Description

CAMDEN

TQ3082SW RUSSELL SQUARE
798-1/95/1423 (East side)
03/12/70 Russell Hotel and attached railings
with piers and lamps

GV II*

Hotel. 1892-98. By Charles Fitzroy Doll, surveyor of the
Bedford Estate. Red brick with terracotta dressings. Roofs and
turrets with green fishscale tiles. Tall slab chimney-stacks
with horizontal brick and terracotta bands. Originally with
central copper dome and lantern, now with tile mansard roof.
STYLE: flamboyant French Renaissance style derived from
engravings of the Chateau de Madrid, with elaborate
decorations.
EXTERIOR: 8 storeys, attics and basements. Symmetrical facade
of 7 gabled bays with octagonal corner turrets. Return to
Bernard Street, 12 windows; return to Guilford Street, 8
windows and attached rectangular tower at the right-hand
angle. Facade articulated vertically by octagonal turrets with
ogee roofs at angles, penultimate gabled bays with canted bay
windows rising from ground to 6th floor terminating in half
ogee roofs with 2-light windows, and a 3-bay central,
projecting porch with round-arched entrance flanked by single
window bays rising to 4th floor level with recessed bay
windows forming the central bay above the entrance. Projecting
modillion cornice at 5th floor level above which flanking bays
become 3 storey semicircular turrets surmounted by conical
tile roofs with gablets and linked across the now flat,
recessed central bay by a wide arch surmounted by a scrolled
pediment with 2 round-arched, paired windows, an entablature
with the date 1894, above which a rectangular gabled dormer.
All with elaborate terracotta decoration. Round-arched ground
floor windows in shallow, arcading with attached Ionic
columns. Other windows square-headed, mostly mullion and
transom casements. 1st floor with continuous projecting
arcaded terracotta balconies with round-arched balustrade and
coats of arms in the spandrels. At 1st floor level flanking
the balcony over the entrance, figures wearing historical
costume in corbelled niches. 2nd floor continuous balconies
with terracotta round-arched balustrades. 3rd and 4th floor
windows with cast-iron continuous balconies. Projecting
modillion cornice at 5th floor level above an enriched frieze,
following the contours of the bays. Shaped gables with
horizontal brick and terracotta bands and small windows.
Returns in similar style.

INTERIOR: entrance hall lined in pink and red marble divided
into 3 by grey marble round-arched arcades on grey marble
columns with gilding. Frieze and spandrels with sumptuous
plaster moulded females of proto art-nouveau character. Marble
staircase rises to right. Ceiling in Jacobean style.
Chandeliers, and some stained glass. Woburn Suite beyond a
large hall now with low partitions, with black and white
marbled pilasters, heavy modillion cornice and coved ceiling
with lavish swags under false ceiling. 'Victorian Carvery'
with grey marble panelling to frieze height and grey marble
clad hexagonal columns which culminate in alternating little
Ionic columns and sculpted figures. Similar columns in frieze
around walls. Projecting fireplace in matching marble.
Chandeliers. King's Bar panelled to frieze height with some
organic capitals to pilasters, doorcases (one now a bookcase)
with giant Jacobean keystones under plaster friezes of chubby
putti. Marble fireplace. Trabeated ceiling with a variety of
mouldings. Virginia Woolf room with art nouveau plaster
spandrels and plaster ceiling cornices. Bedford Suite with
pilasters and plaster ceilings.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached wrought-iron railings with
terracotta piers and cast-iron lampstandards with figures at
the bases on piers.
HISTORICAL NOTE: Doll's flamboyant use of terracotta is a
distinctive feature of the Bedford Estate; this is his finest
remaining building and the survivor of two extravagant 1890's
hotels that imposed a fin-de-siecle character on Russell
Square.

Listing NGR: TQ3017882085

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Kimpton Fitzroy London Hotel at Wikipedia
• Kimpton Fitzroy London Hotel official website
• Wikidata Q5911940

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

• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)