London House

London House

International hall of residence for postgraduate students, built in phases between 1936 and 1963. Designed by Sir Herbert Baker, who prepared a complete scheme in the 1930s, with Alexander T Scott and Vernon Helbing as collaborators. The post-war phases were completed to a simplified design after Baker's death in 1944.

The building was established in 1931 by F.C. Goodenough, who raised the funds to found the Dominion Students' Hall Trust. It provided accommodation where students from the British Empire could live a collegiate life. The scheme is one of Sir Herbert Baker's most characteristic later buildings, comparable with Rhodes House, Oxford, and Church House, Westminster.

The basement is constructed of flint with random stone blocks. Upper storeys are of red brick with stone quoins, bands and cornices, topped by hipped roofs of tile. The style is Neo-Georgian with collegiate planning. The building rises two to four storeys with irregular fenestration of sash windows; dormers appear in the roofs.

The Guilford Street south front comprises a centre and right wing built in 1936-7 and a left wing built in 1949-54. The composition is basically symmetrical with broad projecting ends and a lower centre. The central entrance features three open round arches, the middle one raised higher than the others, with heraldic devices in stone above. The right wing, which houses the library, displays a stone plaque between the ground and upper storeys commemorating Sir Charles Parsons, and a cornice bearing the large inscription in raised brickwork: "Immortalis est ingenii memoria".

The Doughty Street east front was largely built in 1961-63. It follows a similar design to the south front but in simplified form, with three open round entrance arches at the centre, the middle one raised.

The Mecklenburgh Place west front dates from 1949-54 and is plain in character, basically symmetrical with some irregularities and occasional iron balconies.

The open quadrangle within has notable elevations. The east side features a five-bay stone-dressed hall set left of centre, with a full-height central bay bearing an inscription to Evan Evans Bevan below a round-headed window. The south side has a projecting round-arched cloister arcade along the ground storey and a bust of F.C. Goodenough in a niche over the central entrance.

The interior of the 1936-7 wing contains a generous asymmetrical staircase hall, paved and walled to half-height in Hopton Wood stone with a balustrade partly of stone and partly of iron, and urns in niches. The double-height dining hall features high oak panelling with plaster cove to the ceiling decorated with coloured plaster shields and devices by Laurence Turner, and an astronomical "Empire clock" at the south end. The ground floor common room has deep plastered beams. The Parsons Library above, now partly altered, retains oak bookcases to half height and a cove to the ceiling with plaster shields and devices commemorating scientific institutions, also by Turner.

The south-west wing includes on the ground floor the Churchill Room of 1952, which is oak-panelled to full height, and a small chapel formed in 1962-3 by Helbing with panelling behind the altar.