26, Rutland Gate

1900/0/10360 RUTLAND GATE 10-AUG-04 26

GV II House. 1846-7, by John Tombs, builder. Brick, painted white, stucco dressings. Four storeys, basement and attic. Tall in its proportions. Four-bay front with four-storey canted bay window. Entrance in Tuscan closed porch with balustraded roof attached to south side. First-floor front bombé cast-iron balcony, French windows. Second-floor segmental pediments. Cornice lost. Return elevations altered. Interiors have not been inspected, but the house is known to have been lavishly refitted in the 1960s and subsequently altered. In the 1920s and 1930s No. 26 Rutland Gate was the London residence of Lord Redesdale, father of the Mitford sisters, who occasionally used it for the London season. Included for group value as part of the original layout of Rutland Gate and as the sole surviving villa of the 1840s to remain freestanding. Sources: (ed.) John Greenacombe, Survey of London, xlv: Knightsbridge (London, 2000). Jessica Mitford, Hons and Rebels (1960).