtyard shared with Nos. 51 and 53 are in metal profiled cladding to both walls and roofs, with late-20th-century windows. The rear elevation to Back Piccadilly is clad at ground floor in red granite (with some stone visible where this is missing), and at first and second floor in white glazed tile or brick. The upper windows are predominantly wide openings with painted stone mullions, although all windows are late-20th-century replacements. There are two stacked full-width dormers. The party walls are of red brick with stone parapet copings.

The interior has modern shop interiors at ground floor. The entrance features eight stone steps in two flights, now clad in red granite, and a timber panelled and coffered ceiling and double part-glazed panelled doors with five decorative leaded lights above. Beyond this, the hall and stair have decorative plaster ceilings. The front block contains an entrance hall and an original dog-leg stair with open string, scroll-work iron balustrade, timber newel and some original ramped skirting. A modern lift occupies a lift-shaft inserted before 1917. An arch with inserted doors gives onto the former courtyard beyond, now partly covered by a modern glazed roof. This houses reception with four floors of accommodation above, possibly a late-20th-century insertion. The rear block abuts Nos. 51 and 53 and interconnects at various levels. The location of the original warehouse hoist is now used as a store room. The upper floors are heavily subdivided for hotel use with bathroom fittings in each room and interconnect with Nos. 51 and 53 via inserted openings through the party walls.

The following items are not of special architectural or historic interest: late 20th- and early 21st-century shop fronts and fittings; late 20th-century uPVC and metal windows; external metal cladding to walls and roofs; roof dormers to Back Piccadilly; non-load-bearing internal partitions; hotel bathroom fixtures; late 20th-century signage to front elevation; red granite cladding to the rear external wall and to the entrance hall and steps; lift cars; late 20th-century doors and glazed roof to reception.