Lancaster House

TQ 2979 NW CITY OF WESTMINSTER STABLE YARD SW1 90/13 Lancaster House 5.2.70 GV I Town mansion. c. 1820. First design by Sir Robert Smirke for the Duke of York, superseded by Benjamin Dean Wyatt who with Philip Wyatt presented new designs 1825-27, completed for the 2nd Duke of Sutherland (as Stafford House) 1833-38 with added attic storey and Smirke as executant architect ; finally the staircase lantern and decoration by Charles Barry 1838. Bath stone, slate roof. Free standing, grand classical mansion dressed with giant Corinthian porticoes to north, south and Green Park fronts, built round vast top lit stair compartment. 2 main storeys, basement and attic storey. 9-window wide north and south fronts with 5-bay portico centrepiece and one bay end pavilions. 9-window east front with end pavilions and 3-bay centrepiece and 11-window Green Park front with 5-bay portico centrepiece. Rusticated arcaded porte cochere to north surmounted by pedimented portico, similar arcaded ground floors to south and west engaged porticoes. Architraved sash windows, with cornices and pediments to piano nobile. Continuous entablature below attic storey which is pilastered on centre- pieces and end pavilions and has crowning entablature with balustraded parapet. Balustraded area parapet with fine ornamental cast iron lampstandards surmounting dies. Very grand interior, the marble lined,vast, rectangular stair compartment with central flight dividing in two and returned to 1st floor at right angles,with sumptuous, very heavy cast iron balustrade; the gallery colonnaded to east and west sides and 2 large copies of Veronese ornamenting the other 2 sides; deep coved ceiling carrying lantern with black "bronze" caryatids between the lights. The state rooms have rich white and gold decoration on red and green walls, doorcases, mouldings etc,in Wyatt's lavish Baroque-Rococo inspired by Versailles (c.f. Wyatt's Apsley House and Belvoir Castle interiors);of particular note the great tripartite gallery, incorporating a Guercino in the ceiling and in the north anteroom a Veronese, etc. "The Architects of Stafford House"; Howard Colvin; Architectural History i, 1958; "Stafford House Revisited', John Cornforth; Country Life, 7-14 Nov. 1968

Listing NGR: TQ2925379958