103, New Bond Street W1

House, mid-18th century, now a shop with offices above and a Victorian extension to the rear. This was the home of Horatio, Viscount Nelson, in 1798.

The building occupies a trapezium-shaped plot on the west side of New Bond Street, widening towards the rear. The main façade comprises three window bays across four storeys. The brick has been stuccoed and all original sash windows have been replaced. The ground floor features fluted Ionic half-columns supporting an entablature that serves as fascia to the 20th-century shop front. The upper storeys have moulded string courses and two raised panels between floors, one painted with the words 'Nelson House' and the other containing a blue plaque. The first-floor windows have lugged surrounds; the remaining windows are simply recessed.

The rear elevation faces Haunch of Venison Yard and appears to date from the mid-19th century. It features metal lintels creating large openings (presumably former loading bays) on the ground and first floors, with fenestration since altered. Upper floor windows are smaller with stone lintels and sills, and this elevation is of lesser architectural interest.

The interior is much altered but retains fragments of 18th-century fabric alongside Victorian features. The staircase is 18th-century in its upper flights, becoming Victorian lower down. Original architraves and cornice fragments survive, some also Victorian. A large Venetian-arched opening leads to a corridor connecting the former house to its mid-19th-century extension overlooking Haunch of Venison Yard. This extension comprises three floors of open-plan space with timber floors linked by a grand terrazzo staircase featuring a decorative iron balustrade. The top floor is lit by a large rectangular lantern.

The area of Mayfair was developed in the first half of the 18th century, with New Bond Street and Haunch of Venison Yard appearing on John Rocque's Map of London, Westminster and Southwark of 1746. Development at No. 103 appears always to have extended back into Haunch of Venison Yard. The 1875 Ordnance Survey map shows that No. 103 was linked to the building on the eastern side of Haunch of Venison Yard by a narrow corridor.

Horatio, Viscount Nelson (1758-1805) lived at 103 New Bond Street in 1798, taking up residence in early February and departing on 16 March after receiving orders to proceed to Portsmouth, from where he sailed to rejoin the British fleet near Cadiz. This building remains the only one of Nelson's residences still recognisable as an 18th-century house. A blue plaque erected by the London County Council in 1958 commemorates his occupancy.