Royal College Of Music

Royal College of Music

College, designed in 1889 and built between 1890 and 1894 by Sir Arthur Blomfield, with a concert hall added to the rear between 1899 and 1901 by Sidney Smith.

The building is constructed in red brick with stone banding on the ground floor and stone dressings throughout. It rises five storeys with attics and double basements, built on a steeply falling site. The composition is symmetrical, organised around a central axis containing an entrance vestibule and staircase hall, with the concert hall behind. Beneath the entrance vestibule are former examination rooms, now used as a sound studio.

The main range accommodates a basement library, ground and first-floor offices with practice rooms above. The main façade consists of twelve bays with towers at either end, topped with pyramidal roofs and tourelles. A central arched entrance is flanked by two subsidiary arched entrances. The two centre bays project forward above, displaying superimposed orders of paired pilasters in free Ionic and Corinthian orders, surmounted by a stone gable containing an inset clock flanked by finials.

Windows are mullioned and transomed throughout, predominantly square-headed except for alternate segmental heads to the third floor. Windows to the towers and central gable are semi-circular with cuspless tracery. Second-floor windows have pediments. Stone bands run between floors, with a cornice above the third floor. Elaborate gabled dormers with pedimented tops and finials punctuate the roofline. The rear elevation displays a plainer design, with mullioned and transomed windows under square heads.

The marble-lined entrance hall is double-height with a gallery and incorporates a First World War memorial. The ceiling here and in the former ground-floor council room (now offices) features Jackson's patent ornamental plasterwork. The staircase hall contains elaborate doors, and an imperial stair with simple iron balustrade leads on axis to Smith's concert hall.

The concert hall features a barrel-vaulted roof with coffering between trusses, which rest on a massive modillion-moulded cornice beneath square clerestorey windows arranged in groups of three. Below this are five-light round-arched mullioned and transomed windows with floriate mouldings; their spandrels are filled with reclining bas reliefs. Panelling below the dado rail lines the walls. The large stage (extended in the late 20th century) has round-arches over entrances on either side, flanking an organ by J W Walker, contemporary with the hall. A small balcony over the rear entrances has a round-arched internal window above.

Most interiors of the main building retain original doors, cornices and mouldings. Of particular note is the former Donaldson Museum, now part of the library, in the lower basement. This features classical round-arched arcades with keystones in the spandrels, which are decorated with paintings by Gaston de Vaere. The ceiling is trabeated with elaborate stencilled decoration, and a Moorish gallery is also present. The music rooms in the attic are particularly impressive, featuring open timber trusses and dado panelling in Blomfield's distinctive idiom; these underwent careful restoration in 1994.