2, Royal Exchange Buildings Ec3

TQ 3281 SE ROYAL EXCHANGE BUILDINGS, EC3

627-0/10/10080 No.2

GV II

Office Block. 1907-1910 to designs by Sir Ernest George and Yates, carving by Albert Hodge. Stone. Mansard roof of metal with dormers. Four storeys and attic over basement. Twelve-window range with a left return of three-window range; to right a curved corner and then four-window range to Cornhill. Left corner returns at an acute angle and right at an oblique. All ground-floor windows are round arched; other openings flat arched unless stated otherwise. Entrances in fourth- and tenth-window ranges with architraves cut as guilloche bands and overlights with decorative grilles. Alternately rusticated blocks to ground floor and first floor, which is suppressed as a kind of mezzanine, the two forming a monumental base for the upper floors. Round-arched recess to second and third floors in entrance ranges flanked by attached Tuscan columns supporting a raking cornice pediment, the tympanum of which with garlands and cartouche in very high relief; second-floor balcony in this recess supported by broad acanthus brackets. All other window ranges to upper floors gathered together in two-storey architrave ornamented with panels and scrolls and armorial shields bearing anchors, shields and portcullises. Rusticated blocks and shield to curved corner range with Cornhill, where the bay system described above is repeated and there is one entrance. Elevation to Royal Exchange Avenue identical except for centre range of second and third floors where a two-storey aedicule of superposed Tuscan and Composite attached columns. Roof with tripartite dormers to south half; grilles to basement windows, the centre formed by four hands clasped. The elevations have a strong sculptural presence which asserts itself easily against the bold, overscaled motifs of the Royal Exchange.

Listing NGR: TQ3280281139