Stratford House, The Oriental Club

Stratford House, now part of The Oriental Club, is a town mansion constructed between 1771 and 1773 by Richard Edwin for the Honourable Edward Stratford, later the second Earl of Aldborough. It exhibits a style closely resembling that of the Adam Brothers.

The building is of Portland stone ashlar with a slate roof. Originally designed with five bays, it features a three-bay pedimented central break and two-bay single-story wings, which were subsequently heightened to three stories in 1890 and 1908. The ground floor is rusticated with vermiculated rustication and voussoirs to semicircular arched windows and the doorway, all connected by an impost string. The first floor has tall windows within shallow architraves, adorned with paterae friezes and segmental pediments flanking the central section. Square architraved windows characterize the second floor. Architectural details include a plinth, a first-floor plat band, and a moulded second-floor string course. A moulded cornice tops the original centre block, which retains a balustraded parapet with urns, and a frieze above. The central three-bay section features a giant engaged Ionic portico above the ground floor, supporting bucrania and a festoon frieze, surmounted by a pediment with a sculpted tympanum. All windows retain their original glazing bar sashes.

The interior is of exceptional quality, featuring a hall with stone and black marble paving, arcaded walls with Wedgwood plaques in the frieze, and a Louis XVI style staircase installed by Lord Derby after 1908. The bar, originally the dining room, displays a ceiling and frieze in the Adam manner. The drawing room (Lord Aldborough's ballroom) contains a plaster ceiling with painted panels by Biagio Rebecca. The adjacent small drawing room is distinguished by a barrel vaulted ceiling, also decorated with roundels painted by Biagio Rebecca. The Library, dating from 1902, is in Adam style, while the ladies’ drawing room incorporates reset French Louis XV boiseries also introduced by Lord Derby. A large room with an apsidal end is screened by Corinthian columns at the rear of the first floor. Original features include high-quality mahogany doors, door furniture, and statuary marble chimney pieces dating from Lord Aldborough’s occupation. The east wing includes a ballroom added in 1909 by G H Jenkins and Sir Charles Allom.