20, GOLDEN SQUARE (See details for further address information)

Former warehouse and offices constructed in 1886 for the drapers and textile merchants Holland and Sherry. The contractors Holland and Hannen, who probably designed the facade, undertook the work. The building underwent minor refurbishment alterations in the second half of the 20th century.

The facade comprises an eleven-bay frontage to Lower John Street, then steps back one bay (as dictated by Wren's historic plot boundary) into three bays facing Golden Square. The building has three floors plus a basement and is constructed in gault brick with stucco or painted stone dressings. Most of the bay widths are narrow, and the resulting close-spacing of the giant order pilasters creates a densely-articulated facade. Moulded brick panels in the upper pilasters and below the windows, a prominent moulded cornice dividing the two lower storeys from the third, and paired cornices at attic level—both projecting in line with the pilasters—contribute to this rhythm, as do ball finials along the parapet. These muscular details befit the building's function as a secure place for storing valuable cloth, associated with a prestigious company that supplied Savile Row. Despite stepping back at its northern end, the facade is roughly symmetrical and is terminated by slightly wider outer bays. Those at No. 20 Golden Square reflect the three-bay arrangement of the Georgian houses the warehouse replaced. A classical doorcase to the left of this section references the 18th-century character of the square, indicating a design of sensitivity and subtlety. The elevation's central bay on Lower John Street contains a tall semi-circular arched window above the entrance, with leaded glazing, flanked by slightly wider pilasters. The entrance was remodelled in the second half of the 20th century, but the gap in the robust iron railings indicates this is an original entrance. Delicate ironwork appears as half-height grilles on ground floor windows; these may be older features reused from elsewhere. Where window joinery has been altered—for example, the glass entrance inserted into the ground floor of 20 Golden Square—the original fenestration openings have been respected.

The original function of the warehouse remains readable in the surviving plan and historic features. Concrete floors, supported by cast iron columns with moulded capitals and girders, testify to the requirement for sturdy construction to allow large-scale storage. The Goad insurance map, dating probably from the first half of the 20th century, identifies the second floor as offices, and the extensive skylighting with attractive moulding on the third floor suggests this was used for the inspection of cloths by buyers, as was conventional in such warehouses. A wide and robustly-detailed timber staircase with iron balustrade and moulded timber handrail at the rear of the building supports the idea that the upper floors were used for receiving clients. There may have been a second original staircase accessed from Lower John Street, where a staircase from the 20th-century refurbishment now stands; the tall window certainly suggests this has always been a stairwell. The wall dividing the sections of the building at 5-8 Lower John Street and 20 Golden Square appears to be original, and metal fire doors survive here. Further skylights appear in the section at 20 Golden Square. Internal spaces have experienced subdivision and refurbishment, but the broad integrity of the structure remains intact with its purpose identifiable in the remaining original features of special interest.

The building replaced four Georgian terraced houses, similar to those surviving immediately to its north. It originally occupied a large plot stretching across the block to 7-8 Warwick Street (which runs parallel to Lower John Street), but this section was demolished in the last quarter of the 20th century. The Goad Insurance map identifies the plan and function of the building, showing that packing took place in the now-demolished section facing Warwick Street. The basement once contained hydraulic presses used to compress cloth into airless bales for safer shipping, long-term storage and security. The second floor served as offices.

Golden Square was developed from 1675 on land leased from the Crown, and Christopher Wren determined the broad layout of the square. The houses were complete by 1705, hoped to accommodate the gentry. For the first sixty or seventy years after completion, Golden Square was the residence of ambassadors, politicians and aristocrats. With the westward expansion of London, the social elite moved to Mayfair or Kensington. By 1839, according to Charles Dickens, Golden Square had become 'a great resort of foreigners' and home to the professional classes. The next half-century saw a remarkable change in both the visual and commercial character of Golden Square as it rapidly developed into the centre of the woollen and worsted trade in London. This transformation was stimulated by the retail dominance of Regent Street and Oxford Street in clothes and other goods over older centres such as Cheapside and Fleet Street. Many great department stores date from these years, which also saw the continued prosperity of smaller enterprises such as shoemakers and tailors, who colonised Savile Row from 1846. Golden Square was one of the most important addresses for suppliers to the trade, and Holland and Sherry was a prominent firm. Before 1914, nineteen of the thirty-nine domestic buildings in Golden Square had been replaced by large new office and warehouse blocks like this one to serve the expanding woollen trade: ten woollen firms occupied Golden Square by 1880, expanding to forty by 1890 and seventy by 1900. Holland and Sherry moved here from headquarters on New Bond Street and remained in Golden Square until around 1970, sharing the premises with other woollen merchants and clothiers for some of this time.