Wentworth House

Wentworth House is a terraced town mansion located on St. James’s Square in Westminster. It was originally built between 1748 and 1749 by Mathew Brettingham the elder, and then refaced in 1854 by Messrs. Cubitt, who also added an extra storey. The exterior is Portland stone, with a rusticated ground floor, and has a slate roof. The facade is astylar, incorporating Italianate details and likely reusing some of Brettingham’s original stone dressings. The house has four storeys and a basement, and is five windows wide. A central Roman Doric porch, which was later enclosed, features paired columns and a full entablature with a balustraded parapet. The ground floor has square-headed recessed plate glass sashes. The first floor has sashes in architraves with carved consoles to the pediments above. The upper floors have architraved windows, with those on the second floor featuring pulvinated friezes and cornices. A pseudo-pedestal exists on the first floor, with blind balustrading below the windows. There is a moulded sill band on the second floor, with sills on fluted brackets, and a sill band to the third floor. A bold crowning modillion cornice and balustraded parapet complete the exterior. Cast iron area railings with spear heads and urn finials are likely from the mid-18th century.

The rear elevation, constructed of yellow stock brick, is unaltered and seven windows wide. It has a three-window centre break, featuring a central architraved and pedimented doorway. The outer bays on the first floor are occupied by Doric pilastered plain Venetian windows, and the parapet has coping.

The interior retains much of Brettingham’s original design, notably the double pile plan with three compartments located north and south of a central hall. This hall has an archway leading to a staircase compartment, flanked by a service stair. The main staircase, constructed of stone with Doric column balusters and a swept handrail, rises only to the first floor and is top lit. The upper part of the walls displays plasterwork panelling in the Palladian idiom, overlaid with Rococo ornament, including medallion, swag, and festoon mouldings at second-floor level. A rich main cornice and cove finish the ceiling, with a rectangular light in an unusual guilloche moulded frame. The ground floor rooms have restrained Palladian decoration and retain several original marble chimneypieces. The first-floor suite of state rooms is in a similar vein, with the addition of elaborate mid-19th century French Rococo plasterwork to the ceilings and upper walls of the front rooms.