Cornwell House

CORNWELL HOUSE, originally built as the Sessions House Hotel in 1879, now serves as showrooms and offices. Around 1925, it was converted to its current use. The building is constructed of white brick laid in a Flemish bond, with red brick and stucco dressings. The ground floor features polished granite, while the roofs are hidden by a parapet. It is four storeys high and has a twelve-window front, curved to follow the street line and with an irregular setback. The ground floor of number 20 has a three-bay shop front with a segmental-arched entrance and two flat-arched windows. The remaining shop fronts, on numbers 21 Clerkenwell Green and 120 Clerkenwell Road, are divided by paired Ionic pilasters on polished granite bases, supporting consoles that extend upward through the fascia to the projecting cornice. The shop fronts have wooden architraves, which may be original, except for the left-hand bay of number 21. The first-floor windows are segmental-arched with segmental dripmoulds, and keystones are present over some, alongside a cornice resting on consoles. The second-floor windows are round-arched, also with keystones, and feature a balcony just beyond the eighth window from the left. The third-floor windows are segmental-arched with heads of gauged red brick and keystones. Red brick dressings are visible as quasi-springing bands on the first and second floors, with brick banding on the third floor. The building has a bracketed cornice and a parapet with an openwork balustrade, topped by a pediment above the eighth bay from the left.