Millicent Fawcett Hall

Millicent Fawcett Hall is a conference hall with a library and restaurant, built between 1927 and 1929 by Douglas Wood for the London & National Society for Women's Service. The building is constructed of multi-coloured brick with stone-faced entrances and stands as a single storey structure with a basement. It has an irregular L-shaped plan. A main entrance is located on a yard, accessed behind a carriage entrance previously belonging to number 31 Marsham Street, while a subsidiary entrance is on Tufton Street, numbered 46. The main entrance is distinguished by a distyle Ionic portico with a dentil entablature and blocking course. The doorway features double-panelled wooden doors with a small-paned overlight, and flanking, narrow, vertically-set windows with panelled glazing. A foundation stone inscribed with “This foundation stone was laid by Millicent Garrett Fawcett CBE LLD, 24th April 1929” is positioned to the left. The hall itself has horizontally-set clerestory windows with margin glazing. The Tufton Street entrance presents a stone-faced doorway, featuring a panelled overdoor supported by consoles and a carved Women’s Service emblem above part-glazed double doors.

The interior is a four-bay hall, with bays defined by pilasters rising from a wooden dado to a barrel vaulted roof. The hall terminates in apsidal ends to both the east and west, housing a stage with a wooden proscenium arch decorated with a curved acanthus leaf design. Tall, metal-framed windows are positioned on the north side, lit from a light well. A narrow, vaulted, top-lit corridor provides access from Tufton Street to the rear of the hall. The top-lit library retains a fireplace and some original shelving, with pillars flanking the fireplace. The basement restaurant is characterised by columns featuring ram's mask capitals and a quarry-tiled floor, as well as associated catering kitchens.

Millicent Fawcett Hall was specifically planned, built, and funded by women involved in the constitutional campaign for equal political rights. It served as a hub for educational activities and campaigning initiatives relating to economic and moral equality for women, undertaken by the London and National Society for Women's Service, now known as the Fawcett Society. The library contained what is now the largest and oldest library in Britain devoted exclusively to the study of women.