39-42, NEW BOND STREET

Commercial premises designed in 1907-8 by Edward Keynes Purchase for Cooling Lawrence and Son, tailors. The interior spaces were refurbished in 1962-3 by Raymond Erith. The facade displays an exuberant classical Baroque style clad in faience.

The building comprises a basement and five storeys, including an attic storey. The facade is symmetrical in five bays. The first and second floors are defined by composite half-columns, while the third floor features rusticated pilasters. Canted bay windows appear on the second and fourth bays across the first, second and third floors. The second and third floors sit beneath continuous modillion cornices that articulate across the bays. The friezes are ornamented with cartouches and elaborate keystones. Metal-framed casements with dentilled transoms are divided on the canted bays and to the fourth storey by composite engaged columns. The attic storey is partly concealed behind a parapet with bulbous pilasters. Tripartite windows to the second and fourth bays sit beneath tall cornices, now missing their original gables and set behind iron balcony railings. The ground floor features shop fronts between rusticated piers. At number 40, Mallett and Son's shopfront has a central glazed door set back between a curving glazed front, beneath a fretted frieze. Inside the exterior doorway, which is intended to be visible from the street, is flanked by arches supported on debased Ionic columns.

The front interior spaces are classically treated with a screen separating front from rear rooms. Three further rear rooms were added in 1962-3 by Raymond Erith. The large dining room is in stripped Ionic style with a shallow pendentive dome. The small dining room follows conventional classical design with a blind Palladian window. The small octagonal showroom is designed in the manner of an Italian grotto, with panels of fine shell work framed by octave alabaster borders. A fountain is set within a niche. The base of the walls is lined in white marble and gritty grey granite, with floors tiled in geometric design. Natural light enters from a central lantern. Glazed cabinets are set in brass frames. These rear rooms were designed as a showroom for small pieces, while the other rooms displayed antique furniture. The premises have been occupied since 1910 by Mallett and Son.