Wentworth House

TQ 2980 SE CITY OF WESTMINSTER ST. JAMES'S SQUARE, 82/13 SWI 24.2.58 No. 5 (Wentworth House) G.V. II* Terraced town mansion. 1748-49 by Mathew Brettingham the elder, refaced in 1854 by Messrs. Cubitt with extra storey. Portland stone with rusticated ground floor, slate roof. Astylar facade, Italianate details very probably reusing some of Brettingham's stone dressings. 4 storeys and basement. 5 windows wide. Central Roman Doric porch, subsequently enclosed, with paired columns and full entablature with balustraded parapet. Square headed recessed plate glass sashes to ground floor. 1st floor has sashes in probably original architraves with carved consoles to pediments over. Architraved windows to upper floors, those on 2nd floor with pulvinated friezes and cornices. Pseudo-pedestal to 1st floor with again probably original blind balustrading below windows; moulded 2nd floor sill band with sills proper on fluted brackets and sill band to 3rd floor; bold crowning modillion cornice and balustraded parapet. Cast iron area railings with spear heads and urn finials probably mid C.18. Rear elevation of yellow stocks unaltered, 7 windows wide with 3-window centre break having a central architraved and pedimented doorway and the outer bays on 1st floor taken up by Doric pilastered plain Venetian windows; parapet with coping. Brettingham's interior is largely intact and the double pile plan of 3 compartments north and south extends along side of No. 4; central hall with archway to east staircase compartment, flanked by the service stair, the main staircase of stone with Doric column balusters with swept handrail rises to 1st floor only and is top lit, the upper part of walls with plasterwork panelling in the Palladian idiom overlaid with Rococo ornament, medallion, swag and festoon mouldings at 2nd floor level, rich main cornice and cove to ceiling with rectangular light in unusual guilloche moulded frame; restrained Palladian decoration to ground floor rooms with a number of original marble chimneypieces, the 1st floor suite of state rooms in a richer but similar vein except for the addition of elaborate mid C.19 French Rococo plasterwork to the ceilings and upper part of the walls in the front rooms, etc. Survey of London; Vol. XXIX.

Listing NGR: TQ2952180446