15, Kensington Palace Gardens W8

This is a substantial Italianate house built in 1854-6 by architect James Thomas Knowles Senior (1806-84) for George Moore, a lace manufacturer and philanthropist. The contractors were Lucas Brothers and Stevens of Lambeth. Major internal alterations were carried out in 1937-8 by Lord Gerald Wellesley and Trenwith Wills for Sir Alfred Beit, a financier and philanthropist.

Exterior

The house has two storeys and an attic above a basement. The stucco walls are topped by a slated hipped roof with an elaborate moulded modillion cornice. The design is in the Italianate style, influenced by the West End Club buildings by Sir Charles Barry. The symmetrical plan features a shallow entrance hall across the three central bays, with principal reception rooms to left and right. The first floor repeats this arrangement but has a central recess on the rear garden front.

The front elevation has seven bays, with an extra bay set back at each side on the ground floor. The ground floor walls have vermiculated rustication. Timber mullion and transom casement windows sit in moulded architrave surrounds surmounted by flat modillion heads carried on moulded consoles. The central projecting porch is approached by flights of stone steps flanked by original cast-iron lamp-posts and lanterns. The porch has Roman Doric attached columns and an entablature with modillion cornice. Twin-leaf half-glazed doors and a fanlight are set within an arched recess. A bold modillion cornice runs around the building at first floor level, with a moulded parapet, balusters across the windows, and free-standing balustrading around the flat roofs of the wings. Rusticated quoins mark the corners. Seven large-paned sash windows are set within Corinthian aedicules with entablatures featuring pulvinated friezes and pediments with dentils. A moulded string course above the windows defines the main entablature, scaled to the overall height of the building. The architrave is now pierced by seven attic windows inserted in 1937-8. Above this is a richly modelled Roman Corinthian frieze and cornice. At ground level, a boldly coved Portland stone curb runs around the perimeter of the building, defining a narrow area that provides light to the basement service rooms.

The garden front has a vermiculated ground floor with three-light segmental bows. Grecian relief frieze panels sit above them. The centre is slightly recessed, with a triple arched central window and plain sashes to left and right, with a full-width frieze panel above. The modillion cornice at first floor level is surmounted by pairs of aediculed windows over the bows. The original deep central recess of the first floor was masked in 1937-8 by a screen linking the terminal facades. Blank antae to left and right have semi-circular niches containing large urns on pedestals, with relief swags of fruit above. The centre is open with two Corinthian columns in antis, carrying a simplified version of the original entablatures, surmounted by two draped classical female figures brought in from Bury St Edmunds.

The south elevation has a loggia on the ground floor with five bays. Arches are carried on unfluted Corinthian columns above seven stone steps. Glazing, including large sliding windows, was inserted at the rear in 1937-8. A basement garage to the north, with a ramped approach and polygonal forecourt, was built in 1937-8.

Interior

The entrance hall is original from 1856, subdivided by marbled Ionic columns (now white-painted, originally with gilded capitals) supporting an entablature with modillion cornice and a heavy coffered ceiling. Relief panels appear over doors, and a continuous modelled frieze faces the stair at the rear of the hall.

The staircase is top-lit and built of stone. The lower flight has curtail treads projecting into the hall. The main flight turns at right angles above a quarter landing and is cantilevered out from the wall. It has a cast-iron balustrade of Grecian antefixae and paterae, and a moulded hardwood handrail. The landing treatment is similar to the hall.

The library and dining room open off the hall to the north. Both were redecorated in 1937-8. The library is a pastiche of Bavarian Rococo, inspired by the libraries of the monasteries of Ottobeuren, Wiblingen and Melk, and designed as a setting for J. de Lajoue's painting 'The Alchemist', which hung over the fireplace. Florid Corinthian pilasters frame bookcases and carry an entablature with characteristic shallow convex-concave curves along the east wall. A moulded cornice runs around the remainder of the room and over window heads, broken by the fireplace where shallow ogee panels sweep upwards to support a central corona. The fireplace has a scrolled and eared architrave with delicately carved fruit and flower swags, and diagonally-set Corinthian colonettes supporting a marble frieze and moulded mantel (based on the New Dining Room fireplace at Russborough House, County Wicklow). The inlaid parquet floor has a star motif echoing that in the Lajoue painting.

The dining room was originally rectangular but was remodelled to an elliptical plan in 1937-8. Walls are lined with fluted Corinthian pilasters supporting an entablature with swagged frieze and modillioned cornice. Between the pilasters are six elaborate early 18th-century-style frame panels with swags and garlands, which originally housed six paintings by Murillo on the 'Parable of the Prodigal Son'. A similar panel above the fireplace is surmounted by a broken swan-neck pediment. Eight-panel doors have moulded architraves, richly modelled friezes and flat cornice-heads. Paired doors opposite the fireplace have a broader case and head surmounted by a broken pediment. The deep coved ceiling has a centre rose of arms and trophies modelled in relief, designed by Rex Whistler, with small holes through which spotlights were directed to light the paintings. The decorative scheme is modelled on the work of William Kent.

The drawing room was created in 1937-8 in the centre of the rear of the house, in space originally occupied by a small morning room, service stair and strong room. Its artistic centrepiece was Vermeer's painting 'The Letter'. It is in mid-18th-century style with Ionic columns in antis and pilaster responds subdividing the room. The central entablature with dentil frieze and modillion cornice may belong to the original room. It is lit by central triple arched windows. Door architraves, plaster panels and swags are of more delicate character, and the fireplace with its moulded architrave, panelled pilasters, and frieze with central relief panel of Roman figures may be an original 18th-century piece brought in during the remodelling.

The music room occupies the whole south side and was remodelled in 1937-8. The central part is defined by fleur-de-peche marbled Corinthian columns in antis, carrying as an entablature the bold modillioned cornice of the ceiling. It has pedimented doorcases and an 18th-century fireplace surround.

The loggia opens from the music room through an archway and the shuttered reveals of original windows. It was glazed in with large sliding windows in 1937-8.

Bedrooms are arranged in pairs north and south of the landing. The northeast and northwest bedrooms have 18th-century fireplace surrounds. The southwest bedroom has a swagged and draped mirror above a fireplace with marble bolection architrave, walls with boldly moulded raised and fielded panels in plaster, and doorcases with pulvinated friezes and cornices opening into central closets and a dressing room. The southeast bedroom has delicate modelled Rococo-style plasterwork in panels around the walls, with that on the east wall framing a pier glass. The fireplace surround is marble, within an eared architrave surround with a modelled frieze. Rococo-style plasterwork borders the architrave surround to the pier glass above the mantel.

The service stair to the attics is spiral with cantilevered stone treads, cast-iron balusters, a newel with lotus flowers, and a moulded hardwood rail.

The basement contains original service rooms and pantries and stores either side of a central corridor, with the kitchen and serveries to the east. A former china store in the centre of the west side retains original cupboards.

History

Number 15 Kensington Palace Gardens was built on a site leased from the Crown Commissioners. In March 1852 it had been offered to Frederick Chinnor, then in February 1853 to S. W. Strickland, then finally to George Moore, who in July 1854 agreed to take it to build a single house costing about ten thousand pounds (earlier negotiations had been on the basis of two houses). Moore's architect, James Thomas Knowles Senior, submitted plans to Sir James Pennethorne, the Commissioners' architect, which were approved in principle on 8 August. Lucas Brothers and Stevens of Lambeth began work on the house in December 1854. The ground lease was formally granted to Moore in November 1855, and the house was occupied. Moore was a self-made man, rising from a thirty pounds per annum draper's assistant in Soho to become the most important lace manufacturer in Britain. He confided to his biographer, Samuel Smiles, that he was mortified by the extravagance of building the house 'at the solicitation of Mrs Moore'.

In 1937-8 the house was remodelled for Sir Alfred Beit, son of the financier and philanthropist Sir Otto Beit. Lord Gerald Wellesley and Trenwith Wills substituted a fashionable and slightly effete decorative scheme for the impressive solid Victorian originals, but left the hall and landing essentially unaltered, except for grisaille painted draperies which have now been overpainted. During World War II, the Norwegian Ministry of Defence occupied the house. In 1949 it was leased as the Iraqi Ambassador's residence, which it remained until 1989.