Bonhams (Blenstock House)

Offices and showrooms, designed in 1937 by the architectural practice Fuller, Hall and Foulsham. The building has undergone later alterations which lack special interest.

The building occupies the corner of Blenheim Street and Woodstock Street. It is a steel-framed structure with a faience-clad façade in buff with accents of yellow and peach. The front elevation comprises a curved stair tower to the left and a three-bay section set back to the right. The curved tower features a tall window on its curved edge, lined with continuous full-height yellow faience mullions, stone sills, horizontal metal glazing bars and bent glass panes. The three-bay section has a central projecting vertical window with bent glass, metal frames and stone sills, flanked by horizontal rectangular windows on each of the three upper floors. Fluted peach faience edging frames both vertical windows, runs along the parapet and sits above the fascia. The ground floor retains original bronze shop windows—one with bent glass—and two entrances, the left entrance preserving its original bronze door and terrazzo lobby floor; the other has a modern door. The shop window sill is studded with a series of bronze acorns. Bronze lettering reading "Sprinkler Stop Valve Inside" on the ground floor is also probably original. The façade is topped with a steel frame carrying modern lettering reading "Bonhams 1793" and a flagpole.

The building is back-to-back with other buildings facing Haunch of Venison Yard and New Bond Street. The rear elevations, visible only over lightwells in this densely-developed part of central London, are plainer than the street façade, finished in pale grey brick with rows of wide metal windows and some original fire escape doors. The buildings behind Bonhams' main offices at 101 New Bond Street, with which Blenstock House interconnects, are not included in the listing, as they are shown as separate buildings on Ordnance Survey maps and have different floor levels.

The interior retains a small number of original features. The principal stair features a brass handrail and metal horizontal balustrade, both terminating in a scroll at the base. Most internal doors are modern, though some originals remain on the upper floors. All window fixtures date from the 1930s. A second, plainer staircase to the rear also has a metal balustrade. Paint markings in the lobby of a secondary entrance from Globe Yard indicate that the basement was originally painted green up to a thick black dado line, with cream above.

This was the premises of Phillips Auctioneers until the firm was taken over by Bonhams in 2001. Phillips was founded in 1796 by Harry Phillips, a former senior clerk to auctioneer James Christie, and had previously been based at 72-3 New Bond Street. The firm held their first auction at this address in August 1939.

The building, also known as Blenstock House (a merger of Blenheim Street and Woodstock Street, the two streets it adjoins), was speculatively built as showroom and offices, then leased to Phillips. The area was first developed from 1720 on land belonging to the 1st Duke of Portland, also Viscount Woodstock, which explains the Oxfordshire street names. Other floors were rented to various companies from the outset: in 1946 Berker Sportcraft Ltd, a sportswear manufacturer, occupied space; by 1951 the building also housed Glendining and Co Ltd (auctioneers) and Fina Petroleum Products Ltd. Phillips gradually expanded through the building, occupying it entirely by 1974. In 1989 Blenstock House was physically connected to Phillips' rear premises at 101 New Bond Street, and the combined operation became Bonhams' Auctioneers in 2001.

Fuller, Hall and Foulsham was a little-known practice that designed a small number of Art Deco style buildings, including Ibex House on the Minories in the City of London, also of 1937, a Moderne office block with black and buff-coloured faience cladding and continuous horizontal window bands.