St Clement's Watch House

MATERIALS: stuccoed brick with stone copings. Timber framing to covered way.

PLAN: L-shaped with one main room per floor. The western part bridges Strand Lane above ground-floor level and adjoins the former boundary wall of Somerset House.

EXTERIOR: three-storeys with mansard roof set behind a parapet. The south elevation of the western range is two bays wide with a casement window on the ground floor, the western bay taken up by the covered way. The first floor has two French casements with margin glazing screened by a Regency tent-roof cast-iron verandah-balcony with anthemion pattern standards and rails. The second floor has two recessed sash windows with glazing bars. The north elevation is only of a single bay with French casements to the first and second floors. The covered way over Strand Lane is supported on large timbers with chamfered edges and has two doorways set in the eastern wall. The northern one has a pilastered timber door surround with diamond patterned capitals and rectangular fanlight; the southern is set into a plain recessed opening with a segmental arch. A chimney, supported on corbels, visible below the covered way, adjoins the former boundary wall.

The eastern elevation of the east range, fronting onto Strand Lane to the north of the covered way, is of two bays. The ground floor has a plain recessed entrance with a transom in the north bay and a recessed timber sash window with glazing bars in the south bay. The upper floors have centrally placed single windows with horizontal sliding sashes. The mansard roof has a central dormer.

INTERIOR: the interiors have been modernised and no visible historic features remain. The plan form is probably as built, although access has been created to link the interior to the adjoining parts of the King’s College campus.