Bruce House

Bruce House is a large lodging house built in 1907 by W E Riley for the London County Council. It features red brick with some glazed brown brick and rendering, topped with a slate roof. Designed in a humane, Arts and Crafts Free Georgian style for a charitable lodging house, it incorporates a former dispensary. The building extends between Drury Lane and Kean Street and is mainly five storeys tall with a basement and attic dormers in a mansard style, including mansard gables.

The front on Kemble Street has a slight asymmetry with a grouping of 20 bays, where the right half is advanced. There is a semicircular arched entrance located off-centre in the first bay of the advance, accompanied by large semicircular arched windows on the ground floor. The upper floor windows are narrow, 2-light recessed sashes. The top floor is rendered beneath the eaves. There are two mansard gabled attics with dormers situated between them.

The return to Drury Lane features a staircase tower and a two-storey oriel window. The lower north wing, which returns to Kean Street, is four storeys tall with a basement and mansard, maintaining the same architectural details. The property is complemented by good Arts and Crafts area railings, which have an elongated design with ball finialed standards.