167, QUEEN'S GATE SW7

No. 167 Queen's Gate, South West 7

This Grade II* listed town house was designed by Mervyn Macartney and built in 1888-9. It is constructed of red brick and stone, rising five storeys above a basement, with an additional storey set within the roof. The principal façade is three windows wide and features articulated moulded brickwork with mullioned windows fitted with leaded glazing. A loggia of stone in fairly pure Italian classicism fronts the two northern bays, while the southern bay is topped by a three-storey canted bay of stone. Above the northern bays sits a pedimented Dutch gable, and a stone balustrade fronts the area.

The interior survives to a remarkable extent. Mouldings, cornices, door furniture, and original services including lavatories and lifts are largely intact throughout the building.

The basement contains a substantial sequence of rooms with many original fittings and cupboards. The kitchen, hall and passages are glazed in white tiles above plastered and painted dados.

On the ground floor, the vestibule features panelled walls, a marble floor, and a marble fire surround with an overmantel that forms part of the panelling and panelled plaster decoration to the ceiling. An open arcade separates the vestibule from the staircase hall. The principal staircase, which rises only to the first floor, has balusters in a Jacobean manner. The south-west room has a panelled dado, marble fire surround with mosaic work in a checks pattern, and a handsome broad panelled treatment to the chimney breast with fitted glazed cupboards facing the fireplace and a semi-circular niche above with shell decoration. The south-east room features a panelled dado, elaborate dentil cornice, and a Tudorish stone fire surround with a chimney piece and fitted sideboard in Tudor-Jacobean manner. The east room has a panelled dado and a chimney piece in an eclectic 'English Renaissance' style. A conservatory at the east end, possibly not original, adjoins this room.

On the first floor, the principal reception room is L-shaped, with the rear wing framed by pilasters and columns of pink marble. The ceiling is decorated with panelled plasterwork in a faintly classical manner. Two fine columned fireplaces of white marble feature mosaic decorative cheeks. A panelled alcove in Adamish style sits beside a fitted cupboard. The staircase hall contains glazed cupboards with architrave and pediment matching adjacent doors, a secondary staircase with turned balusters serving the upper floors, and a glazed screen to the servants' stairs. From this floor upwards, the principal staircase is lit by a deep light well decorated with a band of scrolling ornament at first floor level. The east room has a panelled dado, marble fire surround with De Morgan tiles in the cheeks, and a classical wooden chimney piece framing mirrors.

On the second floor, the principal features are fireplaces of an eclectic classical design with De Morgan tiles in the cheeks and cast iron grates, found in the south-west, north-west, south-east and east rooms. The third, fourth and fifth floors contain two kinds of fireplace: the eclectic classical type with De Morgan tiles appears in the south-west room on the third floor, while simpler classicising chimney pieces with cast iron grates, some bearing typical aesthetic movement decoration, are found in the north-west, south-east and east rooms on the third floor, and in various rooms on the fourth and fifth floors.