Founders' Hall including 39-40 Bartholomew Close

Founders' Hall, Cloth Fair, City of London

Built between 1984 and 1990 to designs by the architectural practice Green, Lloyd and Adams (with J. Sampson Lloyd as partner in charge), Founders' Hall is a five-storey building constructed with a reinforced-concrete frame faced in brick, cast aluminium plaques, terracotta panels and metal grilles.

The building occupies a long, narrow plot to the east of the Lady Chapel of the Church of St Bartholomew the Great, bounded by Cloth Fair to the north, Kinghorn Street to the east, Middlesex Passage and Bartholomew Close to the south, and Bartholomew Passage to the west.

The principal west elevation, facing the church, comprises nine gabled and jettied bays alternating wide bays with narrower, recessed bays. The northernmost six bays were completed between 1984 and 1986, while the three southern bays, finished in 1990, are slightly angled to follow the site boundaries. The first three storeys are built in brown brick with raked pointing, with buff brick used above. Windows throughout are square-paned metal casements. The jetties of the first and second storeys project in both width and depth. The three lower storeys of the northernmost six bays are entirely clad in square-gridded glazing with leaded opening lights and spandrel panels of cast aluminium featuring roundels bearing the initials of Company members. Windows of the fourth and fifth floors are linked with terracotta spandrel panels on which black metal grilles are affixed. The canted penultimate bay from the south houses stairs and service risers and is faced in contrasting brown brick with bands of red brick between each storey.

The main entrance occupies the northernmost bay of the west elevation. Panelled entrance doors of dark hardwood with square doorhandles and a central bronze panel are fitted here. The Company's coat of arms is fixed to the jetty above the entrance, with circular cast aluminium name plaques either side.

The north elevation comprises a single bay identical to those on the west side, except for the ground floor, which projects as a bay with small square fixed panes of textured art glass set in a grid of oak glazing bars.

The east elevation is built in eight bays of darker brown brick in a loosely neo-Georgian manner, inspired by Wren's work at Hampton Court Palace and influenced by Lutyens' 'Wrenaissance' style. First-floor oriel windows incorporate margin lights and cast aluminium spandrel panels with superimposed black metal grilles corresponding to balconettes on windows above. The third floor features œil de bœuf windows and pitched dormers to the roof. The gabled fifth bay from the south is wider and taller and breaks forward to accommodate a kink in the street line. The south elevation is one bay wide and near identical to adjacent bays on the west side.

The building's plan accommodates a lower-ground floor with an anteroom, livery hall, kitchens and WCs, accessed from a ground-floor foyer with adjoining parlour and small office. A meeting room for Company members occupies the first floor. Upper floors contain a flat for the Master and lettable residential flats and offices with separate entrance and stairs from Kinghorn Street. A southern extension houses nine residential flats.

The entrance foyer is plastered and painted with inner doors of glass and brass doorhandles. Adjoining limestone panels inscribed with names of former masters are set in limed oak beside the entrance. The ceremonial staircase descending to the lower-ground floor has a tubular brass handrail, stainless steel balusters clasping plate glass balustrades, and ashlar base and treads. A bronze circular plaque on the east wall commemorates the building's opening in October 1987, while a large circular brass dedication plaque dated 2 July 1986 is incorporated into the lower quarter landing.

The parlour features glazed square grid cabinets and reused oak doors, panelling and an ornate fire surround from the old hall. The lower-ground floor ante-room contains stained-glass panels salvaged from the old hall. The livery hall is lit from the west by five œil de bœuf windows in Lutyens' manner, with architraves and keystones at the base forming plinths for busts and sculptures. Ceiling beams are widely spaced, carried on stylised Doric columns of cast stone with gilded capitals, with a closely spaced square metal grid suspended ceiling. The east wall features a gilded screen incorporating the heraldry of former masters, flanked by columns and full-height mirror glass panels. Hall doors are of limed oak with semi-domed brass handles.

The floors above the livery hall and the southern extension, fitted out to standardised modern specifications, are not considered significant components of the architectural design.

A buttressed retaining wall forming the boundary with the churchyard and iron railings mounted over it form part of the original design.