4, Cowley Street Sw1

No. 4 Cowley Street is a terraced town house that was built as offices between 1904 and 1905 by Horace Field for the North Eastern Railway. The building is constructed of dark red brick with rubbed brick dressings and Portland stone, topped with a tiled roof. It features an elaborate late 17th-century style that is somewhat larger than its neighboring buildings, showcasing fine Arts and Crafts detailing typical of the early Neo-Georgian revivalist period. This house plays a significant role in closing the northern continuation of Lord North Street into Cowley Street.

The structure has three storeys, a basement, and a dormered attic, and it is seven windows wide, with the outermost windows designed as narrow half-bays. The front façade is set back between heavy brick party wall piers, while the central three window bays are advanced and accented with quoins and a crowning pediment. A large central rusticated doorway is framed by Ionic columns, dosserets, and a segmental pediment that features a cartouche. The windows have flush framed glazing bar sashes beneath flat gauged rubbed brick arches, with keystones on the first floor. The central window is adorned with an eared architrave and has aprons to the sills, along with a stone string course above the keystones.

The building boasts a richly modeled deep timber eaves cornice supported by carved brackets, and a similarly detailed steep pediment over the central feature, which includes a large garlanded cartouche in the tympanum. There are leaded light dormers above the eaves flanking the pediment. The rainwater head and downpipes exhibit good Arts and Crafts leadwork, and there are wrought iron area railings.

Inside, the hall is lavishly panelled with a vaulted ceiling, and there is a neo-Georgian staircase that rises to the rear. The panelled rooms feature stucco moulded ceilings that reflect not just a pastiche style but also an Arts and Crafts inventiveness and sensitivity to detailing.