The County Fire Office

The County Fire Office is a grand office block completed in 1924, part of Sir Reginald Blomfield's extensive rebuilding of Nash's Regent Street Quadrant between 1910 and 1923. The building is stone faced with a slate roof and features classical details that complement Blomfield's design. It has a circus facade that was previously part of the Swan & Edgar's store, located at Nos 9 to 18 Piccadilly.

The structure consists of a tall podium that supports three storeys and an attic storey, with three wide bays. The podium is pulvinated and channelled, featuring an open semicircular arched arcade over the pavement. Above the podium, the three storeys are ashlar faced and adorned with giant rusticated pilaster strips. The windows are vertically linked through the storeys and appear as tall openings, with segmented heads and hoods. A rich modillion cornice crowns the building.

The attic storey is elaborately decorated with swags and festoons, featuring oculi and a stepped blocking course above its cornice, which rises in the centre to a rectangular block topped with a sculptural group of Britannia and a lion. Behind this, a corniced drum rises, capped with a copper dome and gilded finial, flanked by monumental stone stacks. The main facade facing Piccadilly Circus completes the vista up Lower Regent Street, while a one bay return to the right connects it to a plainer facade on Glasshouse Street.