101 Harley Street

101 Harley Street

A house designed and built between 1901 and 1904, most probably by William Henry White, originally incorporating medical consulting rooms and later converted entirely to consulting rooms with a top flat.

The building is constructed of red brick laid in English bond with lavish Portland stone dressings. It comprises four floors with basement and attic, connected through to a mews house at the rear which forms part of Devonshire Mews South.

The street front features a wide bow window to the right, rising from ground level through three floors, each with three sash windows. The stone surround is decorated with recessed circular and diamond-shaped panels. Immediately to the left at ground-floor level stands the entrance, marked by a deep arched stone porch supported by richly carved brackets. The porch soffit is panelled and the door is half-glazed with a metal screen. Upper windows on the left have aedicular surrounds. Stone quoins mark the corners, and a deep cornice projects above the second floor, supporting a balustrade above the bow and a balcony to its left. Third-floor windows feature prominent triple keystones with alternating triangular and segmental hoods. The attic storey contains two paired gables with tall, shaped stone heads. Area railings are of decorative ironwork with S-scrolls, as are the window box guards at first and third-floor levels.

The rear elevation includes a projecting wing to the right, with an angled wall in the re-entrant angle between this and the main house, topped by a mansard roof. A top-lit room occupies the rear yard. The mews house frontage to Devonshire Mews South has painted walls and two garage doors at ground level with a pedestrian door between them. The first floor has three bays of windows with cambered heads, and the attic has flat-roofed dormers. The central first-floor window was formerly a taking-in door.

Internally, the principal interiors display an Edwardian interpretation of late-18th-century Neo-Classicism. The lobby and entrance hall are divided by a glazed screen featuring a broken pediment above double doors. Flooring comprises stone slabs with black marble diamonds at the corners. The ground-floor front room, apparently originally a dining room, has Ionic pilasters to the walls and rounded corners at its western end, with curved mahogany doors flanking a widely-arched central recess for a sideboard. The fire surround is carved mahogany with marble slips and green tiles, topped by a moulded copper panel above the hearth. The top-lit rear room, possibly always intended as a consulting room, has panelling to the lower walls terminating at door-head level, with an egg-and-dart cornice above. The staircase features square newels with circular finials and vase balusters, lit by an oval skylight with web pattern and stained-glass panels.

The first-floor front room contains rich plasterwork and panelling to ceiling and walls, with classical figures including amorini and classical maidens in panels above doors and fireplace. The ceiling displays paterae, swags, shields and rinceau ornament arranged in an Adamesque pattern.

Doors on the ground, first and second floors are typically of five panels, mahogany on the ground and first floors. Staircases to the top floor and basement levels have been renewed.