Legal and General House, with hard landscaping including front boundary walls, car park walls, piers and pergolas.

Legal and General House

This building was constructed between 1986 and 1991 by the architects Arup Associates, with landscaping designed by Peter Swann Associates. It is a major office building constructed on a sloping site, measuring approximately 100 metres by 200 metres, and is situated end-on to the slope, which is divided into a lower terrace to the south (at the original ground level of the former St Monica's School) and an upper terrace which forms the main entrance level.

The building is constructed on a reinforced concrete frame with metal and glass infill panels, and external columns of precast concrete. The cladding is of handmade brick, while timber screens and pergolas are of untreated Iroko hardwood. Lintels throughout are of French limestone ashlar. Internally, there is consistent use of precast stone and concrete with maple finishes throughout the building.

The building follows a double courtyard plan with a central entrance leading to an internal atrium beneath a rotunda. Symmetrical sets of office ranges are connected by corner towers containing staircases and vertical services. The upper terrace is defined by a retaining wall and walkway giving access to a swimming pool, a belvedere and the former school building.

The principal entrance to the building sits on the central axis and is contained in a projecting bow with square columns, and a rotunda of brick and cast stone above. The cornice above the entrance has a series of recessed square panels; that around the rotunda has pierced square holes. The entrance is flanked by brick stair towers with lanterns above, and these by lower service towers surmounted by timber pergolas. The forecourt is paved to reflect the shape of the entrance.

The highly glazed office wings are set behind a precast colonnade on square bases. The notional 'capital' of each column is a set of diagonal timber struts which support a continuous pergola of horizontal timber sunscreens. The office ranges are framed at each end by indented corners each containing a stair tower and two service towers. The internal courtyards repeat the colonnades and have central projecting bows with full-height windows adjacent to the central atrium. The northern courtyard is of two storeys; the southern courtyard is three storeys with its lower level forming a rusticated brick plinth with large windows.

The lower level, which extends further than the building above, is also exposed at the southern end of the building where it forms a terrace and retaining wall, with a row of windows lighting the staff restaurant areas inside. To the west, there is a covered walkway connecting to a projecting octagonal belvedere with stairs giving access between the upper and lower levels. This has a two-stage slate roof supported on slender columns. Beyond this the retaining wall connects to the swimming pool, which has an external timber lattice screen and tall curving roof. East of this is a further external stair with a curving balcony at the upper level and a curving pergola screen above supported on tall, square columns of rusticated brick.

The main entrance opens into a reception area with a coved ceiling, with the central atrium beyond. This is a full-height, top-lit space with continuous walkways at ground and first floor and a cone-shaped lantern supported on thick laminated beams which spring from precast concrete corbels and are connected at the apex by a fabricated steel 'crown'. The floor of the atrium is of polished Derbyshire limestone with Belgian black marble inlay and brass and copper decorative details at the centre; the design was based on the rotunda of the Altes Museum in Berlin. Deeply recessed doors around the edge give access to ancillary space and meeting rooms; the doors themselves are of maple wood in tall frames with incised edge detailing. Meeting rooms and offices at both levels around the rotunda retain some original maple panelling, doors, and sections of timber lattice-work. The former chief executive's office, now a meeting room, was refitted with panelling in a darker wood around 2011.

Beyond the central block, corridors give access to the courtyard wings. At each corner and on each level there are small octagonal lobbies, each with a stepped ceiling, giving access to the adjacent stair towers, and beyond these the offices themselves. The office interiors are flexible open-plan spaces with servicing zones in the floor and ceiling. The longer blocks are divided into three bays internally, the shorter end block into two. Each bay has a coved ceiling and the bays are divided by central pairs of circular columns with flat, square capitals. There are some smaller meeting rooms at the outer corners of the office areas with some surviving maple panelling, and other later inserted meeting rooms.

The stair towers contain open-well stairs with solid plastered balustrades capped with incised timber sections and a timber handrail. The corners of the staircase are angled with doors in deep timber surrounds. The floors of the stair wells have metal vents.

At the lower ground floor level the use of maple timber for doors, surrounds and panelling continues. There is a large staff restaurant with communal dining areas, some with panelling and some with lattice screens, with views through large windows to the landscape beyond. There are some smaller dining rooms, now meeting rooms, with panelling, timber flooring and some inbuilt dressers. Behind these are further offices and service areas including the former computer suite, post room and a large loading bay beneath the main entrance. These service areas are largely functional and do not have the same level of decoration as other areas.

Beyond the staff restaurant there is a large double-height sports hall with changing facilities and adjacent to this the large swimming pool with separate changing facilities and a side viewing gallery. This gallery forms part of the walkway which connects with the external stair tower beyond.

The main entrance to the site from the west is flanked by square pavilions in the form of four rusticated piers which support timber pergolas above. The front boundary walls extending from these are stepped to accommodate the topography and break forward at their central sections. Walls in the same style line the main entrance drive, with access points to car parks marked by square piers. Further pavilions mark the end of the drive and the entrance to the paved forecourt in front of the main entrance. These in turn are flanked by further walls which also end in pavilions, all in the same style. At the south east corner there is a flight of stairs with a pavilion at its lower level, marking the pedestrian route to the sports pavilion beyond.