Rules Restaurant

This list entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 19 March 2025 to amend the description and reformat the text to current standards.

TQ 3080 NW 72/85

CITY OF WESTMINSTER MAIDEN LANE, WC2 No.35, Rules Restaurant

15.1.73

II Restaurant premises. 1873 by Alfred Cross for Benjamin Rule, fishmonger and oyster bar proprietor. Yellow brick with painted stone. on stucco dressings, concealed roof. Simplified Italianate detailing.

Four storeys. Three windows wide. Ground floor stuccoed with shop front incorporating doorway to right, framed by narrow pilasters with foliate caps and entablature-fascia with ribbed console bracket stops. Upper floors have recessed casements, those of first and second floors leaded as if quarries, under gauged segmental arches. The second and third floor windows have prominent bracketed sills linked by band course. Prominent bracketed cornice finishes off front.

Interior retains much of its original decoration and fittings with domical decorated roof light to ground floor restaurant and decorative oak panelling to upper floor dining rooms, ornate staircase etc. Many noteworthy patrons in its history in the political, literary and theatrical spheres quite apart from the clandestine amorous encounters of Edward VII, when Prince of Wales, with Lillie Langtry.

There is a wall-mounted Grosvenor gas lantern to the Maiden Lane elevation with decorative scrollwork to the bracket. This appears to have been added between 1968 and 2008 based on available photographs.

Listing NGR: TQ3033880768