Seaford House and Gate Piers

Seaford House is a large detached palazzo standing at the east corner of Belgrave Square, built between 1842 and 1845 by Thomas Cubitt to designs by Philip Hardwick for Charles Molyneux, 3rd Earl of Sefton. When first constructed, the building was known as Sefton House. In 1902 the lease was sold to Thomas Evelyn Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden and 4th Baron of Seaford (1880-1946), who had the interior refurbished, probably by J J Stevenson, and renamed the house Seaford House.

The building is constructed of brick with stucco render and has slate-covered roofs. The ground and first floor interiors feature fixtures in various materials, notably green onyx and marble, with decorative ironwork and plasterwork. Throughout these floors there is joinery, some in mahogany, including wall panelling, doors and their surrounds.

Plan

The house is rectangular on plan with its principal front facing west onto Belgrave Square. On all floors, rooms are arranged around the four sides of the building. The central grand staircase is lit by a roof lantern above a gallery, and serves the former north and south facing reception rooms and bedrooms at ground and first floor levels. The accommodation at the second and third floors, originally bedrooms and nursery rooms (offices in 2025), is reached by rear stairs and a lift. Between the first and second floors there is a mezzanine at the east side of the house. Service facilities occupy the basement areas, and modern toilet facilities are found at the east side on most floor levels. Attached to the east is the former stable and mews building with stable yard (teaching facilities in 2025, known as 5 Groom Place and listed separately).

Exterior

Seaford House is a four-storey symmetrical building with a basement. The principal west front and east rear elevation each have seven window bays; the north and south elevations have four window bays. Full-height rusticated quoins mark each corner, and above a rich modillion cornice the parapet has balustraded panels. Hipped roofs are located to the north, west and south of an off-centre drum topped by a domed lantern with a finial. There are numerous chimney pots.

Each elevation shares a similar Classical treatment with stucco render and moulded storey bands at each floor. The six-over-six sash windows with glazing bars are of different dates. The ground floor is rusticated; its windows are recessed in plain surrounds with square heads and plain aprons below. The three-bay main entrance at the centre of the west elevation projects slightly and is approached by a flight of stone steps flanked by paired Doric columns. The entrance has a 20th-century door with an arched fanlight above and an arched window to each side.

At the first floor (the piano nobile), elongated sash windows have pediments supported on scrolled brackets, with moulded aprons and balconettes. At the north and south elevations of this floor are projecting balconies on brackets with balustrades supporting plain columns—those at the north elevation have Corinthian capitals, those at the south have Ionic capitals—both with plain entablatures above. Between the second and third floors runs a plat band with guilloche moulding. At the third and fourth floors the windows are smaller: those at the third floor have eared, square heads, while those at the fourth floor have bracketed balconettes.

The rear east elevation is plainer. Its central three bays project slightly to accommodate the rear stairs and lift core and have an external staircase. Number 5 Groom Place is attached towards the north end of this elevation, partially obscured to the north by a raised lantern lighting the basement and modern kitchen below. At ground floor level of the east elevation is a secondary entrance to the stable yard, though the main route into the building is believed to be bricked up.

The basement extends beneath the main entrance and to the north, where it has a modern flat roof linked by a glazed corridor to the north elevation. Over this corridor runs a pedestrian bridge with balustrades.

Interior

The polite rooms and spaces at the ground and first floors retain the most opulent fixtures and finishes and are the focus of the interior's architectural significance. Decorative treatment, fixtures and fittings are in a loosely 18th-century French style throughout, with Classical and 16th-century Italian influences. Columns and pilasters are of Ionic or Corinthian order, with bronzed bases, onyx-clad or plastered fluted shafts, and gilded capitals. The walls have dado rails and decorative plasterwork panels with geometric, oval and ogee moulded central frames, and Classical entablatures comprising egg and dart decoration to friezes, mutules, and deeply moulded cornices. Ceilings are compartmentalised or coffered with decorative plasterwork or paint. Window openings have deep reveals and panelled aprons, mostly with unhorned or horned six-over-six pane sash windows. Fireplaces throughout have highly ornate chimneypieces and surrounds, generally in 18th-century style but associated with the early 20th-century campaign of refurbishment and remodelling. Doors associated with the early 20th-century scheme are in mahogany with moulded panels featuring foliate and shell motifs and bronze door furniture, set within moulded architraves with sculpted heads, some bearing central plaques with foliate designs and swags.

The Ground Floor

The entrance hall is broadly divided between the reception area and staircase hall by an arched colonnade on a dwarf wall with bronze ironwork panels and onyx or marble cladding. The windows to the front have bronze grilles. The flooring is of mixed marble in geometric patterns.

On the north side of the staircase hall are teaching rooms. At the west is the Music Room in Italian Renaissance style with a coffered, painted wooden ceiling and a painted and carved hooded chimneypiece. The room was linked to the Waiting Room (Lord de Walden's former bathroom) via double doors, but this access is now blocked. The Waiting Room is accessed from the entrance hall. It has an apsidal end, decorative wall panels, and an 18th-century-style fireplace with carved surround. The openings for French windows which once led to the verandah on the north side are blocked.

The Waiting Room is linked to the de Walden Room to the east, formerly Lord de Walden's bedroom and apparently designed by him in a medieval style, with a painted, beamed ceiling supported on carved corbels, plastered walls incised to imitate ashlar, and a hooded chimneypiece whose mantelpiece is supported by brackets carved with female faces. The windows here are casements with moulded surrounds, mullions and transoms.

On the south side of the staircase are the Library and Reading Room. The Library at the west side has a 1960s ceiling in a mid-19th-century style with mid-20th-century bookcases and a fireplace with a panelled chimneypiece. The Reading Room, once known as the Wedgewood Room, is accessed through a closet from the Library and is understood to have been Lady de Walden's bedroom. It has an 18th-century-styled decorative ceiling, which may be from the 1840s, with delicate foliate swags in the corners, and a fireplace surround with reeded pilasters and swags which may be of the same date. The walls have simple pilasters, probably of the early 20th century, supporting a lightly moulded cornice with egg and dart decoration. To the rear of the Reading Room are toilet facilities remodelled in the late 20th century.

At the centre of the entrance hall are the grand stairs, the centrepiece of the house, known to date to the early 20th century. They are richly ornamented with green onyx from Mexico, green marble skirtings, gilded wrought-iron decorative panels, gilded newels and onyx handrails. The stairs have marble treads and risers. At the landing are panels framing bronzes by A C Luchessi of about 1910. At the rear of the stairs at first floor level is a colonnade of five columns atop plinths incorporated into the balustrade, which support the opening of the drum above and a partial mezzanine floor at the rear of the building. They create a gallery which, along with the landings surrounding the staircase, provided spaces for guests to navigate and access the former Dining Room to the north of the stairs, Writing Room to the west, and Ballroom to the south. The walls surrounding the staircase have pairs of pilasters and decorative wall panels with a Classical entablature comprising mutules and cornice, above which are elaborately carved Classical figures draped on arches with foliate swags and cartouches. The ceiling above the staircase is dominated by a central drum with a balustrade from which caryatids on plinths support a domed lantern, probably of the 1840s.

The First Floor

To the north of the stairs is the lecture theatre (former Dining Room) in an early 17th-century French style with a modern projector screen at the east end. The walnut panelling, frieze and coffered ceiling above are of the early 20th century. Above the panelling, the coffered frieze has pairs of gilded brackets with wreaths, and the ceiling is of painted and gilded timber with foliate and Greek key motifs. There is a large white marble fireplace of early 18th-century design, the surround of which has a frieze of intertwining acanthus leaves with guttae and egg and dart detailing to the mantelpiece supported by scroll brackets with carved female faces.

A pair of double doors leads to a lobby, known as the Gun Room, at the far west of the building, which in turn leads enfilade through double-leaf doors to the Writing Room to its south, from where there is access into the Ante Room (former Ballroom) along the south side of the house. These three rooms share similar neoclassical proportions and treatment: a decorative palette of cream and gold with richly ornamented ceilings. The ceilings, and possibly also the wall panelling, are probably from Hardwick's mid-19th-century scheme.

The Gun Room has gilding to the pilasters and capitals, architraves, cornices and mutules. The ceiling has a central saucer dome with spine decoration and an oval roundel with heavy, gilded foliate moulding; there is a band of coffered vaulting. Above the entablature are segmental pediments.

The Writing Room is similarly proportioned with wall panels, pairs of columns and pilasters, and a heavy cornice. The frieze has lattice ribbing with centrally-placed flower heads. Above, the ceiling has a central dome set in gilded panels with foliate motifs. There is an 18th-century-style fireplace at the south end, the surround of which is carved with Classical pastoral scenes.

The Ante Room (formerly the Ballroom) is on an east-west axis facing south and shares the same style of lattice frieze as the Writing Room. The frieze has inset paintings depicting night, day, dawn and evening, all of which are mid-19th century apart from night, which is a 1960s replacement. The ceiling has gilded panels with guilloche plasterwork inset with smaller octagonal paintings depicting stars and Classical figures, probably also mid-19th century. The walls have pilasters with gilded capitals, between which are framed panels. The 18th-century fireplace is said to have been cut down to fit the available space. The doorways to the grand stairs space have gilded architraves with flat hoods supported on gilded scrolls. There is a modern bar at the east end.

Other Floor Levels

The second and third floors are accessed by mid-19th-century plain stairs with stick or columnar balusters, simple newel posts and ramped timber handrails. One set of stairs has been reconfigured, probably when the lifts were installed, which also provide access from the basement to the third floor. At the east corner there is a truncated back staircase.

The rooms on the second and third floors are accessed from a corridor which runs around the central drum. They are much plainer, with simple joinery and plasterwork. Most rooms have fireplaces with a variety of different types of surround, some marble, some with tile insets and others decorative. The lantern has replaced glass and a central dome with a finial.

The basement rooms are plain with simple detailing. On the north side of the building is the dining room created in the 1960s, and beyond that modern kitchen facilities. A flagstone corridor to the north accesses storage rooms. Arched vaulting extends beyond the building line to the west, but this area was bombed and has been remodelled.

Subsidiary Features

To the west and south of the building are entrance gateways to the south-west and south-east which access the forecourt. The gate piers are rendered with mouldings.