74, South Audley Street W1 is a Grade II* listed building in the Westminster local planning authority area, England. First listed on 30 March 1987. A Georgian Terraced town house. 3 related planning applications.
74, South Audley Street W1
- WRENN ID
- open-lime-hawthorn
- Grade
- II*
- Local Planning Authority
- Westminster
- Constituency
- Cities of London and Westminster MP: Rachel Blake (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 30 March 1987
- Type
- Terraced town house
- Period
- Georgian
- Address
- 74, South Audley Street W1, City of Westminster, W1K 1JE
- OS grid reference
- TQ 283 804
- Coordinates
- 51.5081, -0.15137
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
No. 74 South Audley Street is a terraced town house built in 1736 by Edward Shepherd, with alterations made in the 1830s and 1880s, and a refronting by Balfour and Turner in 1908. The building is constructed of Portland stone and has a slate roof. It features a subtle reworking of the Georgian style, combined with distinctive Arts and Crafts details from Balfour and Turner. The house has three storeys, a basement, and an attic storey, and is three windows wide, but the front is divided into two parts.
The right part is slightly recessed and includes a prominent square pier porch on the right, with a ground floor window flanked by pilasters. The first floor has two segmental arched windows that are recessed for one order, topped with eyebrowed cornices, while plain recessed lintelled sashes are above. The left part, which is one window wide, features tripartite windows of Venetian design on the ground and first floors, with the ground floor window altered to serve as an entrance. Both sections of the front are highlighted by giant Doric pilasters that extend through the first and second floors, supporting an entablature across the front, with an attic that has a balustraded parapet. A continuous wrought iron balcony extends over the porch on the first floor.
Inside, the layout interlocks with No. 75 and retains exceptional plasterwork ceilings dating from around 1740, including four on the ground floor and two on the first floor. Several ceilings are deeply coved, particularly notable are those in the rear left ground floor room and the ceiling and upper walls of the stair compartment, with the stairs themselves being Edwardian, all of which are attributed to Shepherd. From 1747 to 1829, this house served as the Portuguese Embassy.
Local climate
74, South Audley Street W1 sits in one of the driest parts of the UK, with an average of 700 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 93% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 94% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 34 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 51% of listed buildings. Of these, 15 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- Related listed building consents — 3 applications
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
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