Millicent Fawcett Hall

MARSHAM STREET TQ297330 1900-/100-101/10003 No 29 (including no 46 Tufton Street) Millicent Fawcett Hall GV II Conference hall with library & restaurant, 1927-9 by Douglas Wood for the London & National Society for Women's Service. Multi-coloured brick with stone faced entrances. Single storey with basement. Irregular L-shaped plan. Main entrance on yard behind carriage entrance of no. 31 Marsham Street; subsidiary entrance to rear known as no. 46 Tufton Street. Main entrance has a distyle Ionic portico with dentil entablature & blocking course. Doorway of double-panelled, wooden doors with overlight having small panes; flanking, narrow, vertically-set windows with panelled glazing. To the left, a foundation stone inscribed "This foundation stone was laid by Millicent Garrett Fawcett CBE LLD, 24th April 1929". Hall has horizontally-set clerestory windows with margin glazing. Tufton Street entrance has a stone-faced doorway with panelled overdoor supported by consoles & a carved Women's Service emblem; part-glazed double doors. Interior:- 4-bay hall, bays marked with pilasters rising from a wooden dado to barrel vaulted roof, apsidal-ended to east & west end with a stage having a wooden proscenium arch of curved acanthus leaf design. North side with tall metal-framed windows lit from a light well. Tufton Street access into rear of the hall along a narrow, vaulted, top-lit corridor. Top-lit library retains original fireplace & some shelving with pillars flanking the fireplace. Basement restaurant with columns having ram's mask capitals & quarry tiled floor; catering kitchens. History:- Millicent Fawcett Hall was specifically planned, built & paid for by the women who led the constitutional campaign for equal political rights. It was the site of intensive educational activities & campaigning for economic and moral equality for women by the London and National Society for Women's Service, now known as the Fawcett Society. The library housed what is now the largest & oldest library in Britain devoted entirely to the study of women.

Listing NGR: TQ2998779140