Victoria Station Arcade including Nos. 15 and 16 Terminus Place, and Nos. 9-14 Terminus Place (facade only)

Victoria Station Arcade including Nos. 15 and 16 Terminus Place, and Nos. 9-14 Terminus Place (facade only)

A shopping arcade incorporating entrances to the Underground station, with an attached range of shops. Built between 1909 and 1911 to designs by George C Sherrin, with minor modifications by HW Ford.

The building has a steel frame clad in rusticated Portland stone, with granite plinths. The north elevation has been overpainted.

The shopping arcade runs north-south from Victoria Street to Terminus Place, passing beneath Victoria Station House, with an entrance to the station at the north-west. On the west side of the southern entrance is a long parade of shops. The six western bays (Nos. 9 and 10 Terminus Place) were adapted in 1922-5 as the frontage of a restaurant, now a nightclub.

The north elevation is an open arcade of four bays, originally six; the two eastern bays were rebuilt in 1922-5 as part of Victoria House. The arcade features segmental arches with wrought ironwork in the tympana displaying scrolled roundels. Each pier has a bronze double poster frame fitted from the mid 1920s onwards, each with a London Transport glass plate and metal lamp above, now rare and of special interest.

The south elevation to Terminus Place is a more ornate Edwardian Baroque composition, consisting of 12 arcaded bays with elliptical arches, scrolled keystones and carved wreaths to the spandrels. The tympana are mostly fitted with mullion-and-transom windows; some lighting the former restaurant have 1920s decorative coloured glass. Above runs a moulded cornice. The arcade entrance, in the penultimate bay to the east, is broader and flanked by pilasters. The sixth bay from the west, which is narrower and was intended as the hotel entrance, was used in the 1920s as the restaurant exit. It is also pilastered with a semi-circular arch and stylised drop ornament.

The shopping arcade interior has five bays, each with a shop unit. The central bay on the west side originally incorporated a station exit, now infilled. The bays are divided by panelled pilasters with wreath heads. Above runs a deep frieze and cornice with bead-and-reel moulding. The pilaster bases and plinths are green and black granite; a few sections have been removed. The segmental vaulted ceiling has transverse beams, with the beams and ceiling soffits decorated with Baroque plaster enrichment. Each tympanum has wreath decoration; that near the north entrance carries the DR monogram.

The mirrored pair of shops flanking the northern entrance (Nos. 7 and 10 Victoria Station Arcade) have original curved shopfronts, each with two entrances incorporating a curved recessed lobby and scrolled panel above. The left-hand shop (No. 10), originally a jewellers, retains coloured 1930s transom lights, one original mahogany door and fanlight carved with the shop number, and terrazzo lobby floors lettered in black with 'A Orsi & Co'. Above the cornice of both shops is a row of horizontal windows divided by pilasters lighting upper storage spaces.

The shop unit at the south-west end (No. 15 Terminus Place), also a jewellers, retains two shopfronts: that facing Terminus Place is original with timber glazing bars, a curved recessed lobby and terrazzo lobby floor; that within the arcade was modified in the 1930s and has flattened bronze glazing bars and a glazed timber door.

All other shopfronts, with the exception of surviving stallrisers, are modern replacements. Shop interiors are generally much altered with modern shop fittings and were not fully inspected.