Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 01/10/2012

TQ 2679 NE
85/20
14.1.70

CITY OF WESTMINSTER
KENSINGTON GORE, SW7
No 1 (Royal
Geographical Society).

GV
II*

Mansion, now headquarters of learned society. 1874-5, by Richard Norman Shaw
for William and Alice Lowther; extension of 1928-30 by G. L. Kennedy and
F. B. Nightingale for Royal Geographical Society. Red brick with gauged and
rubbed brick dressings; gabled and hipped plain tile roofs; tall fluted brick
stacks. Complex half-H plan with porch to right of central hall and former
stable range projecting from wing to left. Queen Anne style. Complex facade
of 2 storeys and attic, with 3 main bays to centre flanked by wings with hipped
roofs. Segmental arches and second-floor flat arches over cross windows with
leaded lights. Two pedimented bays to centre, breaking through coved cornice;
wing to right has semi-circular arched doorway, and first-floor balcony with
rendered coving from which tall pedimented dormer breaks through coved cornice
of hipped roof; wing to left dominated by tall stacks breaking through cover
cornice of hipped roof. Whole composition is also articulated by string
courses broken by pilasters, mostly to dormer and bay windows. Similar but
simpler 2-storey wing to left including former stables to far left with pedi-
mented dormer windows and blind oculi. Rear and side elevations in similar
style, with tall pedimented dormers surmounting canted bay windows and lateral
stack to recessed bay of rear elevation. Extension of 1928-30 to left, has
one-storey main elevations with tripartite window to canted return and statues
of Shackleton by S. Sergeant Jagger (c.1932) and Dr Livingstone by T. B. Huxley-
Jones (c.1953) set in classical stone niches. Interior: fine Queen Anne
interiors with moulded cornices, classical fireplaces and panelled doors set
in eared and pedimented architraves. Principal rooms include Hall with
panelled dado, walnut-beamed ceiling and bolection-panelled overmantle over
classical fireplace with tiles painted with coats of arms of Lowther family
by Alice Lowther; large semi-circular archway to stair-hall to right with
panelled dado and fine turned-baluster staircase rising above small former
Flower Room; Map Room, former Drawing Room to rear of hall has decorative
plaster frieze and coffered ceiling with decorative plaster spandrels. 1928-
30 extension has large lecture room and Soanian-style ambulatory. Lowther
Lodge was one of the earliest and most influential works in the Queen Anne
style, being hailed as an 'artistic landmark' in the Building News of 1875.
(M. Girovard, Sweetness and Light, 1977; A. Saint, Richard Norman Shaw, 1976;
Survey of London, Vol.38.

Listing NGR: TQ2675979634

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Lowther Lodge at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q6694193

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)