Description

In the entry for:
TQ 2980 NE CITY OF WESTMINSTER SHAFTESBURY AVENUE
The Lyric Theatre
71/53 (including No 5 Archer
St and No 16 Great
Windmill Street)
The address shall be amended to read;
SHAFTESBURY AVENUE
The Lyric Theatre
(including No 5 Archer
Street, No 16 Great
Windmill Street and
Nos 27-29 (odd)
Shaftesbury Avenue)

------------------------------------

TQ 2980 NE CITY OF WESTMINSTER SHAFTESBURY AVENUE W1
71/53 The Lyric Theatre
(including No 5 Archer
28-6-72 St and No 16 Great
Windmill Street)
GV II
Theatre incorporating house front to Great Windmill Street. The house front is
of c1767 by Robert Mylne, altered; red brick, slate roof; 4 storeys; 5 windows wide;
ground floor altered, upper floors with recessed sashes under flat gauged arches;
stone cornice and blocking course; iron railings to closed area; an L.C.C. plaque reads
"This was the house and museum of Sir William Hunter, anatomist, 1718-1783";
interior radically altered as dressing rooms for theatre.
The theatre: 1888 by C. J. Phipps. Brick and stone facade to Shaftesbury Avenue,
slate roof. Eclectic Italian-Flemish Renaissance with dominating arcade theme. 3
storeys and attic. 5 major bays wide, the windows grouped in the rhythm 3:2:4:2:3
with centre and terminal bays as pediment gabled pavilions. Arcaded ground floor
with canopied foyer entrance in right hand pavilion and taller semicircular arched
doorway to central pavilion serving as exit. Upper floors have groups of arcaded
windows treated as loggias to the 1st floor of the pavilions, elaborated to the
central pavilion with the name of the theatre in large carved lettering above the
attic windows. The 3 pavilions have arcaded and pedimented attics. Entrance vestibule,
crush room, stalls bar etc refurbished by Michael Rosenauer in 1932; but the
elegant eclectic classical auditorium much as Phipps left it with 3 partly canti-
levered balconies, the upper two of horseshoe shape, the dress circle straightened
at the end of each return and partitioned into 3 boxes; deep elliptical arched
proscenium with enriched tympanum, flanked by pairs of giant, pedestalled Corinthian
columns framing 3 tiers of boxes; ceiling of circular panelled design, etc. The stage
incorporates a small revolve and the stage grid retains drum and shaft mechanism;
under stage is an iron stand-by hydraulic pump by Clark Burnett, 1888.
Survey of London; vol XXXI
The Theatres of London; Mander and Mitchenson

Listing NGR: TQ2960480810

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Lyric Theatre at Wikipedia
• Lyric Theatre official website
• Wikidata Q3269699

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.

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