Heritage Statement the Dilly, 21 Piccadilly, City of Westminster, London, W1J 0BH

Heritage Statement The Dilly, 21 Piccadilly, City of Westminster, London, W1J 0BH

January 2021

Contents

1. Introduction 3

2. Review of Application Scheme 5

Appendix: Baseline Heritage Appraisal 10

Our Reference RODH3004

Date January 2021

1. Introduction

1.1 This Heritage Statement report has been prepared by Turley Heritage to provide relevant and proportionate information to the local planning authority, the City of Westminster, with regard to heritage impacts, and to accompany an application for listed building consent in relation to upgrade of doors, doorframes and door surrounds at the former Piccadilly Hotel (currently known as The Dilly), Piccadilly (‘the Site’). The Site is a Grade II* listed building, which is located within the Regent Street Conservation Area.

1.2 The requirement for this report stems from Section 66 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, which places a duty upon the local planning authority in determining applications for development or works that affect a listed building to have special regard to the desirability of preserving the building or its setting, or any features of special architectural or historic interest which it possesses. It is also a duty, with regard to applications within conservation areas, to pay special attention to the desirability of preserving or enhancing the character or appearance of that area.

1.3 The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) 2019, which provides the Government’s national planning policy for the conservation of the historic environment, also directs local planning authorities to take account of the desirability of sustaining and enhancing the significance of all heritage assets1 and outlines that local planning authorities should give great weight to the assets’ conservation when considering the impact of a proposed development on the significance of a designated heritage asset.2 Designated heritage assets include listed buildings, conservation areas and registered parks and gardens.3

1.4 In respect of information requirements, the NPPF sets out that

‘In determining applications, local planning authorities should require an applicant to describe the significance of any heritage assets affected, including any contribution made by their setting. The level of detail should be proportionate to the assets’ importance and no more than is sufficient to understand the potential impact of the proposal on their significance.’ 4

1.5 Paragraph 190 then sets out that local planning authorities should also identify and assess the particular significance of heritage assets that may be affected by proposals. They should take this assessment into account when considering the impact of proposals in order to avoid or minimise conflict between the heritage asset’s conservation and any aspect of the proposal.

1.6 This report should be read in conjunction with the Baseline Heritage Appraisal, prepared by Turley Heritage and appended to this Heritage Statement, which provides statements of significance for the heritage assets that have the potential to be affected by these proposals – namely, the Grade II* listed building of the former Piccadilly Hotel and the

1 MHCLG, National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) 2019 – para. 192. 2 MHCLG, National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) 2019 – para. 193. 3 MHCLG, National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) 2019 - Annex 2: Glossary. 4 MHCLG, National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) 2019 – para. 189.

Regent Street Conservation. Read together, both reports are intended to act as a shared resource to better inform the decision-making process.

1.7 This Heritage Statement should also be read in conjunction with the full package of drawings and accompanying documentation prepared by Rodić Davidson Architects.

1.8 The purpose of these proposals is to ensure compliance with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and The Building Regulations 2010 Approved Document B: Fire Safety, while minimising impacts on the special interest of the listed building.

1.9 The following section of this report undertakes a review of the application proposals, and describes their likely impacts on the significance of the identified designated heritage assets, as informed by the assessments of significance contained within the Baseline Heritage Appraisal, and also in light of the relevant heritage legislative, planning policy and guidance context for such change.

2. Review of Application Scheme

2.1 The purpose of these proposals is to provide essential upgrades to the building to protect the health and safety of its users and thereby ensure compliance with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and The Building Regulations 2010 Approved Document B: Fire Safety, while minimising impacts on the special interest of the listed building.

2.2 The works comprise the replacement of 239 doors and doorframes associated with guest rooms on floors 2 to 6. The application covers the first phase of a broader scheme of door replacement covering 680 plus doors requiring upgraded fire rating. The doors and door frames to be replaced in this application are fire doors dating from the late 20th century (refer to Door Schedule prepared by Rodić Davidson Architects, accompanying this application) and, most likely, they are the fire doors shown on the 1984 Cobban & Lironi plans (see Figures 2.1 and 2.2).

2.3 These doors fall under one single typology and the methodology for of removal and replacement will be consistent throughout (as detailed in the methodology for door upgrades contained in the accompanying Design and Access Statement prepared by Rodić Davidson Architects). The proposed methodology will involve the careful removal of architraves from only one side of the doorway to enable to replacement of the doorframe. The architrave will then be re-instated into the original position. Where re- instatement is not possible (due to existent damage, or splitting on removal), then the existing architrave will be digitally scanned to gain an exact match to the original timber profile, and a new architrave machined to match like for like.

Figure 2.1: 1984 3rd floor plan from refurbishment scheme carried out by Cobban & Lironi (LMA)

Figure 2.2: Detail from 1984 3rd floor plan from refurbishment scheme carried out by Cobban & Lironi, indicating fire doors (abbreviated ‘FD’) (LMA)

2.4 The doors and door frames of the guest rooms are identified as of late-20th-century origin. However, a number of sympathetic door surrounds survive throughout the building, particularly at second floor (Figure 2.3).

Figure 2.3: Historic door surround, with sympathetic late-20th-century door and doorframe at second floor

2.5 The proposals would see the late-20th-century doors and doorframes replaced, in order to ensure compliance with Building Regulations. These alterations would support the building’s original hotel use, which would be a heritage benefit.

2.6 It is proposed to retain historic or sympathetic door surrounds, where possible. However, because of the construction of the door surround and door frame, it is acknowledged that there is the potential for irreversible damage to occur to the door surround during removal of the door frame. If this occurs, it is proposed to replace the door surround like-for-like. In this way, removal of historic fabric will be minimised.

2.7 The significance of the former Piccadilly Hotel is principally derived from its mostly intact external fabric and appearance, presenting grand frontages in particular to Regent Street but also to Piccadilly, as a key part of the wider townscape composition and where R. Norman Shaw’s original design intent is most readily appreciated. The interiors of the listed building make a comparatively lesser contribution to the significance of the listed building, as they are not attributed to Norman Shaw and have undergone a higher degree of alteration. In the case of the doors and door frames of the guest rooms proposed for replacement, these are identified as of late-20th-century origin and contribute very little to the significance of the listed building as a whole.

2.8 Accordingly, and notwithstanding the limited removal of historic fabric that may eventuate from the proposed works, the significance of the listed building would, overall, be sustained. Were such works to be perceived as resulting in a degree of harm to the heritage significance of the listed building by Council officers, such harm could reasonably be considered to be at the lower end of the scale of ‘less-than-substantial’ harm, as detailed by the NPPF and the NPPG. Such harm should be considered in the round, alongside the considerable public benefit that would be provided as a result of the essential upgrade of the door furniture to ensure compliance with building regulations.

Review of Legislation and Policy

Statutory Duties

The Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 2.9 The Planning (Listed Building and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 requires special regard to be had to the desirability of preserving the listed building and special attention to be paid to the desirability of preserving or enhancing the character or appearance of the conservation area. The meaning of preservation in this context, and as informed by case law, is taken to be the avoidance of harm. Accordingly, it is demonstrated in this report that the application proposals will accord with these statutory duties, and will, overall, preserve the special interest of the listed building. The works are confined to the interior of the building, and would have no impact on the character or appearance of the surrounding conservation area, which would, accordingly, be preserved.

National Policy and Guidance

NPPF 2019 and NPPG 2.10 In accordance with the requirements of paragraphs 189 and 190 of the NPPF 2019, the significance of the affected designated heritage assets of the Grade II* listed former

Piccadilly Hotel and the Regent Street Conservation Area, which have the potential to be affected by these application proposals, have been described in a proportionate manner in the Baseline Heritage Appraisal accompanying this report.

2.11 These alterations will support the former Piccadilly Hotel’s continued use as a hotel, in accordance with paragraph 192 of the NPPF. This paragraph encourages local planning authorities to take account of the desirability of sustaining and enhancing the significance of the affected heritage assets and putting them to viable uses consistent with their conservation; the positive contribution that conservation of heritage assets can make to sustainable communities including their economic vitality; and the desirability of new development making a positive contribution to local character and distinctiveness. The proposals would achieve this through carefully considered upgrade of the existing doors, doorframes and door surrounds (where appropriate), which seeks to minimise removal of or damage to historic fabric, thereby preserving the special interest of the listed building.

2.12 Paragraph 193 requires that great weight be given to the conservation of designated heritage assets, such as listed buildings and conservation areas. Importantly, Annex 2 of the NPPF defines ‘conservation’ as the process of maintaining and managing change to a heritage asset in a way that sustains and, where appropriate, enhances its significance. It is not a process that should prevent change, where proposals such as this scheme are essential to ensure the health and safety of the building’s users.

2.13 This report finds that, overall, the significance of the listed building and the conservation area would be sustained by these proposals. Therefore, the tests set out in paragraphs 195 and 196 of the NPPF should not apply. However, were some elements of the application proposals to be perceived as resulting in a degree of harm to the heritage significance of the listed building by Council officers, such harm could reasonably be considered to be at the lower end of the scale of ‘less-than-substantial’ harm, as detailed by the NPPF and the NPPG. In accordance with Paragraph 194 of the NPPF, any harm to the significance of a designated heritage asset should require clear and convincing justification; this justification has been provided within this report.

2.14 Furthermore, such elements perceived to result in harm to significance should not be considered in isolation from the wider application. Also in accordance with Paragraph 196, this less-than-substantial harm should be weighed against the wider public benefits of the proposal, including securing its optimum viable use. This report has demonstrated that although the application proposals could be perceived to result in a degree of heritage harm to significance, they will also support the building’s original hotel use, which would be a heritage benefit. The proposals would also provide the considerable public benefit of the essential upgrade of the door furniture to ensure compliance with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and The Building Regulations 2010 Approved Document B: Fire Safety.

Development Plan

London Plan 2016 2.15 In accordance with Policy 7.4 Local Character of the London Plan, this assessment finds that the proposed development has had regard to the form, function, and structure of

the surrounding area, place or street and the scale, mass and orientation of surrounding buildings.

2.16 In accordance with Policy 7.8 of the revised London Plan 2016, this Heritage Statement and full application material demonstrate that the proposed scheme has sought to appropriately value and conserve the affected heritage assets, and will also be sympathetic to the form, materials and architectural detail of its local context. The application proposal have been developed to provide essential upgrades, to comply with Building Regulations, while minimising removal of or damage to historic fabric. The proposals will also sustain the significance of the conservation area.

City Plan 2013 2.17 It is our assessment that these proposals would achieve the aim of conserving the designated heritage assets of the listed building and conservation area. This is in accordance with Policy S25 (Heritage) of the City Plan.

Unitary Development Plan (Saved) 2007 2.18 The proposals are in accordance with the aim of saved policy DES1 of the Unitary Development Plan because the development would be of the highest standards of architectural quality; make use of high-quality materials that are appropriate to the building; and respect and maintain the character, urban grain, scale and hierarchy of the existing building.

2.19 The proposals also accord with saved policy DES5 because they would not visually dominate the existing building; be in scale with the existing building and its immediate surroundings; and use external materials that are consistent with that of the existing building.

2.20 DES9 seeks to preserve or enhance the character or appearance of conservation areas and their settings, while DES10 seeks to protect and enhance listed buildings and those features of special architectural or historic interest that they possess. This report has demonstrated that the proposal would, overall, preserve the special interest of the listed building and the character and appearance of the conservation area.

Appendix: Baseline Heritage Appraisal

10 Baseline Heritage Appraisal The Dilly, 21 Piccadilly, City of Westminster, London, W1J 0BH

January 2021

Contents

1. Introduction 3

2. The Heritage Assets 5

3. Significance of the Heritage Assets 6

Appendix 1: List Entry Description 26

Appendix 2: Regent Street Conservation Area Boundary Map 30

Appendix 3: English Heritage, Survey of London: volumes 31 and 32: St James Westminster, Part 2 (F. H. W. Sheppard (General Editor)) 1963 - Extract 32

Appendix 4: Heritage Legislation, Policy and Guidance 24

January 2021

1. Introduction

Purpose of this Report

1.1 This Baseline Heritage Appraisal has been prepared by Turley Heritage on behalf of Archer Hotel Capital B.V. to provide an understanding and appreciation of the heritage significance of the Grade-II*-listed Piccadilly Hotel (the ‘Site’), currently known as Le Méridien. The Site is also located within the Regent Street Conservation Area.

1.2 This report has been based on research and site analysis to provide a properly informed and proportionate baseline for the client and design team to consider the implications of emerging proposals for alteration on Site. Not only is this report to be used as an aid to the design process by the team, but it is also intended to be shared with the local planning authority (City of Westminster) as part of informed and collaborative pre- application discussions. It is also intended to form the basis for any future Heritage Statements, prepared in support of full applications for planning permission or listed building consent to the local planning authority.

Legislation and Policy Context

1.3 This report is prepared in light of Section 66 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, which requires, as a statutory duty, to pay special regard to the special architectural or historic interest of a listed building or its setting. The Act also requires that decision-makers to pay special attention to the desirability of preserving or enhancing the character or appearance of a conservation area in determining proposals for change at the Site.

1.4 The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) 2019 provides the Government’s national planning policy for the conservation of the historic environment. In respect of information requirements it sets out that:

Structure of the Report

1.5 In order to provide a thorough understanding of the heritage significance of the former Piccadilly Hotel, this report is structured as follows:

• Section 2 of this assessment identifies the relevant heritage assets that have the potential to be affected by proposals for alteration on Site.

• Section 3 provides summary statements of significance of the listed building (formerly Piccadilly Hotel), in terms of its overall special architectural and historic

1 MHCLG, National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) 2019 – para. 189. interest, and of the Regent Street Conservation Area, in terms of its character and appearance.

1.6 This statement has been prepared using published information and has been informed by archival research undertaken at the London Metropolitan Archives, the City of Westminster Archives and the library of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and on- site visual survey.

1.7 The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) list entry description for the Piccadilly Hotel is included in Appendix 1 of this report, and the conservation area boundary map is included in Appendix 2, for ease of reference.

1.8 An extract from the relevant volume of the Survey of London, detailing the history of the development of the Site and the area surrounding it is provided in Appendix 3.

1.9 The relevant heritage legislation, planning policy and guidance is included in Appendix 4 of this report, for information. 2. The Heritage Assets

Introduction

2.1 The NPPF 2019 defines a heritage asset as

‘A building, monument, site, place, area or landscape identified as having a degree of significance meriting consideration in planning decisions, because of its heritage interest. It includes designated heritage assets and assets identified by the local planning authority (including local listing).’2

Designated Heritage Assets

2.2 A ‘designated heritage asset’ is

‘A World Heritage Site, Scheduled Monument, Listed Building, Protected Wreck Site, Registered Park and Garden, Registered Battlefield or Conservation Area designated under the relevant legislation.’3

Grade II* Listed Building: Piccadilly Hotel 2.3 Le Meridien Piccadilly Hotel (former Piccadilly Hotel) was first included on the national statutory list of building of special architectural or historic interest on 24 February 1958, and again the entry was amended on 8 March 1994. A copy of the list entry description is included in full at Appendix 1.4 This building is included at the higher grade of II*, which denotes particularly important buildings of more than special interest.

Regent Street Conservation Area 2.4 This property is located within the Regent Street Conservation Area, which was first designated in 1973 and extended in 1984 to the north side of Glasshouse Street and the corner of Coventry Street and Haymarket. Its boundaries were rearranged in 1990 to create the Haymarket Conservation Area.

Non-Designated Heritage Assets

2.5 The NPPF identifies that heritage assets include both designated heritage assets and assets identified by the local planning authority (including local listing).5 The City of Westminster does not maintain a register of unlisted buildings of local architectural or historic interest or ‘local list’.

2 MHCLG, National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) 2019 – Annex 2: Glossary. 3 Ibid. 4 The National Heritage List for England (Historic England). 5 MHCLG, National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) 2019 – Annex 2: Glossary. 3. Significance of the Heritage Assets

Significance and Special Interest

3.1 The NPPF 2019 defines the significance of a heritage asset as

‘The value of a heritage asset to this and future generations because of its heritage interest. The interest may be archaeological, architectural, artistic or historic. Significance derives not only from a heritage asset’s physical presence, but also from its setting. For World Heritage Sites, the cultural value described within each site’s Statement of Outstanding Universal Value forms part of its significance.’6

3.2 Historic England has provided guidance on assessing significance in ‘Advice Note 12: Statements of Heritage Significance: Analysing Significance in Heritage Assets’ (2019). This document responds to the NPPF requirement for applicants for heritage and other consents to describe heritage significance, in order to assist local planning authorities in making decisions and understanding the impact of proposals for change to heritage assets. Understanding the significance of heritage assets, in advance of developing proposals for their buildings and sites, enables owners and applicants to receive effective, consistent and timely decisions.7

3.3 Historic England has also past provided further guidance for their staff (and others) on their approach to making decisions and offering guidance about all aspects of England’s historic environment.8 This provides advice on how to assess the contribution of elements of a heritage asset, or within its setting, to its significance in terms of its ‘heritage values’. These values are evidential, historical, aesthetic and communal. This document supplements the established definitions of heritage significance and special interest set out in founding legislation and more recent national planning policy and guidance.

Listed Buildings 3.4 Listed buildings are defined as designated heritage assets that hold architectural or historic interest.

3.5 The principles of selection for listed buildings are published by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport9 and supported by Historic England’s Listing Selection Guides for each building type.10 The relevant listing selection guide for the listed building on Site is ‘Commerce and Exchange Buildings’.

Assessment

3.6 The following assessment of significance is proportionate to the importance of the designated heritage asset and listed building, and provides a sufficient level of

6 MHCLG, National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) 2019 – Annex 2: Glossary. 7 Historic England, Advice Note 12: Statements of Heritage Significance: Analysing Significance in Heritage Assets, 2019. 8 English Heritage (now Historic England) Conservation Principles: Policies and Guidance 2008. 9 DCMS. Principles of Selection for Designating Buildings, 2018. 10 Historic England. Selection Guides 2011 (updated).

description to understand the impact of emerging proposals, given their nature and extent. This assessment is based on existing published information, focussed archival research and on-site visual survey.

Grade II* Listed Building: Piccadilly Hotel

Introduction 3.7 The historical development, architecture and associations of the former Piccadilly Hotel has been well documented through published sources, and extensive archives (including architectural and design journals) are held by the library of the Royal Institute of British Architects, London Metropolitan Archives and City of Westminster Archives centre. Volumes 31 and 32 (St James Westminster, Part 2: Chapter VI) of the Survey of London11 describe the rebuilding of Piccadilly Circus and the Regent Street Quadrant in the early 20th century, of which this building forms an integral part. An extract of this account is included in full at Appendix 3 to this report.

3.8 The list entry description for the listed building identifies that it is a particularly important building of more than special interest, i.e. Grade II* in designation. This more- than-special interest is attributable less to the quality of the architectural design of the building in isolation and more to do with its close association with the renowned architect R. Norman Shaw, and as the pioneer and integral part of the grand townscape composition that he led to the rebuilding of Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This is further recognised in the attribution of the listed building as having group value as part of the Quadrant development.

Historic Interest 3.9 The Piccadilly Hotel forms part of the Quadrant development at the meeting of Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus, and junction with Piccadilly to the south. Historically, the Regent Street Scheme was created by the famed architect and town planner John Nash as his ‘Via Triumphalis’ through the West End connecting the Prince Regent’s palace Carlton House at St James’s Park in the south with the new Regent’s Park development (former Marylebone Park) to the north. The scheme was planned and commenced in 1811 and was mostly built up along the route by 1835. The distinctive swerve of the Quadrant was necessary to preserve St James’s Square and Piccadilly mansions, and was one of a number of imaginative responses by Nash to established property ownership and street patterns.

3.10 The historic interest of the listed building lies in its closer association to a more recent period and the almost-comprehensive 20th-century scheme to rebuild Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus to a new architectural model and on a larger scale than that before. The Westminster volume of the Buildings of England12 series describes the redevelopment of Regent Street north of the circus in this period (pages 453–7). The shape of the Quadrant and its relationship with Piccadilly Circus was considered to be a difficult site to redevelop, and this resulted in much re-planning and rethinking, and has since been much criticised relative to Nash’s sweep of colonnaded streets that it replaced. However, rebuilding progressed, and the stretch of Regent Street northwards was officially declared complete in 1927.

3.11 The Piccadilly Hotel was the first piece of this rebuilding puzzle at the Quadrant, with a design by the architect R. Norman Shaw for a block fronting both the curve of Regent

11 English Heritage, Survey of London: volumes 31 and 32: St James Westminster, Part 2 (F. H. W. Sheppard (General Editor)) 1963 (Chapter VI: The Rebuilding of Piccadilly Circus and the Regent Street Quadrant). 12 S. Bradley and N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: London 6: Westminster, 2005.

Street to the north and the older route of Piccadilly to the south, between Air Street and Piccadilly Place. Development took place in 1905–8, described in the Buildings of England volume in the following terms:

‘There Shaw put up the most unashamedly Baroque design, a thickly rusticated ground floor, and above colossal paired columns, their lower parts ringed with heavy square blocks, and circular windows on the second floor with sumptuous garlands around. The height of the course was also much greater. The stage was set for the rebuilding of the whole Quadrant in tis Imperialist Baroque, but the shopkeepers objected that Shaw’s cavernous arcades were quite wrong for display windows, and work was held up while committee after committee considered the problem. In 1916 the triumvirate of Sir Aston Webb, Ernest Newton and Reginald Blomfield was instructed to prepare a fresh design, which in its approved form (1917) was credited to Blomfield alone.’ (p.454)

3.12 The clamour of the shopkeepers and also the desire of the Crown Estate to reduce costs associated with the achievement of architectural effect meant that Shaw’s impressive full proposals for the street were never realised. The rebuilding and completion of the Quadrant to the designs of Blomfield began in 1923 and were completed in 1928. The Piccadilly Hotel therefore stands as a pioneer of this large- scale redevelopment and also a fragment of a grander scheme that did not come to pass.

Architectural Interest 3.13 The architectural interest of the former Piccadilly Hotel (Figures 3.1 and 3.2) derives from its status as an example of a large, purpose-built and fully serviced hotel complex, incorporating shops to its main frontages and dating from the early decades 20th century. It is associated closely with its designer, the renowned architect R. Norman Shaw and stands as an ambitious example of his skills applying the Neo- or Edwardian Baroque architectural style and using then modern building methods and materials (Figures 3.3– 3.5). The list entry description and archival information record the supporting architects William Woodward and Walter Emden as responsible for the hotel interiors (Figures 3.6 and 3.7). As previously described, the more-than-special interest of this block is also invested in its role as part of a larger townscape composition at Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus.

Figure 3.1: View of the Regent Street elevation of the former Piccadilly Hotel

Figure 3.2: View of the Piccadilly elevation of the former Piccadilly Hotel

Figure 3.3: Photograph of the Piccadilly frontage of the Piccadilly Hotel on completion in 1908 (City of Westminster Archives)

Figure 3.4: Photograph of the Regent Street frontage of the Piccadilly Hotel on completion in 1908 (City of Westminster Archives)

Figure 3.5: Open terrace at high level within the columned screen overlooking Piccadilly on completion in 1908 (Architectural Review, vol., 24 October 1908)

Figure 3.6: View of Piccadilly entrance hall on completion in 1908 (Architectural Review, vol., 24 October 1908)

Figure 3.7: View of the Georgian Suite on completion in 1908 (City of Westminster Archives)

3.14 Volumes 31 and 32 of the Survey of London provide a neat architectural description of the Piccadilly Hotel:

‘The main part of the Piccadilly Hotel is planned roughly in the form of a letter V, opening towards the west, with one arm fronting directly to the Quadrant and the other facing south, parallel with, but set well back from Piccadilly, and having at each end a tall wing flanking the low range fronting that thoroughfare.

‘The north front (Plate 151a) is the only section of Shaw's Quadrant to be erected, and comprises one complete sequence of six colonnaded bays between two accented single bays, and one colonnaded bay to the west. The Piccadilly front (Plate 150b), however, was designed as an entity and is incomplete only because of the deplorable muddle over the Denman House rebuilding. Shaw repeated the rusticated arcade of the Quadrant with a regular sequence of eleven arches (the easternmost two not executed). Above the arcade is a channel-jointed face of one storey containing a range of plain windows, five grouped above the western pair of arches and the rest arranged in nine evenly spaced pairs over the seven arches of the centre. This change of rhythm from seven to nine bays was made to suit the intercolumniation of the Ionic screen that links the east and west wings. Each end bay of this screen is filled with three superimposed windows and flanked by rusticated pilasters, but the seven bays between the plain-shafted columns are left open, with balustrades between the pedestals, to allow sunlight to flood the roof garden and light the windows in the recessed south front. The west wing face, above the first floor, is bounded by rustic pilasters and contains two tall segmental-headed windows, furnished with iron balconies and having architraves that are broken at the head by blocks supporting segmental pediment-hoods. Between these tall windows are two smaller lights, the upper one being circular and set in a carved surround. In the upper part of the wing front are three tiers of three windows and then a three-light window, set in a plain face between plain pilasters, within one of Shaw's most exuberantly Baroque gables. This feature begins with giant inverted consoles flanking the plain pilasters, which support a high segmental pediment, cleft to receive a scroll-pedimented niche.’ 13

3.15 The list entry description also provides an overview of the external appearance of the listed building and its role within the Quadrant development. However, no description is provided of the plan form or interior features of the hotel:

‘… Stone, slate roof Grand and bold (if incomplete) neo-Baroque design in Shaw's late manner. Fronts to Piccadilly and Regent Street Quadrant, flank to Piccadilly Place and Air Street. Eleven bays wide to Piccadilly. Heavily rusticated ground floor with large semicircular arcade as podium to rusticated first floor carrying giant two-storey open loggia terrace screened by Roman Ionic columns and finished off by entablature with dentilled and bracketed cornice. The main block set back behind terrace, with side wings projecting towards street. The left-hand eight storey pavilion wing is surmounted by heavy, shaped and obelisk-finialed gable with aedicule and was supposed to be balanced by a similar pavilion to right, but the symmetry was pre-empted by the retention of Nos. 19 and 20. The Regent Street Quadrant elevation is nine bays wide following curve; the arcaded podium with alternating rock-faced bands of rustication supporting a giant

13 English Heritage, Survey of London: volumes 31 and 32: St James Westminster, Part 2 (F. H. W. Sheppard (General Editor)) 1963 (Chapter VI: The Rebuilding of Piccadilly Circus and the Regent Street Quadrant)

order of coupled Roman Ionic columns in antis with partly blocked shafts and screening three storeys high between rusticated pavilion bays, with elaborately enriched, carved garland surrounds to large third floor oculi; deep entablature and pedimented dormers to attics; lofty, banded stone chimney stacks.

‘The Quadrant elevation was part of a general scheme for rebuilding the Regent Street Quadrant, later extended in amended form by Sir Reginald Blomfield and others’.14

3.16 Study of archival information and also external and internal visual inspection of the property reveals the very considerable degree of change that it has experienced over time, which is perhaps inevitable for a building in this use, which is required to upgrade its guest accommodation and facilities to maintain hotel standards and grading. Successive reconfiguration of integral retail units to both street frontages at lower ground, ground and mezzanine levels has also taken place. The Buildings of England volume notes that the intended and balancing east gable to the Piccadilly frontage was not completed and was frustrated by rival development on the adjoining site (Denman House; see Figure 3.6). Externally, the original open terrace at high level within the columned screen was also removed and infilled by a large glazed extension in 1985–6 by the designers Cobban & Lironi.

Figure 3.8: Original Ground Floor Plan drawing attributed to R. N. Shaw, dated 1908 (LMA)

3.17 This prominent glazed addition (Figure 3.7) formed part of a much more comprehensive scheme to refurbish and upgrade the entire hotel in the 1980s (then under the

14 The National Heritage List for England (Historic England)

Gleneagles Hotel Group), which is documented in several architectural and design journal articles at the time, and resulted in very substantial alteration to the historic plan form (Figure 3.8), interior scheme (Figure 3.9) and facilities/services of the listed building. It was in this period that the original arrangement of two entrances (one from Regent Street and one from Piccadilly), with a shared central and circular foyer and lobby spaces was reconfigured. Today the hotel is accessed by guests through a single entrance at 21 Piccadilly (the former Regent Street entrance now converted to a retail unit). More recent schemes of works that have further overlaid the original building structure and fabric with later interventions include the implementation of listed building consent after 2009 for demolition of internal party walls and reconfiguration at first-floor level to create new guest rooms (LPA reference: 09/09360/LBC).

3.18 As a result of these extensive the changes, very little of the original interior decorative scheme remains. The sub-basement and basement house a modernised swimming pool and leisure facilities, along with plant for the building. Much of the ground floor area is occupied by the shopfronts to Piccadilly (enlarged from their original footprint) and Regent Street. It also houses the much-altered main reception (Figure 3.10), the Oak Room guest lounge and the kitchen. The first floor houses a series of meeting rooms, including the Georgian Suite (Figure 3.11), alongside some of the finest of the guest rooms, with French windows overlooking Piccadilly (Figure 3.12). At second floor is the Terrace restaurant (Figure 3.13), overlooking Piccadilly, with further guest rooms filling the plan behind.

Figure 3.9: View of the Terrace restaurant, following completion of the glass enclosure in 1987 (Interiors, vol. 146, March 1987)

Figure 3.10: 1984 Ground floor plan from refurbishment scheme carried out by Cobban & Lironi (LMA)

Figure 3.11: View of the entrance lobby, following completion of the glass enclosure in 1987 (Interiors, vol. 146, March 1987)

Figure 3.12: View towards the much-altered main reception area

Figure 3.13: The Georgian Suite

Figure 3.14: Grand first-floor guest room

Figure 3.15: View across the Terrace restaurant at second floor

3.19 The third to ninth floor levels are dominated by guest accommodation (Figure 3.16). The plan form is simple and comprises two main service cores and a linked spine corridor serving a sequence of rooms along each of the Piccadilly and Regent Street wings of the building. A series of wells draw light into the depth of the plan. Essentially, this layout repeats from third up to ninth floor, although the number and size of rooms reduces towards the top, as space is more constrained by the lower roof form along the Regent Street frontage.

3.20 The original plan form remains throughout the building, although archival research (including various building plans dating from the 1960s and 1980s held at the London Metropolitan Archives), review of planning history and visual inspection quickly reveals that considerable alteration has been carried out to the sub-basement and basement levels and also to the main reception area. The typical plan form of corridor serving a sequence of rooms remains on the upper floors, but subdivision or amalgamation of individual rooms has also occurred successively over time, including creation of en-suite bathroom facilities in the later 20th century.

3.21 The past decorative scheme to communal spaces, guest rooms and corridors, including painted timber joinery and plaster details, has also been variously removed, relocated, replaced and/or adapted as part of later internal refurbishment works. Modern services and their associated risers and runs (either accommodated in voids or wall mounted) are also much in evidence across the floors. While the more ornate banqueting/meeting rooms largely maintain their original appearance, elsewhere in the building – i.e. in the leisure facilities, reception and guest rooms – original fabric has been removed or substantially adapted, and the appearance of much of the building’s interior is that of modern hotel accommodation, albeit characterised by a traditional or classical approach to interior design.

Figure 3.16: Typical simply decorated guest room on one of the upper floors

Group Value 3.22 The listed building has group value with a number of other listed buildings along Regent Street, as the pioneer and an integral part of the Quadrant redevelopment and the wider Regent Street rebuilding for the Crown Estate from the early 20th century.

Summary of Significance and Overview 3.23 In summary, the listed building (former Piccadilly Hotel) is of special interest as an example of a large, purpose-built and fully serviced hotel complex, incorporating shops to its main frontages, and dating from the early decades of the 20th century. It is associated closely with its designer, the renowned architect R. Norman Shaw and stands as an ambitious example of his skills applied to the Neo- or Edwardian Baroque architectural style and employing then modern building methods and materials.

3.24 Its designation at the higher Grade II* indicates more than special interest, which is principally derived from its historical value as the pioneer and integral part of the Quadrant and wider grand townscape composition of the rebuilding of Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus in the early 20th century for the Crown Estate. This is further recognised in the attribution of the listed building as having group value.

3.25 In overview, the significance of this designated heritage asset is primarily vested in its mostly intact external fabric and appearance, presenting grand frontages to both Regent Street and Piccadilly, as a key part of the wider townscape composition and where R. Norman Shaw’s original design intent is most readily appreciated. Significance is also derived from the remaining elements of the historic plan form and decorative scheme and details internally, associated with the principal circulation areas and key function spaces, which best illustrate the past and continued use of the listed building as a grand city hotel. However, the interiors, attributed to the lesser-known architects William Woodward and Walter Emden, make a comparatively lesser contribution to the significance of the listed building, relative to the exterior attributed to R. Norman Shaw.

Regent Street Conservation Area

Introduction 3.26 The Regent Street Conservation Area runs the length of Regent Street, from Langham Place, following the curve at Piccadilly Circus and finishing with the north side of Charles Street at its southern end. Reflecting the continuation of the architectural style into side streets, the conservation area includes, in many places, the side streets and streets parallel with Regent Street.

Historical Development 3.27 Regent Street was first laid out at the start of the 19th century, but the area to the southern end had already been well developed by the 17th century. The area east of what would become Regent Street – the side closer to the City – was older and more densely developed, whereas the land to the west was more open with some large houses with formal gardens, such as Albermarle House. From the late 17th century, development spread rapidly, particularly northwards, and by the late 18th century had become a dense network of residential blocks, some laid out around squares and others bisected by mews (Figure 3.17).

Figure 3.17: Richard Horwood’s Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster the Borough of Southwark, and Parts adjoining Shewing every House, 1792–9 (British Library)

3.28 In the early 19th century, Regent Street was laid out by architect John Nash to rationalise the earlier development. It remains an important example of early town planning, designed to provide a ‘triumphal route’ between Regent’s Park and Carlton House. In 1810 Nash began drawing up plans for Regent Street, running south from All Souls’ Church, Langham Place, over Oxford Circus, down and curving east to meet Piccadilly Circus and then south again to terminate at Carlton House (replaced by Nash’s Carlton House Terrace in around 1830).

3.29 The existing patterns of land ownership at this time, to either side of the proposed new street, interfered with Nash’s aspirations to create a wide, straight, Parisian-style boulevard. Instead, he was forced to accommodate a curved roadway, south-eastwards at Piccadilly, to form the boundary between Mayfair to the west and the cheaper, less desirable area of Soho to the east. The characters of these two areas were distinct, as they still are today, with newer, wider roads to the west and the warren of smaller streets and older terraced houses to the east. The area to the north of the development was marked by All Souls; Church, and to the south by Carlton House Terrace. The Quadrant formed the centrepiece, allowing for the curved route of Regent Street at the junction with Piccadilly and Shaftsbury Avenue. The scheme was completed in 1825 (Figure 3.18).

Figure 3.18: Rudolph Ackermann, ‘View of Regent Street Looking towards the Quadrant’, 1822 (LMA)

3.30 By the end of the 19th century however, the success of the commercial and retail businesses in Regent Street, as well as the desire to keep up with changing fashions and a ‘revolution’ in the retail industry, led to the decision to redevelop Regent Street. Between 1898 and the mid-1930s, all the buildings along Regent Street, apart from All Souls’ Church, were demolished and rebuilt in a Beaux-Arts classical style. Nash’s overall plan remained, but with large buildings occupying entire blocks and turning the corner into the side streets – wider streets to the west and generally narrower streets to the east.

3.31 The uniformity of the scheme was guaranteed, despite the building works spanning more than thirty years, by the determination of the freeholder of the entire street (the Crown Estate) that each block should be in a classical style, externally faced in Portland Stone, about 5 storeys high and with the different uses of each floor being clearly legible from the exterior. As a result, retail was the primary use of the ground floors, often spreading to the first floor, with office space above. In general, basements were used for storage and plant. Externally these uses are reflected in large windows to ground floors,

cornices separating retail and office storeys, and pilasters of giant order connecting multiple storeys with a single use.

3.32 The continued uniformity of Regent Street’s appearance is underscored by the fact that nearly all of the buildings along it are listed, as are examples of street furniture and public art.

Character and Appearance 3.33 The defining feature of the Regent Street Conservation Area is the uniformity of building materials, scale, architectural styles and use following the rebuilding of Regent Street between 1898 and the 1930s (Figures 3.20 and 3.21). The buildings are imposing, with almost sheer elevations to all sides reaching five or six storeys. Portland Stone is the main building material. The Beaux-Arts style is principally used to show grandeur without being austere. The detailing to the elevations indicates the way in which the facades were divided architecturally, according to the uses to each of the different floors.

3.34 The ground floor frontages are regularly divided by minimally decorated pilasters and otherwise glazed with few thin, bronze glazing bars. Upper storeys are grouped between projecting string courses and articulated with pilasters in the giant order. Attic storeys are housed in tall mansard roofs.

3.35 Regent Street itself is a wide, flat road centrally divided for most of its length by low islands, which reflect the scale of the buildings edging it. Although the Regent Street buildings continue in style around the corners, many of the side streets are noticeably narrower.

Figure 3.19: View of Regent Street looking north

Figure 3.20: View of Regent Street looking north

3.36 There is no vegetation along the streets in the Conservation Area, reinforcing this as a commercial, non-residential zone.

3.37 Street lighting is provided by the 1930s ‘Chicago’ design street lamps along the pavement, with double candelabra style lamp posts in the central paved islands. However, possibly to keep street furniture to a minimum, these are well spaced out and most lighting is provided by shopfronts.

3.38 The busy retail character of this area is the dominating use, although offices are also located at upper levels and accessed by discreet entrances off Regent Street.

3.39 The bright lights and varied brand signs behind ground floor glazing further help to distinguish this area one in which retail uses prevail. Whilst the retail options are varied, guidance published by both Westminster City Council (WCC) and the Crown Estate, who is the superior landlord, have helped to ensure that a sense of unity has been retained in order to preserve the character and appearance of the Conservation Area. There are some projecting signs on the Regent Street fronts and, perhaps more commonly, flags at first floor level. Unity is maintained through an awareness of the uniformity of stall riser height and material, fascia depth, bay width and rhythm of mullions and transoms.

Summary of Significance 3.40 The significance of the Regent Street Conservation Area derives principally from its historical and architectural interest and a largely cohesive collection of grand historic retail buildings dating from 1898 and the 1930s and built in classical style in Portland stone. The rigorous design and construction requirements of the Crown Estate have ensured a unity of style, materials, detailing and height, and this unity prevails today.

Contribution of the Site to Significance 3.41 The Site is an important element of the Regent Street Conservation Area, demarcating the southern boundary of the conservation area and the southern entrance to Upper Regent Street, and as the pioneer and integral part of the Quadrant and wider grand townscape composition of the rebuilding of Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus in the early 20th century for the Crown Estate. Accordingly, it contributes strongly to the character and appearance of the Regent Street Conservation area, although its contribution derives principally from the views of its Regent Street elevation, as part of the wider, cohesive townscape scheme of the Regent Street Quadrant.

Appendix 1: List Entry Description

List Entry Summary

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.

Name: PICCADILLY HOTEL

List Entry Number: 1265754

Location 1-5, AIR STREET PICCADILLY HOTEL, 21-31 AND 31A, PICCADILLY PICCADILLY HOTEL, 65-81, REGENT STREET

The building may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County: Greater London Authority District: City of Westminster District Type: London Borough Parish:

National Park: Not applicable to this List entry.

Grade: II*

Date first listed: 24-Feb-1958

Date of most recent amendment: 08-Mar-1994

Legacy System Information

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System: LBS

UID: 424084

Asset Groupings

This List entry does not comprise part of an Asset Grouping. Asset Groupings are not part of the official record but are added later for information.

List Entry Description Summary of Building

Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.

Reasons for Designation

Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.

History

Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.

Details

TQ 2980 NW 70/76

CITY OF WESTMINSTER PICCADILLY W1 PICCADILLY (north side) nos. 21-31 and 31A (consecutive) Piccadilly Hotel (including nos. 1-5 Air Street and nos. 65-81 Piccadilly Hotel Regent Street) (Formerly listed as No. 21, The Piccadilly Hotel with nos. 28-31 consec. and 31A (including nos. 1-5 Air Street and 49 to 63 and 83 to 113 odd, Regent Street)

24.2.58

GV II* Hotel with ground-floor shops. 1905-08. R. Norman Shaw, architect for elevations; William Woodward and Walter Emden, architects for hotel interiors. Stone, slate roof Grand and bold (if incomplete) neo-Baroque design in Shaw's late manner. Fronts to Piccadilly and Regent Street Quadrant, flank to Piccadilly Place and Air Street. Eleven bays wide to Piccadilly. Heavily rusticated ground floor with large semicircular arcade as podium to rusticated first floor carrying giant two-storey open loggia terrace screened by Roman Ionic columns and finished off by entablature with dentilled and bracketed cornice. The main block set back behind terrace, with side wings projecting towards street. The left-hand eight storey pavilion wing is surmounted by heavy, shaped and obelisk-finialed gable with aedicule and was supposed to be balanced by a similar pavilion to right, but the symmetry was pre-empted by the retention of Nos. 19 and 20. The Regent Street Quadrant elevation is nine bays wide following curve; the arcaded podium with alternating rock-faced bands of rustication supporting a giant order of coupled Roman Ionic columns in antis with partly blocked shafts and screening three storeys high between rusticated pavilion bays, with elaborately enriched, carved garland surrounds to large third floor oculi; deep entablature and pedimented dormers to attics; lofty, banded stone chimney stacks. The Quadrant elevation was part of a general scheme for rebuilding the Regent Street Quadrant, later extended in amended form by Sir Reginald Blomfield and others. Sources: Andrew Saint,R. Norman Shaw, 1976.

Listing NGR: TQ2941480598

Selected Sources

Books and journals Saint, A, Richard Norman Shaw, (1976)

Map National Grid Reference: TQ 29414 80598

The below map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. For a copy of the full scale map, please see the attached PDF - 1265754.pdf -

Appendix 2: Regent Street Conservation Area Boundary Map

Appendix 3: English Heritage, Survey of London: volumes 31 and 32: St James Westminster, Part 2 (F. H. W. Sheppard (General Editor)) 1963 - Extract

Chapter VI: The Rebuilding of Piccadilly Circus and the Regent Street Quadrant

Piccadilly Circus was originally formed in 1819 by the intersection of Piccadilly and Nash's New Street. It was one of the two links which joined together the three sections of Regent Street, and was known as Regent Circus South, Oxford Circus being called Regent Circus North. Northwards from the Circus a short length of street, terminated at the north end by the County Fire Office, led to the Quadrant on the west and to an opening into Tichborne Street on the east (Plate 152a). The original buildings in the Circus will be described and illustrated in a later volume of the Survey of London which will be concerned with the whole of Regent Street. Since the formation of Shaftesbury Avenue in the 1880's, however, Piccadilly Circus has ceased to be a circus, (fn. 1) and has become the most famous place in the whole of London. It cannot be considered in isolation from either Shaftesbury Avenue or the Regent Street Quadrant, and its evolution away from Nash's original plan therefore comes within the scope of the present volume.

The construction of the south end of Shaftesbury Avenue involved the removal of the triangular block of buildings which formed the south-west side of Tichborne Street. This triangle also formed one of the segments of Nash's Piccadilly Circus, and its removal reduced the Circus to an undistinguished and ill-shaped vortex of converging streets (see figs. 8, 13).

Shaftesbury Avenue was opened in January 1886 and discussion of how to restore at least the rudiments of architectural propriety to Piccadilly Circus has been going on with little intermission ever since. The greatest single difficulty has been the divided ownership of the surrounding land. The ground landlord on the north, west and south sides is the Crown, while the north-east side belongs partly to the London County Council and partly to private owners (fig. 13). The wide interval of time between the date of expiry of the leases granted by the Crown and of those granted by the Council, and the very great cost of buying out existing interests, has so far prevented the rebuilding of the Circus to a homogeneous architectural design.

Three months before the opening of Shaftesbury Avenue a correspondent of The Builder complained of the ruination of Nash's Circus and suggested that 'if the curve of the Quadrant could be continued on to the new street by throwing back the frontage of Tichborne-street, there would be some chance of putting the architectural lines into shape again'. (fn. 7) This is probably the first public expression of the often repeated idea, now part of official policy, for 'squaring the Circus' by setting back the north-east side.

But the Metropolitan Board of Works had other ideas. Their acquisition of the triangular block of buildings on the south-west side of Tichborne Street and the construction of Shaftesbury Avenue through the centre of it had left the Board with two small triangular islands of ground in the new Circus (fig. 8). In June 1886 the Board's Works Committee favoured the erection on the larger or western island of a single-storey stone kiosk accommodating half-a-dozen shops and an arcade. (fn. 8) This idea was taken up by the loquacious correspondent of The Builder who suggested that the centre of the new Circus should be used for public lavatories and a bus station surmounted by stalls for flower sellers. (fn. 9) With greater wisdom Leonard Stokes, in a letter to the same paper, commented that 'Most of us, no doubt, have looked with wonder at the Piccadilly-end of

Shaftesbury-avenue. How any street could ever have been set out on such lines is marvellous, not to say pitiable.' He suggested that symmetry could be restored by setting back the north-east side and proposed the erection of a fountain or statue in the centre of the Circus. (fn. 10)

These and other comments appear to have given the Board second thoughts, for in May 1887 they decided to try to restore the symmetry of Nash's original Circus by 'reproducing in some form the north-eastern portion' of it; the main feature of this remarkable structure would have been 'an archway or a pair of archways that would span the route of Shaftesbury Avenue and accommodate the traffic of that thoroughfare'. (fn. 11) But the St. James's vestry, which ardently wished to erect public lavatories upon the smaller of the two triangular islands, (fn. 12) would have none of this proposal, and not content with addressing three letters in a single day to the Board upon the subject, it persuaded half-a-dozen other metropolitan local authorities to protest likewise. (fn. 13) The Builder witheringly remarked that the Board seemed 'anxious to do all they can to prove (what required very little proof) their utter unfitness to meddle with London architecturally'. Their proposal was 'simply idiotic. Here is a fine open space obtained in a crowded and central position, and the Board propose to block the traffic and shut out the possibility of a fine architectural place by putting in the centre a shapeless block of shops, presenting no architectural form, meaning, or beauty of any kind.' (fn. 14)

Perhaps because of such opposition the Board's Works Committee decided on 17 October 1887 that as the use of the centre of the Circus for building would require statutory authority, the ground in question should be kept as an open space. At the same meeting the Works Committee also decided to offer by public auction the surplus land between the Circus and Denman Street for building and by so doing they rejected their last chance to set back the north-east side of the Circus. (fn. 15)

Public outcry against the alleged corruption of the Board was now at its height, and it was perhaps for this reason that no decision was taken about the layout of the proposed open space on the larger of the two triangular islands, which was fenced off with 'rough balks of timber supporting an unsightly wooden railing'. (fn. 16) In January 1888 the Board finally refused to permit the St. James's vestry to erect underground lavatories on the smaller of the two island plots, only to find that control of this site had passed (under the terms of the Metropolitan Street Improvement Act of 1877) to the vestry, (fn. 17) which was therefore able to defy the Board and go ahead with its long cherished scheme (fn. 18) (Plate 152b). The Shaftesbury Memorial Committee, which had asked the Board to be allowed to erect a monument in the Circus in February 1886, had to wait until January 1890 before it was granted permission by the London County Council (as successor to the Board) to place a memorial fountain on the larger island site. (fn. 19) The fountain was unveiled in July 1893 (see Chapter vii for the history of the memorial).

Figure 13: Piccadilly Circus area, plan showing the ownership of land after the rebuilding of the Regent Street Quadrant. Based on the Ordnance Survey

The next occasion on which the replanning of Piccadilly Circus became a matter of public concern was in connexion with the rebuilding of the Regent Street Quadrant. In 1901 the St. James's Hall Company, which as Crown tenant occupied a large part of the block bounded by Piccadilly, Piccadilly Place, Regent Street and Air Street, with frontages to both Piccadilly and Regent Street, agreed with the Crown to carry out extensive improvements in exchange for a fiftyyear lease. (fn. 20) Shortly afterwards the St. James's Hall Company was bought by the P. and R. Syndicate, which proposed to acquire all the outstanding leasehold interests in the whole block and erect a large hotel there. (fn. 21)

The Commissioners of Woods and Forests favoured this scheme because by the amalgamation of leasehold interests it would greatly facilitate the widening of Piccadilly between the Circus and Sackville Street, (fn. 21) negotiations for which had been proceeding with the London County Council since 1898. (fn. 22) Accordingly, in December 1903, the Syndicate and the Commissioners agreed that the former should surrender all its leases in the whole block and after erecting a new hotel thereon should receive a ninety-year lease. The elevation to the Quadrant was to accord with the general design— not yet even discussed—for the rest of the Quadrant, and the existing façade was not to be altered until such a general design had been settled. On the Piccadilly frontage the building line was to be set back to accord with the County Council's widening scheme. The agreement also provided that if the Syndicate should not succeed in acquiring the lease of Nos. 19 and 20 Piccadilly (see fig. 13), which had only recently been renewed and did not expire until 1982, it should arrange for the local authorities to buy the tenant out compulsorily and surrender the lease to the Crown, which would then lease to the Syndicate that part of the premises not required for the road widening. (fn. 21)

iii

Shortly after approving this agreement the Treasury informed the Commissioners of Woods and Forests that 'having regard to the great architectural importance of the site, the Committee presided over by the President of the Royal Institute of British Architects should be requested to advise upon the sketches of the elevations proposed as soon as they have been prepared'. (fn. 21) The Commissioners' architect, Arthur Green, then prepared a design for the Quadrant and for the north side of Piccadilly, but he died before it could be submitted to the expert committee. The members of this body were (Sir) Aston Webb, President of the Royal Institute of British Architects 1902–4, John Belcher, who succeeded Webb in that office, and Sir John Taylor, formerly Surveyor of Royal Palaces and Public Buildings in the Office of Works. After examining Green's design they recommended that 'it would be adviseable to select some architect of eminence to revise the drawings'. They recommended, in order of preference, Richard Norman Shaw, J. Macvicar Anderson and Henry T. Hare, and in September 1904 Shaw agreed to accept the commission. (fn. 23)

Norman Shaw was then seventy-three years old and was living in virtual retirement at his house in Hampstead. In an astonishing burst of creative energy he produced in the course of a few months a design of heroic conception for the Quadrant and for the Piccadilly elevation of the proposed hotel, as well as a number of schemes for the rearrangement of the Circus. But the clamour of the shop-keepers, and the Treasury's determination that not a penny of Crown revenue should be endangered for the sake of either architectural effect or municipal improvement, combined to prevent the full realization of Shaw's proposals. The two façades of the Piccadilly Hotel are merely noble fragments, and even though Sir Reginald Blomfield later completed the Quadrant with skill and propriety, the defeat of Shaw's proposals is one of the greatest of all the many lost opportunities in the architectural history of London in the present century.

Within five weeks of his appointment Shaw submitted a preliminary design for the Quadrant to the committee of three. This provided that 'the ground floor and entresol should be a row of arches' and that the roof should go 'back on one slant with a row of dormer windows'. At the next meeting of the committee, in November 1904, the elevation for the hotel submitted by the P. and R. Syndicate's own architects, Messrs. William Woodward and Walter Emden, were summarily rejected, and the committee went on to consider Shaw's proposals for the treatment of the Circus. (fn. 23)

This first design (fn. 24) (Plate 148a) is in many ways finer than any later scheme. Shaw proposed to form a long oblong place, symmetrically arranged about its main axis, continuing the south-to-north centre of (Lower) Regent Street. On the west side of this place, centred on the short east-west axis, is the rebuilt five-bay front of Swan and Edgar's store, flanked on the north by the Quadrant, and on the south by Piccadilly, now widened to equal the Quadrant. Opposite Swan and Edgar's, on the original site of the Shaftesbury Memorial, is a corresponding building occupying an island site of an irregular hexagonal form, effectively masking the miscellany of buildings at the junction of Shaftesbury Avenue and Coventry Street, yet not interfering with the traffic circulation in the existing roadways. The south end of the place is finished with re-entrant angles flanking the entrance to (Lower) Regent Street. For the north end Shaw reserves his most impressive feature, the County Fire Office set back some 65 feet from its existing frontage line and rebuilt in a monumental style, with a loggia approached by a bold flight of steps. This building is flanked by great archways, giving entrance to Glasshouse and Sherwood

Streets, and the new return frontages to the Quadrant and Sherwood Street, facing east and west, are built above open loggias, recalling the Covent Garden piazza. In front of the County Fire Office, and projecting so as to be seen from the Quadrant, Shaw places the Shaftesbury Memorial.

A sketch (Plate 148b) for the elevation of the north end of the place shows the County Fire Office with its wide flight of steps rising against a rusticated podium to the ground storey, an open arcade of five bays built in horizontally channelled courses. The two-storeyed upper face of plain masonry is recessed behind a Corinthian colonnade of five bays, terminated by rustic piers. Over the main entablature is an attic with five square windows, framed in eared and shouldered architraves broken by triple keystones, and the front is finished with a pedestal parapet, possibly intended to have balustrades between the projecting dies except in the centre where a group with a seated Britannia is placed. A one-pitched roof is faintly shadowed on the sketch. The great rusticated arches opening to the side streets are surmounted by open screens conforming with the Corinthian colonnade of the County Fire Office, the entablature of which is placed at a level just below that of the tall pavilions terminating the Quadrant and Sherwood Street.

The committee of three experts quickly approved this scheme. Unfortunately, however, it demanded that the Crown should acquire the land needed for both the County Fire Office and the hexagonal centre block, and when in February 1905 the Treasury authorized the Commissioners of Woods and Forests to employ Shaw to settle the detailed designs for the Quadrant, the Circus and the north side of Piccadilly as far as Piccadilly Place, their Lordships stated that 'they wish to reserve especially Their judgment with regard to the suggested treatment of Piccadilly Circus.' (fn. 23)

A few days later Shaw produced another sketch-plan in which Glasshouse Street was diverted slightly eastward and made to enter the north side of the Circus at right angles instead of slanting; the island site for the County Fire Office, and the hexagonal block in the centre of the Circus were both abandoned. The only advantage of this scheme was that it required the purchase of much less land by the Crown, but on even these modest proposals the Chancellor of the Exchequer, (Sir) Austen Chamberlain, commented discouragingly that 'I am not at all enthusiastic about the alterations at the point of junction of Regent Street, Glasshouse Street and Sherwood Street, and would make no move here without the hearty co-operation of the Local Authorities.' (fn. 23)

Much more urgent in the spring of 1905 was the settlement of the elevations for the hotel. In February Woodward and Emden were instructed by the Office of Woods to place themselves at Shaw's disposal, and when they saw the designs approved by the committee Shaw commented that 'they have much to say'. (fn. 25) They did in fact address a ten-page letter of protest to the Office of Woods. They complained that they had not been told that Shaw was to design the Piccadilly as well as the Quadrant elevation, that the designs had been settled without consulting either them or their clients, that the great arches and wide piers on the ground floor and the round windows on the second floor of the Quadrant elevation were quite unsuitable, and finally (and with most justice) that their clients should have been told before and not after the conclusion of the building agreement with the Crown that they would be required to build elevations over whose design they had no control. (fn. 25)

In April 1905 Shaw, although quite unmoved by these complaints, produced an entirely new design for the Piccadilly front. This provided for the main body of the building to be set back at second-floor level, and for two great projecting gabled wings joined by a huge columned screen. By this arrangement the building could be carried up to a much greater height than would otherwise have been permitted, and there was in consequence no loss of space. (fn. 25) In his biography of Norman Shaw, Sir Reginald Blomfield later wrote 'How Shaw got away with it, how he persuaded his clients to expend very large sums on the screen, which serves no practical purpose whatever, remains a standing wonder, but Shaw was a magician in dealing with clients and committees. He seems to have had a way with him that no one could withstand, so clear, so pleasant, so convincing.' (fn. 26)

Shaw's success with the Piccadilly Hotel Company (which had replaced the P. and R. Syndicate in January 1905) (fn. 27) was partly due to the fact that the company was in no position to protest at anything he might propose. It had constantly pressed for a rapid settlement of the elevations (fn. 25) and in April 1905 it had been allowed to start demolishing its sector of the Quadrant. (fn. 23) Any delay in the settlement of the designs would cost the company a great deal of money, and Shaw was therefore in a very strong position, particularly as the hotel company were not in fact his clients. Nevertheless it was a remarkable achievement to obtain within six weeks of his production of the revised designs for the Piccadilly front, the sanction of the expert committee, of the Office of Woods and of the Treasury, as well as the agreement of the company and their architects, Woodward and Emden. Of his dealings with the latter Shaw amiably remarked 'It has taken some trouble and a good deal of talk to bring them to this desirable frame of mind, but they have arrived at it at last'. (fn. 23)

In May 1905 the chances of complete success for Shaw's designs stood at their height, the execution of his elevations for the hotel being about to start. It is now necessary to describe how the fulfilment of his plans for the Circus, for the Piccadilly front of the hotel, and for the Quadrant was largely stultified.

In July 1905 the Lords of the Treasury decided that as the Office of Woods could not recommend Shaw's scheme for the Circus 'as an investment only', they could not permit negotiations for the purchase of the land without the support and financial co-operation of the local authorities. (fn. 23) Undeterred, Shaw produced in September 1905 another design (fn. 28) (Plate 149a), which retains some features of his first design, but envisages a great square balanced about an eastwest axis with the Shaftesbury Memorial as its focal centre. The bull-nosed end of Shaftesbury Avenue is squared off, and a monumental screen extends across the east side, with a loggia in front of the London Pavilion island, and wide openings to the roadways flanked by pylons, perhaps something in the style of the sketch reproduced on page 70 of Sir Reginald Blomfield's biography of Shaw. (fn. 29) Large trees, presumably planes, are shown at regular intervals along the north and south sides, to effect a relationship and disguise the architectural disparity between Thomas Verity's Criterion and Shaw's new north front. Subsequently Shaw modified this design so as to reduce still further the amount of land which the Crown would have to buy; he also proposed to give Swan and Edgar's a bowed east end. (fn. 28)

His last plan (Plate 149b), dated March 1906, was based upon the hope that if the Crown agreed to set back the line of frontage of the east and south sides of Swan and Edgar's, the London County Council would in return demolish Piccadilly Mansions. The columned

screen across the east end of the Circus was replaced by a deep portico which was to be added to the London Pavilion to provide the centrepiece of the east side of the Circus. Sagaciously The Builder commented that the plan was 'too good to be true; too thorough a reforming to have the best chance of being carried out'. (fn. 30)

In the autumn of 1905 the Commissioners of Woods and Forests asked the Treasury to reconsider their decision of July, and in November the latter grudgingly authorized the purchase of property provided that it was a good investment and not merely wanted for Shaw's designs. The premises needed were Nos. 2–8 (even) Glasshouse Street and Nos. 1 and 2 Sherwood Street (fig. 13), but in May 1906 John Murray, the Crown surveyor, reported that there was no chance of buying them except compulsorily. In the same month the Treasury specifically excepted Shaw's Circus plans from the final approval which was accorded to his other designs. So perished Shaw's last chance to restore architectural harmony to the Circus. (fn. 28)

But with the rebuilding of part of the Quadrant already under way, the settlement of the treatment of the Circus could not be indefinitely postponed, and in 1908 John Murray prepared two plans. The aim of both of them was to form a rectangular open space, which was to be achieved by the Office of Woods and the London County Council each agreeing to surrender part of their land. In April 1909 one of these plans, which involved the demolition of the Monico and Piccadilly Mansions, setting back the eastend of Swan and Edgar's by 70 feet and advancing the London Pavilion by a corresponding distance, was sent to the County Council for consideration. Norman Shaw rightly objected to this drastic reduction in the length of the Quadrant, which he maintained would be reduced to a mere segment, and subsequently the Office of Woods appears to have had second thoughts on the matter. (fn. 31) By April 1910, when a conference between the Office of Woods, the County Council, the Westminster City Council and the Metropolitan Police was held, any idea of demolishing Piccadilly Mansions, the Monico or the Pavilion had been abandoned (if, indeed, it had ever been seriously considered), and agreement was only reached on the need for the arcade of the County Fire Office to be continued round the east side of the building so as to provide a foot-way into Glasshouse Street. When Swan and Edgar's building was rebuilt in the 1920's its east end was set back 12 feet. (fn. 32)

Shortly after the death of King Edward VII in May 1910, Murray suggested that the conversion of the tawdry Circus into a large rectangular open space, to be called King Edward VII Square, might be an appropriate object for the national memorial which was then under consideration. With admirable enterprise he made a plan and perspective view (Plate 153a), whose principal features included the removal of Piccadilly Mansions, the Monico, the Pavilion and the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain and the erection of a Shakespeare Memorial Theatre and a National Opera House on the north side and an equestrian statue of the deceased monarch in the centre of the square. In the autumn Murray forwarded these proposals to the Lord Mayor, who was chairman of the memorial committee. Nothing more seems to have been heard of them, (fn. 32) and thereafter, until the 1920's, discussion of the future of the Circus seems to have been largely unofficial. In 1910 someone suggested that the whole area should be roofed in to form a rotunda with a shopping arcade at first-floor level, (fn. 33) and in 1912 another seer proposed that archways should bridge the streets entering the circus, and that 'possibly by the planning of moving stairways at several convenient intervals, a

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colonnade of shops at a higher level could be worked in with an increased rental advantage.' (fn. 34)

The realization of Norman Shaw's design for the Piccadilly front of the hotel was also frustrated. In their building agreement of 1903 with the Office of Woods the P. and R. Syndicate (as the hotel company was then known) had undertaken that if they should fail to acquire the lease of Nos. 19 and 20 Piccadilly, at the corner of Air Street (see fig. 13), they would arrange for the local authorities to buy out the tenant, Messrs. Denman, compulsorily, and to surrender the lease to the Crown, which would then lease to the Syndicate that part of the premises not required for the widening of Piccadilly. In 1905 the Westminster City Council, acting under the powers of Michael Angelo Taylor's Act of 1817, served notice on Denman's to treat for the sale of their premises, but in a legal action the latter successfully maintained that they were not bound to sell any more of their ground than was needed for the actual street widening. Consequently they retained possession of the ground on which Shaw had intended one of the great projecting gables of the hotel to stand, and as their lease ran until 1982 and their building had only been erected two or three years previously, to buy them out without compulsory powers was virtually impossible. (fn. 35)

The completion of the widening of this part of Piccadilly involved setting back Denman's new building (Plate 150b), and prolonged negotiations took place between Denman's, the Office of Woods and the hotel company for the purpose of securing that the new front should be erected in accordance with Shaw's designs for the whole block. By 1908 the hotel company was in a very parlous financial position and was therefore unable or unwilling to undertake the expense; it also refused to allow Denman's to erect a slightly modified version of Shaw's design. Ultimately, in 1911–12, Denman's set their building back to the new line of frontage and re-erected the old façade, which had been designed by their own architect, Harold A. Woodington. There was a loud outburst of protest, but as there was no new building and only the re-erection of an old façade, the Office of Woods had no power to intervene. The Builder described this melancholy occasion as 'a hopeless blunder which will remain an eyesore for years', (fn. 36) and it is unquestionable that the absence of Shaw's great eastern gable has robbed his design of much of its grandeur.

It was, however, for the Quadrant that Shaw produced his greatest work, and it was there that he suffered the heaviest defeat. His design for the complete and uniform rebuilding of this part of Regent Street is well shown in the painstakingly rendered perspective drawing by C. W. English, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in May 1906 (Plate 150a). It was a monumental conception, simple in its general lines, bold in its modelling, and elaborate in its details, for lining the Quadrant with unbroken ranges of uniformly fronted buildings, with skilfully placed intervals and accents to break any monotony that might arise out of uniformity. The great rusticated arcade, framing the shop-fronts and mezzanine-storey windows, forms a substantial base for a giant order of Ionic columns, rising through three storeys and arranged in pairs to form sequences of five bays between single-bay features in which the windows are arranged to form vestigial arches. Above the great entablature is a row of pedimented dormers, breaking the parapet, and out of the high single-pitch roof rise great chimney-stacks of cruciform plan, a range of oval lucarnes extending between them.

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The masonry of the arcade rises from a boldly moulded plinth, in channel-jointed courses alternately of smooth-faced and projecting roughfaced stones, the piers being finished with a cornice-impost (omitted in the wider and lower centred arches of the entering streets), and the arches having triple keys. The Ionic columns have plain shafts, broken up to the level of the second tier of windows by square blocks which continue the lines of the accented courses in the single-bay features. Within the colonnades are three tiers of three-light windows, one to each bay, the middle light in the second tier being circular and dressed with a swagged garland. Each single-bay feature also has three superimposed three-light windows, the top being set within the tympanum of an arch. (In the Piccadilly Hotel these bays were built with a rusticated arch framing the second- and third-floor windows.) The main entablature of moulded architrave, plain pulvino- frieze, and modillioned cornice, breaks slightly forward over each accented bay, and the dormers breaking the parapet line have, alternately, triangular and segmental pediments. In the executed part of the design, comprising the 190-foot frontage of the Piccadilly Hotel, which was erected in 1905–8, (fn. 37) a second tier of dormers with splayed sides has replaced the intended lucarnes (Plate 151a).

Shaw's design was received, except by the shopkeepers, with general acclamation. The Builder, for instance, stated that 'The front is a grand piece of masonry design, for which on the whole we can express nothing but admiration, and a satisfaction that the Quadrant should be rebuilt in so monumental a manner.' It singled out the ground storey 'with its massive rusticated arches' for particular admiration and concluded that 'the design as a whole is one which we think can only arouse a general feeling, not only of satisfaction, but of enthusiasm; its complete carrying out, which must be a matter of time, will be a great and important addition to London street architecture'. (fn. 38)

The shop-keepers, however, immediately raised a tremendous clamour against what they called 'the division of the frontage into small spaces'. They protested particularly at the width of the stone piers, the depth to which the windows were set back and the awkwardness of the semi-circular mezzanine windows. In July 1906 they presented a petition to the Office of Woods and Forests requesting that the design might be modified, but they were told that there was no possibility of any material change being made. (fn. 28)

At first these complaints were derided. The Builder said that 'The idea that a great architectural scheme by one of the first architects of the day is to be stopped because a knot of tradesmen fancy there is not plate-glass enough for them, is something too ridiculous; and if the authorities lend any ear to it they make themselves ridiculous also.' (fn. 39) The Daily Express thought that the arches were 'an artistic triumph, and Mr. Norman Shaw may well feel proud of the success of his design'. (fn. 40) Sir Aston Webb commented that 'It seems to be considered essential by some to face the whole of the ground and first-floor fronts of a long series of houses with an appalling mixture of plate- glass, looking-glass, and tawdry wood and brass work; to commence any architectural treatment on the second floor, and to cover the whole building over in due course with advertising announcements.' (fn. 28)

The shops in the Quadrant within the hotel block were ready for occupation in December 1906, but by April 1907 not one had been taken; the manager of Swan and Edgar's, who was prominent in the agitation against Shaw's design, said that they were 'very suitable

for Newgate, but utterly absurd for commercial purposes'. Questions were asked in the House of Commons whether the rest of the Quadrant was to be built to the same design, there was much debate in the press, and a Regent Street Rebuilding Committee was formed for the purpose of obtaining modifications in the elevations. (fn. 41)

By January 1908 only one of the shops had been let, and the hotel company was worried at the consequent loss of income—much of which was, apparently, due to the prohibitive rents at first demanded. (fn. 40) The hotel itself was opened on 6 May 1908, (fn. 42) but a receiver in bankruptcy was appointed on 10 August of the same year. The contract price for the erection of the building by Herbert Henry Bartlett, was £359,176, but the actual cost was £552,401, exclusive of furnishings and equipment (£161,111). The difference between the estimated and the actual cost was, of course, attributed 'to a large extent to alterations in the plans made by the Crown authorities', and the unsuitable design of the shops was also said to have reduced the company's estimated annual rental by over £21,000 per annum. There was a total deficiency of over one and a half million pounds, and in 1909 the company was wound up. (fn. 43) (fn. 2)

The failure of the Piccadilly Hotel Company greatly strengthened the agitation against the completion of the rebuilding of the Quadrant to Shaw's designs. The passage of time was also progressively weakening the position of the Commissioners of Woods, who never forgot that all the existing leases in the Quadrant would expire by 1919, and that the continued refusal of the existing tenant shop-keepers to rebuild in accordance with the approved designs could, if continued long enough, cause a disastrous loss of revenue to the Crown. (fn. 3) By 1908 the relative strength of landlord and tenant had shifted sufficiently for the Office of Woods at least to consider a proposal from Swan and Edgar to rebuild at once the whole block from the Circus to Air Street provided that some modification of Shaw's shop-windows would be permitted. The advisory committee of architects, (fn. 4) to whom the matter was referred, quickly reported that 'the proposal is to have a continuous sheet of plate glass for practically the length of the building, obliterating the piers of the Arcade. This cannot be entertained.' (fn. 40) Two years later, however, the modification of the design of the second- and third-floor windows, about whose shape and size there had been complaints, was being seriously considered. (fn. 44)

The year 1912 proved to be the crucial period in the rebuilding of the Quadrant. Four years had passed since the completion of the hotel, but no more building had been started and within seven years all the existing leases would expire. In January 1912 Mr. Henry Tanner (son of Sir Henry Tanner), acting on behalf of Hope Brothers, the tenants of Nos. 84–88 (even) Regent Street, submitted designs for the rebuilding of the whole of the north side of the Quadrant between Glasshouse Street and Air Street. The principal innovations were the omission of the ground-storey arcade, the curtailment of the width of the stone piers and the alteration of the windows of the upper storeys. As surveyor to the Office of Woods John Murray recommended acceptance of the designs and in February they were submitted to Norman Shaw for his comments. (fn. 32)

Shaw was now in his eighty-first year, and was, in his own words, 'well nigh played out and have very little vitality left'. To the Office of Woods he replied 'It is with the deepest regret that I hear of the proposed mutilation of my design for rebuilding the Quadrant. I am, I am afraid, getting somewhat indifferent to architectural matters, but I have not yet arrived at the stage of absolute indifference, and to see a design with which I took so

much pains thus vulgarized, troubles me. I am sure that your department has done everything that can be done, but circumstances (and the shopkeepers!) are too strong for us, at present.

'The design you send me is as good as you are likely to get. So subject to minor alterations I should advise its being accepted.' He was willing to help with these minor alterations, but 'would much rather not'. (fn. 32)

Two weeks later, on 1 March, when he had studied Tanner's designs more thoroughly, he finally resigned all connexion with what was to have been his final masterpiece. To the Office of Woods he wrote 'I have pored over the design for the Quadrant till I am worn out, and now I am compelled most reluctantly to ask you to allow me to retire. The question really lies in very small compass. At one time the design might be said to be mine, and of course I was prepared to stand or fall by its merits or demerits. But now all is changed. To fully understand this it is necessary to go into some details.

'From the first I was anxious to give the street more or less of a monumental character. As an architect I dwelt much on the piers and arches on pavement level to carry the upper part, but they have gone bodily. The arrangement of windows between the columns on 1st. 2nd. and 3d. floors I had hoped would have given some distinctive character, but they have gone, and very commonplace windows inserted giving the whole finish the aspect of a block of flats—even the pillars themselves have been mutilated, by the omission of the blocks on the lower part. I hope I do not exaggerate, but with all these alterations it can be no longer said to be my design at all, and practically a new design would be required of which all the odium would attach to me. I cannot say I should like that, nor do I think, should I be exposed to it. … The original design had the approval of the Committee appointed by the Treasury. . . . Every detail had their careful examination and approval and for me to set all this aside and to make a fresh scheme to fall in with the views of some shopkeepers might I fear be misunderstood and subject me to merited censure.' (fn. 45) Shaw died eight months later, on 17 November 1912.

Norman Shaw's resignation was followed by a general hue and cry in the press against the Office of Woods and against the neglect of the shopkeepers' needs. (fn. 46) In April The Builder announced that it would hold a competition for the best design for the completion of the Quadrant in harmony with both the Piccadilly Hotel's sector and with the wishes of the shop-keepers. (fn. 47) On 25 June the future of the street was discussed in the House of Commons and in September the Government appointed a committee to consider the design to be adopted for the completion of the Quadrant, bearing in mind aesthetic considerations, commercial requirements and the interests of the land revenues of the Crown. The members of the committee were the Earl of Plymouth (chairman), President of the London Society and a former First Commissioner of Works, Sir Henry Tanner, John Murray and (Sir) Reginald Blomfield, President of the Royal Institute of British Architects 1912–14. (fn. 46)

The committee inspected a large number of designs (many of them having been made for The Builder's competition, which was won by A. E. Richardson and C. L. Gill) (fn. 48) and heard evidence from several tradesmen, notably from representatives of the Cafe Royal, Hope Brothers and Swan and Edgar; the latter demanded 'windows from twenty to sixty feet [in width] between visible points of support'. All the architects who gave their views

said that this was impossible. W. E. Riley, architect to the London County Council, drew attention to the width of the shop-windows and supporting piers of the new buildings erected by Selfridge, Waring and Gillow, Gorringe, and Burberry, and pointed out that by comparison with these the width of the shop-windows at the Piccadilly Hotel could not be regarded as exceptionally small. The report of the committee, which was published in 1913, recommended that Norman Shaw's hotel façade should be treated as the centre of a symmetrical composition, and that the roof-line of the hotel should be continued for the whole length of the Quadrant, the treatment of the dormers and chimneys being modified. On the ground and mezzanine floors the great round arches were to be replaced by rectangular openings, but the span between the piers was not to exceed 25 feet. Between the mezzanine and entablature the recessed columnar treatment of the hotel façade was to be omitted. Subject to these provisos, the general character of the design should follow that of the hotel. (fn. 49)

Surprisingly, the Commissioners of Woods did not order the preparation of a design which would comply with these recommendations, but contented themselves with considering such designs as any of the tenants might submit. (fn. 50) In the second half of 1913 John Belcher and Mr. Henry Tanner, acting on behalf of Hope Brothers, discussed designs with the Office of Woods and with the committee. In these deliberations (Sir) Reginald Blomfield took a prominent part (fn. 51) and ultimately, in May 1914, a design was agreed and submitted to the Treasury for final approval. (fn. 52)

Lloyd George, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer, proved unable or unwilling to reach a decision, and in February 1915 the matter was referred to the Cabinet. There it was decided that the design approved by the Office of Woods should be rejected and that a new plan should be prepared which whilst meeting modern requirements would 'retain as far as possible the general character of the present buildings'. (fn. 52)

This fiat merely created a fresh and quite insoluble problem, for clearly the general character of Nash's buildings would not be retained if the roof-line were raised to the level of that of the Piccadilly Hotel. John Murray quickly prepared two designs, in both of which the roof-line was much lower than that of the hotel. In July 1915 these were submitted to the Cabinet, when the Prime Minister (H. H. Asquith) remitted the whole matter to Lord Selborne (who as President of the Board of Agriculture was the minister responsible for the affairs of the Office of Woods) with authority to act on behalf of the Cabinet. (fn. 52)

A few weeks later a conference was held at which the following were present: the Earl of Plymouth, Sir Henry Tanner, (Sir) Reginald Blomfield and John Murray, all members of the Quadrant enquiry committee, plus Sir Aston Webb and Ernest Newton (President of the Royal Institute of British Architects 1914–17) as additional members, and Lewis Harcourt (First Commissioner of Works, later Lord Harcourt) and Lord Selborne. They all agreed that to lower the level of the roof on either side of the existing hotel, as required by the Cabinet, was impossible, and Murray was instructed to prepare further designs. In the course of the discussions which followed it was ultimately agreed that Blomfield, Webb and Newton should jointly prepare a fresh design, and in January 1916 the Treasury authorized this procedure. (fn. 52)

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During 1916 agreement was reached between the Westminster City Council, the London County Council and the Office of Woods for the widening of Vigo Street on the north side as far as Sackville Street and of Glasshouse Street on the south side between Regent Street and Warwick Street; the closing of Warwick Street south of Glasshouse Street; and the arching over of Air Street on both sides of the Quadrant and of Swallow Street and Vine Street (now Man in Moon Passage) on the south side. (fn. 53) The oneeighth inch scale drawings for the new design were signed by Webb, Newton and Blomfield but the latter stated that the first two 'had in fact nothing to do with the design', which they had specifically requested Blomfield to undertake alone. (fn. 54) On 24 June 1917 these drawings were finally approved and signed by Lords Selborne, Harcourt and Plymouth, whose decision was taken as final. (fn. 55) The half-inch scale detail drawings for the elevations were signed at the bottom by Blomfield and dated 1917 or 1918, and at the top by Blomfield, Webb and Newton, and dated 1918. (fn. 56)

The rebuilding of the Quadrant to Blomfield's design began in April 1923, (fn. 57) and was completed in 1928. (fn. 58) The construction of the new tube station in Piccadilly Circus began in 1925 and the new circular concourse and escalators were opened on 10 December 1928. The engineer was Harley H. Dalrymple-Hay, the architects were Adams, Holden, and Pearson, and the principal contractors were John Mowlemand Co. Ltd. (fn. 59)

Architectural description: the Piccadilly Hotel

The main part of the Piccadilly Hotel is planned roughly in the form of a letter V, opening towards the west, with one arm fronting directly to the Quadrant and the other facing south, parallel with, but set well back from Piccadilly, and having at each end a tall wing flanking the low range fronting that thoroughfare.

The north front (Plate 151a) is the only section of Shaw's Quadrant to be erected, and comprises one complete sequence of six colonnaded bays between two accented single bays, and one colonnaded bay to the west. The Piccadilly front (Plate 150b), however, was designed as an entity and is incomplete only because of the deplorable muddle over the Denman House rebuilding. Shaw repeated the rusticated arcade of the Quadrant with a regular sequence of eleven arches (the easternmost two not executed). Above the arcade is a channel-jointed face of one storey containing a range of plain windows, five grouped above the western pair of arches and the rest arranged in nine evenly spaced pairs over the seven arches of the centre. This change of rhythm from seven to nine bays was made to suit the intercolumniation of the Ionic screen that links the east and west wings. Each end bay of this screen is filled with three superimposed windows and flanked by rusticated pilasters, but the seven bays between the plain-shafted columns are left open, with balustrades between the pedestals, to allow sunlight to flood the roof garden and light the windows in the recessed south front. The west wing face, above the first floor, is bounded by rustic pilasters and contains two tall segmental-headed windows, furnished with iron balconies and having architraves that are broken at the head by blocks supporting segmental pediment-hoods. Between these tall windows are two smaller lights, the upper one being circular and set in a carved surround. In the upper part of the wing front are three tiers of three windows and then a three-light window, set in a plain face between plain pilasters, within one of Shaw's most exuberantly Baroque gables. This feature begins with giant inverted consoles flanking the plain

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pilasters, which support a high segmental pediment, cleft to receive a scroll-pedimented niche.

Sir Reginald Blomfield's Completion of the Quadrant

Sir Reginald Blomfield's completion of the Quadrant was successful enough, in a negative way. While he was careful to maintain the horizontal lines of Shaw's building, and introduce elements from both fronts of the Piccadilly Hotel, his work seems effeminate, softly elegant, and rather French, whereas Shaw's is aggressively masculine and Anglo- Italian. In the Quadrant, Blomfield reduced Shaw's massive arcade to a series of shop- window bays, each with a mezzanine tier of three stone-framed windows, set between rustic piers formed of channel-jointed pulvinated courses. The windows in the upper face are nicely proportioned to the three storeys, and set in vertical bands of plain masonry, slightly projecting from the plain piers. The entablature, except for its flat frieze, the dormers and the roof, conform with Shaw's. On the west side Blomfield's plain repetitious front is divided into three lengths by two features, each having a rustic arch below an upper face containing a tall segmentalheaded window, recessed and flanked by Tuscan columns. The windows are similar to those in the west wing of the Piccadilly Hotel, and Tuscan columns were used because their shorter shafts permitted the introduction of a pedestal-course above the ground-storey arch. At either end of the Quadrant is a pavilion of similar design, but having Ionic columns and, over the main entablature, an attic stage containing one of Shaw's festooned circular windows. The roof rises in a concave-sided pyramid finished with a square dome and a gilded pineapple finial. The south side was completed in the same style as the north, with Shaw's Piccadilly Hotel as its focal centre.

The east part of the south side forms Swan and Edgar's store, which has a front towards Piccadilly Circus of three wide bays, arcaded in the ground storey and mezzanine, and with three of Shaw's tall segmental-pedimented windows in the face above, placed between rusticated piers of slight projection (Plate 151b). The Piccadilly front has a lower stage of shop-fronts and mezzanine windows in six bays between piers formed of pulvinated courses, and in the face above are six large round-arched windows in bays divided by rusticated piers. At each end is a pavilion similar to those terminating the Quadrant, having the same concave-sided and domed roofs, but without columns. Between the attics of these pavilions, set back behind a balustrade dressed with urns and putti, is a face containing two low storeys, and in the roof is a range of lucarnes similar to those designed by Shaw.

The south and north sides of Piccadilly Circus have also been rebuilt to Blomfield's designs, the County Fire Office being a repetition of Swan and Edgar's east front, to which has been added an oval dome, raised on a windowed drum and flanked by two massive chimney-stacks.

Later history

Early in 1928 the completion of the reconstruction of Crown property in the Piccadilly area prompted comment about the need for corresponding improvements on the north- east side of the Circus. In April The Times remarked that the effect of the Crown improvements was largely ruined by the contrast with 'the mean and disorderly chaos of the buildings to the north and east', and urged the ground landlord of most of them, the London County Council, to 'square the circus', by cutting off the bulge between

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Glasshouse Street and Shaftesbury Avenue and demolishing the London Pavilion. Blomfield should be employed to design the new buildings that would be required. The Times continued, truthfully, but with more optimism than foresight, that 'As a preliminary step it would be a decided gain, from the aesthetic point of view, to get rid of the illuminated signs on the façades of these buildings. By day as well as by night they are a hideous eyesore which no civilized community ought to tolerate, especially in so prominent and important a position. . . . Sooner or later the replanning of the ignoble features of the Circus on lines in harmony with the Quadrant will undoubtedly be demanded by public opinion.' With greater prevision it concluded that 'the longer the operation is delayed the more costly it will become, and the smaller will be the chance of its being undertaken and carried out by the architect who, by his dignified treatment of the western half of the Circus, is marked out for the completion of the task'. (fn. 60)

Blomfield had already sketched out his ideas (fn. 61) for getting rid of what he called 'the disorderly rabble of buildings which at present disgraces the most important "place" in London', (fn. 62) and he twice wrote to the London County Council asking to be commissioned to prepare designs for the completion of the rebuilding of the Circus. (fn. 63) In November 1928 the Council decided that it could not accede to these requests, 'as the matter is not one calling for present determination having regard to the unexpired terms of existing leases'. (fn. 64) But 'in order to leave his ideas on record' Blomfield nevertheless completed his sketch designs, which were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1936 (fn. 65) (Plate 153b). These provided for cutting back the salient between Glasshouse Street and Shaftesbury Avenue to conform with the line of frontage of the County Fire Office, and for squaring off the projecting west end of the London Pavilion block. This would have provided a large rectangular space, and the new buildings to be erected on the north and east sides would, in Blomfield's proposals, have matched the dignity and restraint of the Crown estate. Piccadilly Circus might, indeed, have at last provided an admirable illustration to Sir Edwin Lutyens's dictum that 'Architecture . . . like true charity, should not be puffed out by any intention of advertisement'. (fn. 66)

After the completion of the rebuilding of the Crown property on the north and west sides of the Circus, there was a lull of some years in public discussion of future plans. But on the north-east side the leasehold interests created by the Metropolitan Board of Works were now not far from expiry, and the municipal authorities had the chance to restore the architectural equilibrium which they had destroyed at the time of the formation of Shaftesbury Avenue. The County of London Plan prepared for the London County Council in 1943 proposed the removal of the buildings on the north-east side, 'with their clutter of advertisements', and reconstruction 'on an improved layout with a dignity that this important "place" deserves'. (fn. 67) After the war the often suggested idea of cutting back the Monico block between Shaftesbury Avenue and Glasshouse Street so as to align the frontage with that of the County Fire Office, and the removal of the London Pavilion block, became part of official policy. (fn. 68) In 1958 the London County Council resolved 'That the Council desires that the policy of the Town Planning Committee of retaining Piccadilly Circus as a cheerful centre of London's entertainment world should be continued and fostered by approving satisfactory architectural schemes which can incorporate illuminated signs in the design, so producing pleasing buildings by day and animation by night.' (fn. 69)

In 1959 the Council gave favourable consideration to a proposal to erect on the north side of the Circus a building which would include shops, a bank, restaurants, exhibition rooms and offices. During the design of the proposed building, which was to include a tower about 172 feet high, special attention had been paid 'to the difficult problem of the accepted desire to have illuminated signs in the new Circus', and the architects had attempted 'to provide adequate daylight for the various uses and at the same time ample wall-space for illuminated signs'. The Council decided that the proposed building could 'take its place as a satisfactory element in the redevelopment of the Circus', (fn. 70) but after widespread public disquiet had been aroused the Minister of Housing and Local Government directed in November 1959 that the application for town planning permission should be referred to him for decision. A public enquiry was held shortly afterwards. (fn. 71)

In May 1960 the Minister announced that he considered that the proposed design fell below the standard required for so important a site, and that the advertising panels should be 'subservient to the design of the building as a whole, instead of, as now, appearing to dominate all other design considerations'. For these and other reasons he refused to allow the proposed development, and recommended that there should be a comprehensive plan for the Circus to which developers could be asked to conform. (fn. 71) Shortly afterwards the County Council appointed Sir William Holford to advise 'on the question of preparing a comprehensive plan and report on the redevelopment of Piccadilly Circus'. (fn. 72)

Illuminated Advertising in Piccadilly Circus

The use as an advertising medium of illuminated lettering attached to the façades of prominent buildings appears to have begun in the 1890's. Piccadilly Circus (or rather, its north-east side) has since become the citadel of illuminated advertising in London, and it is worth examining how and when this came about, and how the architectural virginity of the buildings on the north, west and south sides, has been successfully defended from the persistent and determined attacks of the advertisers.

The London Building Act of 1894, (fn. 73) which recodified the whole range of the London County Council's powers for the regulation of buildings, provided that no 'building or structure' should be erected beyond the general line of buildings in any street without the Council's consent. (fn. 74) It also provided (fn. 75) that no projection from any building should extend beyond the general line of buildings except with the permission of the Council after consulting the local authority (i.e. in Piccadilly, the Westminster City Council after 1900), and empowered the Council to make byelaws, not repugnant to the provisions of the Act, for the regulation of lamps, signs and other structures overhanging the public way. (fn. 76) The byelaws were to be administered by the local authority, but they could be dispensed with in individual cases whenever the London County Council thought fit. The application of these powers to the regulation of illuminated advertising (which was then in its infancy and was not specifically mentioned in the Act) proved extremely difficult, and this, probably, was why the Council postponed making lamp and sign byelaws until 1915.

In 1899 a number of architects practising in London drew the Council's attention to the need for the control of illuminated advertisements, (fn. 77) and in 1900 the Council (using

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powers contained in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1882 and the Local Government Act of 1888) made byelaws prohibiting the exhibition of flash lights 'so as to be visible from any street and to cause danger to the traffic therein'. (fn. 78) The Council had wanted to impose a complete prohibition which would have put a stop once and for all to intermittently illuminated advertising in London, but the Home Secretary in confirming the Council's draft had added the proviso 'to cause danger to the traffic'. (fn. 79) In 1901 and 1902 the police brought two successful actions against the proprietors of intermittently illuminated advertisements, (fn. 80) but the need to prove danger to traffic rendered these byelaws quite ineffective as a means of general control.

Between 1901 and 1905 the Council's powers of control under the London Building Act of 1894 were whittled away by three adverse decisions in the High Court. In 1901 it was held that a large illuminated sign attached to a building in Seven Sisters Road, Islington, was not a projection within the meaning of section 73, (fn. 81) in 1904 that an advertisement sign in Cranbourn Street was not a structure within the meaning of section 22, (fn. 82) and in 1905 that the framework of an illuminated advertisement in Brick Lane, Stepney, was neither a projection nor a structure within the meaning of the Act. (fn. 83)

To exercise general control the London County Council had therefore to rely on its power to make lamp and sign byelaws. But there were two difficulties—the Council had to obtain the general support of the Westminster City Council and the metropolitan borough councils, who were to administer the regulations, and secondly, the byelaws, when finally made, only applied to signs which overhung the public way. From 1901 onwards intermittent discussion of draft byelaws proceeded, (fn. 84) and in 1908 a conference between representatives of the London County Council and the metropolitan borough councils took place to consider draft byelaws under both the Advertisements Regulation Act of 1907 and the London Building Act of 1894. Proposals for limiting the number of signs on any one building, and for prohibiting flashing signs were emphatically rejected by the borough councils, one of whose representatives declared that 'the owners of these signs are consumers of electric light which a great many Borough Councils supply.' (fn. 85) The lamp and sign byelaws which finally came into force in 1915, (fn. 86) twenty-one years after the passing of the Act, were less stringent than those originally proposed by the Council; they only applied to signs overhanging the public way, and they were therefore frequently circumvented.

The advertisers' attack upon the north-east side of Piccadilly Circus began in about 1890 and ended in complete success in the early 1920's. The formation of Shaftesbury Avenue had presented to the occupants of some half-a-dozen inferior buildings on the north side of Tichborne Street immensely valuable frontages to the enlarged Circus. By 1893 they had celebrated their good fortune by attaching 'sky signs' to the roofs of their premises (fn. 87) (Plate 154a), thus obtaining conspicuous advertisement without the loss of light which erection of lettering in front of windows necessarily involved. By 1899, however, the London County Council had been able to secure the removal of all sky signs, (fn. 88) and the occupants, in order to advertise, therefore had to attach lettering to the front of their buildings.

The first illuminated sign above shop-fascia level was probably erected at Mellin's Pharmacy at No. 48 Regent Street on the north-east side of the Circus, where a photograph of 1904 shows illuminated lettering announcing 'Mellin's Food' and about

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three feet in height in front of the secondfloor windows. The same photograph also shows lettering of a similar size attached to the next-door premises, No. 2 Glasshouse Street, then occupied by S. Van Raalte and Sons, cigar merchants. (fn. 89) Both these signs (which may also be seen in a photograph of 1910 reproduced on Plate 154b), were almost certainly unauthorized, for there appears to be no record of any application to the London County Council in connexion with either of them. In February 1906 the Council's Building Act Committee considered fifteen unauthorized signs in various parts of London, and decided that in view of the recent High Court decisions, no action could be taken. (fn. 90) In 1908 an electrical firm defied the objections of both the Westminster City and London County Councils over a sign 'Drink Perrier Water' mounted on the parapet of the entrance to the Café Monico, at No. 46 Regent Street, for the sign was still there in 1910 (fn. 91) (Plate 154b).

The signs mentioned so far all advertised the trade of the occupant of the building to which they were attached, while the freehold of the buildings themselves was privately owned. A very important stage in the Rake's Progress in Piccadilly Circus was therefore reached in 1908–10, when signs advertising goods not connected with the trade of the occupant were attached to Piccadilly Mansions (at the northern corner of Piccadilly Circus and Shaftesbury Avenue), whose freehold was owned by the London County Council. In 1908 the Council twice refused applications from J. Joseph, the lessee of Piccadilly Mansions, for permission to erect an illuminated sign in front of the top storey of the building, (fn. 92) but a photograph of 1910 (Plate 154b) shows that signs with letters eight feet high advertising Bovril and Schweppes had nevertheless been erected there. (fn. 93) This defiance—a landmark in the subversion from their proper purpose of the buildings in this part of the Circus—produced no reaction from the Council until 1913, when it was decided to take legal action under the terms of the lease granted in 1889. (fn. 94)

The Shaftesbury Avenue leases granted by the Metropolitan Board of Works and the London County Council had been drawn up before the appearance of illuminated advertising, and therefore contained no specific provisions against it. (fn. 5) But they did contain two clauses under which the tenant covenanted not to 'cut or maim' the walls, or to alter the elevation of the building or its architectural decoration without the landlord's consent. (fn. 95) The sign at Piccadilly Mansions had been fixed so as not to 'cut or maim' the wall, (fn. 93) and in 1914 the High Court decided that it did not constitute an alteration in the elevation of the building. (fn. 96)

There was now little to prevent the use of the buildings on the north-east side of the Circus as advertising stations. In 1913 this lucrative idea had received inadvertent official encouragement when the Board of Trade obtained the London County Council's consent to the erection on the London Pavilion of two temporary illuminated signs 21 feet high advertising the International Exhibition at Ghent. (fn. 97) The outbreak of war in 1914 merely postponed the inevitable dénouement. (fn. 6)

In May 1920 the secretary of the London Pavilion applied for permission to erect an intermittently illuminated sign 21 feet high in front of the portico of the Piccadilly front. The upper storeys of the London Pavilion are set back slightly, and only a small part of the sign overhung the public way. The infringement of the lamp and sign byelaws was therefore merely technical, and as the fabric of the building had not been cut or maimed

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the Council could not object as ground landlord. Permission was therefore granted, (fn. 97) and shortly afterwards the tenant of the Piccadilly Restaurant, who occupied the top storey of the south-west corner of the London Pavilion, erected a sign in front of his part of the building. In December 1921 he was told by the Council to remove it, (fn. 98) which he did, but by the autumn of 1923 a large illuminated sign advertising Gordon's gin had been fixed in front of the restaurant's second-storey windows at the south-west corner. (fn. 99) The lessee of both parts of the building—theatre and restaurant—was now Mr. Hutter, (fn. 100) who in the autumn of 1923 erected six signs on the Piccadilly and Shaftesbury Avenue fronts; two of them were 45 feet long and 25 feet high, and another was 87 feet long and 4 feet 6 inches high. With one small exception none of the signs overhung the public way, and the byelaws therefore did not apply; (fn. 97) nor, in the absence of any cutting and maiming, was there any infringement of the lease. (fn. 100)

The attachment of the gin sign at the southwest corner did, however, involve cutting and maiming the wall, and in May 1925 the Council obtained a Court order for the removal of the supporting irons and brackets. (fn. 101) This order was obeyed, but in October the sign was still there, suspended from steel frames resting on the parapet of the building (Plate 155a). As lessee of the London Pavilion Hutter had also erected other signs advertising a newspaper and certain brands of tobacco; here again the fabric of the building had been cut and maimed, (fn. 102) but the futile practical outcome of the previous action dissuaded the Council from starting fresh proceedings. (fn. 103)

Where the Council was not the freeholder and no question of the terms of the lease arose, the lamp and sign byelaws were also frequently circumvented. Signs at Nos. 2–6 Glasshouse Street, for instance, were exempt because they had been erected before the byelaws had been promulgated in 1915. (fn. 104) In 1921 a large sign was erected at No. 48 Regent Street, also on the north-east side of Piccadilly Circus; it overhung the public way, and its great size made it a flagrant breach of the byelaws. The sign company then set it back flush with the walls of the building, but it still projected slightly over the public way. The Westminster City Council considered that the projection was nominal and the revenue in rates considerable, and that the London County Council should therefore dispense with observance of the byelaws. The latter thought that because signs not overhanging the public way could not be controlled, there was no reason why control should not be exercised where the byelaws did apply (fn. 105) (Plate 155b).

The trouble was that the real purpose of the lamp and sign byelaws made under the London Building Act of 1894 was the protection of the safety of the public. When the byelaws were used for quite another object, the control of a new form of advertising, they could often be circumvented, for a sign set back so as not to project over the public way could be just as visually objectionable as one to which the regulations did apply. By 1923 the byelaws were being widely disregarded (fn. 106) and the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee asked the London County Council to promote legislation to enable byelaws to be made specifically for the control of illuminated advertising. But the Council felt that such a proposal would be likely to meet with considerable opposition, and the matter was dropped. (fn. 107) It was considered again in 1926, after the Royal Institute of British Architects had enquired whether it would not be in the interests of the general appearance of London to obtain powers for the control of street advertising

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generally, including the use of flashing and illuminated signs upon the exterior of buildings, but the moment was considered to be inopportune. (fn. 108)

¶By the mid 1920's the north-east side of Piccadilly Circus had assumed very much its present aspect as an advertising station (Plate 155a, 155b), and it is therefore worth examining how the buildings on the other three sides of the Circus have not been similarly debased. The answer is simple— here the Crown was the ground landlord. Whereas the leases granted in the 1880's by the Metropolitan Board of Works and the London County Council failed to prevent illuminated advertising, those granted in the 1820's by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests were successful. A standard clause in the leases granted at the formation of Regent Street bound the lessee not to 'erect or put up in front of such messuage or dwelling house and premises any water trunk or other thing what so ever nor make any additions thereto either in height or projection' without the landlord's consent. (fn. 109) Correspondingly strict covenants were inserted in the lease of the newly built Criterion Restaurant, on the south side of Piccadilly Circus, in 1874, and when in 1919 the inevitable application for permission to erect signs was received, the Commissioners of Woods and Forests were able to give an absolute refusal, and to insist upon the immediate removal of a large board which had already been erected. (fn. 110) Throughout the 1920's and 30's the Commissioners steadfastly refused to make any concessions, other than allowing one or two signs announcing the name of the theatre and restaurant. Attempts have been made in recent years to persuade the Crown to change its attitude, but the Crown Estate Commissioners have reiterated the policy of their predecessors and take the view that illuminated advertisement signs, even though they have become such a well-recognized feature at Piccadilly Circus (and certain other vantage points in the West End) undeniably spoil the appearance of buildings which were not designed to accommodate them. The buildings owned by the Crown in Piccadilly Circus have not therefore been disfigured or degraded by the exigencies of advertising (Plate 151b).

Footnotes

 1. During the rest of this section the word 'Circus' has been used in connexion with Piccadilly merely to denote the open place, and is not intended to denote circularity, which was destroyed when Shaftesbury Avenue was formed.  2. The setback was only temporary, for the profits of the company which was running the hotel in 1913 were over £50,000.  3. In their difficulties the Commissioners might also have remembered that the erection of the Quadrant in 1819–20 had depended entirely upon John Nash, who 'took the lease of every plot … and built the whole structure himself. He subsequently stated that 'I do not think the quadrant would ever have been carried into execution but in that way.'  4. Sir John Taylor had retired by this time and the committee now consisted of Sir Aston Webb, John Belcher, (Sir) Ernest George, President of the Royal Institute of British Architects 1908–9, and Sir Henry Tanner, Principal Architect, H.M. Office of Works.  5. From 1901 onwards much stricter covenants against advertising were incorporated in leases granted by the Council, and these of course applied to the Council's property in Kingsway.  6. In 1910 the London County Council had, however, scored an unexpected success against the Daily Express newspaper, whose temporary illuminated sign advocating Tariff Reform was, after a single request, meekly removed from the London Pavilion.  7. The Builder, 24 Oct. 1885, p. 585.  8. M.B.W. Works Committee Minutes, 7 June 1886, item 37.  9. The Builder, 5 March 1887, p. 368.  10. Ibid., 26 March 1887, p. 484.  11. M.B.W. Works Committee Papers, 23 May 1887, p. 555.  12. M.B.W. Minutes, 12 Nov. 1886, p. 696.  13. Ibid., 30 Sept. 1887, pp. 388, 413; 14 Oct. 1887, p. 501; 21 Oct. 1887, pp. 563–4, 601; 28 Oct. 1887, p. 610; 4 Nov. 1887, pp. 697– 698.  14. The Builder, 3 Sept. 1887, p. 323.  15. M.B.W. Works Committee Minutes, 17 Oct. 1887, item 25.  16. M.B.W. Minutes, 15 June 1888, p. 1035.  17. 40 and 41 Vict., c. 235, local, sections 15, 18.  18. M.B.W. Minutes, 13 Jan. 1888, p. 33; 10 Feb. 1888, p. 264.  19. Ibid., 12 Feb. 1886, p. 295; L.C.C. Minutes, 14 Jan. 1890, p. 5.  20. C.E.O., file 15177.  21. Ibid., file 15276.  22. L.C.C. Minutes, 4 March 1902, pp. 311–14.  23. C.E.O., file 15325.  24. R.I.B.A. Library, drawings by Norman Shaw.  25. C.E.O., file 15382.  26. Sir Reginald Blomfield, Richard Norman Shaw, R.A., 1940, p. 62.  27. The Times, 7 Aug. 1909.  28. C.E.O., file 15419.  29. Blomfield, op. cit., p. 70.  30. The Builder, 5 May 1906, p. 482.  31. C.E.O., file 15530.  32. Ibid., file 15578.  33. The Builder, 22 Oct. 1910, p. 471.  34. Ibid., 8 Nov. 1912, p. 541.  35. Ibid., 10 Feb. 1906, pp. 151–2.  36. Ibid., 2 Dec. 1905, p. 590; 27 March 1909, p. 365; 5 May 1911, p. 537; 17 May 1912, p. 565; 24 May 1912, p. 603.  37. C.E.O., file 15419; The Times, 5 May 1908.  38. The Builder, 5 May 1906, pp. 481–2.  39. Ibid., 27 April 1907, p. 497.  40. C.E.O., file 15468.  41. Ibid., loc. cit.; The Builder, 6 April 1907, p. 429.  42. The Times, 5 May 1908.  43. Ibid., 7 Aug., 19 Aug. 1909.  44. C.E.O., files 15530, 15578.  45. Ibid., file 15578. A slightly different version of this letter is printed in Blomfield, op. cit., pp. 63–4.

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 46. C.E.O., file 15794.  47. The Builder, 19 April 1912, p. 444.  48. Ibid., 5 July 1912, p. 12.  49. Report of the Committee to consider the Design for completing the rebuilding of the Quadrant, Regent Street, 1913.  50. The Builder, 1 Aug. 1913, p. 127.  51. C.E.O., file 15834.  52. Ibid., file 15931.  53. The Builder, 22 Dec. 1916, p. 385; 29 Dec. 1916, p. 395.  54. Blomfield, op. cit., p. 65.  55. C.E.O., file 16143.  56. Ibid., plan 106/8.  57. Blomfield, op. cit., p. 66.  58. The Times, 4 April, 11 Dec. 1928.  59. Inscribed stone at top of escalators.  60. The Times, 4 April 1928.  61. Ibid., 5 April 1928.  62. Ibid., 12 Oct. 1928.  63. L.C.C. Improvements Committee Minutes, 9 May 1928, item 40; 11 July 1928, item 49.  64. L.C.C. Minutes, 6–7 Nov. 1928, p. 597.  65. The Times, 4 May 1936.  66. The World's Work, vol. XLII, 1923, Sir Edwin Lutyens, What I am trying to do, pp. 527– 534.  67. County of London Plan, 1943, plate , facing p. 139.  68. L.C.C. Minutes, 17 March 1959, p. 161.  69. Ibid., 21 Oct. 1958, p. 652.  70. Ibid., 17 March 1959, p. 161.  71. Ibid., 21 June 1960, pp. 434–6.  72. Ibid., 31 Jan. 1961, p. 44.  73. 57 and 58 Vict., c. 213, local and private.  74. Ibid., section 22 (1).  75. Ibid., section 73 (8).  76. Ibid., section 164(1).  77. L.C.C. Minutes, 31 Jan. 1899, p. 86.  78. L.C.C. publication no. 3957, By-Laws . . . for the Good Rule and Government of the Administrative County of London, 1900.  79. L.C.C. Minutes, 18 June 1901, p. 728.  80. Ibid., loc, cit.; 4 March 1902, p. 319.  81. The Times Law Reports, vol. XVII, Hull v. L.C.C., pp. 270–2.  82. The Law Reports, King's Bench Division, 1904, vol. II, L.C.C. v. Illuminated Advertisements Co., p. 886.  83. Ibid., 1905, vol. II, L.C.C. v. Schewzik, p. 695.  84. L.C.C. Minutes, 26 May 1908, p. 1268.  85. Typescript of conference proceedings, in possession of L.C.C., p. 31.  86. L.C.C. publication no. 1757, Lamp and Sign Bye-Laws, 1915.  87. N.B.R., Bedford Lemere photograph 12254.  88. L.C.C. Minutes, 3 May 1892, p. 363; 21 March 1899, pp. 400–1.  89. N.B.R., photograph by H. Clunn received Feb. 1941.  90. L.C.C. Building Act Committee Minutes, 19 Feb. 1906, item 7.  91. B.A. 10884; N.B.R., Bedford Lemere photograph no. 20981/36.  92. L.C.C. Improvements Committee Minutes, 12 Feb. 1908, item 33; 11 March 1908, item 27.  93. N.B.R., Bedford Lemere photograph no. 20981/36.  94. L.C.C. Improvements Committee Minutes, 12 Feb. 1913, item 22.  95. L.C.C. Legal and Parliamentary Dept., deeds of Nos. 1–17 Shaftesbury Avenue.  96. L.C.C. Improvements Committee Papers, 23 Jan. 1924, item 24.  97. B.A. 19518.  98. L.C.C. Improvements Committee Minutes, 14 Dec. 1921, item 21.  99. L.C.C. Improvements Committee Papers, 14 Nov. 1923, item 12.  100. Ibid., 22 Oct. 1924, item 33.  101. Ibid., 24 June 1925, item 11.  102. Ibid., 7 Oct. 1925, item 17.

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 103. L.C.C. Minutes, 8 Dec. 1925, p. 894; 15 Dec. 1925, p. 918.  104. W.C.C. Minutes, 27 July 1922, p. 379.  105. B.A. 29170.  106. Ibid., 51118.  107. L.C.C. Minutes, 27 Feb. 1923, pp. 238–9; 13 March 1923, p. 341.  108. Ibid., 2 March 1926, p. 385.  109. C.E.O., London lease book 8, pp. 37–8.  110. Ibid., file 16117.  111. Ibid., 6 Oct. 1913.  112. John Summerson, John Nash Architect to King George IV, 1935, pp. 219–20.

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Appendix 4: Heritage Legislation, Policy and Guidance

Statutory Duties

The Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 The Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 provides that listed building consent is required for;

‘(s.7) … any works for the demolition of a listed building or for its alteration or extension in any manner which would affect its character as a building of special architectural or historic interest …’

In determining such applications the following duty is placed upon the decision maker:

‘s.66(1) In considering whether to grant planning permission for development which affects a listed building or its setting, the local planning authority, or as the case may be, the Secretary of State shall have special regard to the desirability of preserving the building or its setting or any features of special architectural or historic interest which it possesses.’

With regard to applications for planning permission within conservation areas, it is set out that:

‘s.72(1) In the exercise, with respect to any buildings or other land in a conservation area, of any powers under any of the provisions mentioned in subsection (2), special attention shall be paid to the desirability of preserving or enhancing the character or appearance of that area.’

It has been confirmed that Parliament’s intention in enacting section 66(1) of the 1990 Act was that decision-makers should give ‘considerable importance and weight’ to the desirability of preserving the setting of listed buildings, where ‘preserve’ means to ‘to do no harm’.15 This duty must be borne in mind when considering any harm that may accrue and the balancing of such harm against public benefits as required by national planning policy. Case law has confirmed that this weight can also be applied to the statutory tests in respect of conservation areas16. The Secretary of State has confirmed17 that ‘considerable importance and weight’ is not synonymous with ‘overriding importance and weight’.

Importantly, the meaning of preservation in this context, as informed by case law, is taken to be the avoidance of harm.

National Policy

National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) 2019 The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was introduced in March 2012 as the full statement of Government planning policies covering all aspects of the planning process. A revised National Planning Policy Framework was published in July 2018. A further revision was issued in February 2019, which replaced the previous versions published in 2012 and 2018.

15 Barnwell Manor Wind Energy Limited and (1) East Northamptonshire District Council (2) English Heritage (3) National Trust (4) The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Governments, Case No: C1/2013/0843, 18th February 2014. 16 The Forge Field Society v Sevenoaks District Council [2014] EWHC 1895 (Admin); North Norfolk District Council v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2014] EWHC 279 (Admin). 17 APP/H1705/A/13/2205929.

Chapter 16 of the NPPF outlines the Government’s guidance regarding conserving and enhancing the historic environment in more detail.

The glossary of the NPPF (Annex 2) defines conservation as the process of maintaining and managing change to a heritage asset in a way that sustains and, where appropriate, enhances its significance.

Paragraph 189 requires the significance of the heritage assets, which may be affected by the proposals to be described as part of any submission, ideally as part of a Heritage Statement report. The level of detail should be proportionate to the importance of the assets and sufficient to understand the potential impact of the proposals on their significance.

Paragraph 190 sets out that local planning authorities should also identify and assess the particular significance of heritage assets that may be affected by proposals. They should take this assessment into account when considering the impact of proposals in order to avoid or minimise conflict between the heritage asset’s conservation and any aspect of the proposal.

Paragraph 192 states that local planning authorities should take account of the desirability of sustaining and enhancing the significance of all heritage assets and putting them into viable uses consistent with their conservation; the positive contribution that conservation of heritage assets can make to sustainable communities including their economic vitality; and the desirability of new development making a positive contribution to local character and distinctiveness.

Paragraph 193 further outlines that local planning authorities should give great weight to the asset’s conservation when considering the impact on a proposed development on the significance of a designated heritage asset. The more important the heritage asset, the greater the weight should be.

Paragraph 194 specifies that any harm to, or loss of, significance of a designated heritage asset should require clear and convincing justification.

Paragraph 195 outlines that local planning authorities should refuse consent where a proposal will lead to substantial harm or total loss of significance, unless it can be demonstrated that this is necessary to deliver substantial public benefits that outweigh such harm or loss, or a number of other tests can be satisfied.

Paragraph 196 concerns proposals which will lead to less than substantial harm to the significance of a designated heritage asset. Here harm should be weighed against the public benefits, including securing the optimum viable use.

Paragraph 200 states that proposals that preserve those elements of the setting that make a positive contribution to the asset (or which better reveal its significance), should be treated favourably. It outlines that local planning authorities should also look for opportunities for new development within conservations areas and the setting of heritage assets to enhance or better reveal their significance.

Local Policy

The Development Plan There is no statutory requirement to have regard to the provisions of the development plan in the consideration of applications for listed building consent. It is likely, however, that the objectives of national policy and the development plan, with regard to the protection of heritage assets, will be closely aligned. Local authorities should also ensure that aspects of conservation policy that are relevant to development control decisions are included in the development plan.

The development plan for the City of Westminster comprises the London Plan 2011 (and revisions up to 2016), Westminster’s City Plan: Strategic Policies 2013, and the ‘saved’ policies of the Unitary Development Plan 2007. These documents provide local guidance with regard to development affecting heritage assets, and should accord with the statutory duties and the general principles outlined in the NPPF 2019.

The London Plan (Minor Alterations to the London Plan) March 2016 The London Plan was adopted by the Greater London Authority in July 2011 and sets out the Spatial Development Strategy for all Boroughs within Greater London. It replaces the London Plan (consolidated with alterations since 2004), which was published in February 2008. The Plan has been subsequently revised to ensure consistency with the NPPF (2012 edition) and other changes since 2011. The plan has been amended through the publication of Revised Early Minor Alterations (October 2013) and Further Alterations to the London Plan (FALP) (January 2014 and March 2015).

In May 2015 two sets of Minor Alterations to the London Plan (MALPs) – Housing Standards and Parking Standards – were published for public consultation. These were prepared to bring the London Plan in line with new national housing standards and the Government’s approach to car parking policy. An Examination in Public considered the MALPs in October 2015, and they were formally published as alterations to the London Plan in March 2016. The Draft London Plan was published for consultation on 29th November 2017.

The London Plan sets outs strategic policies regarding the historic environment in London, including Policy 7.8 (Heritage assets and archaeology), which states that:

‘Strategic

A London’s heritage assets and historic environment, including listed buildings, registered historic parks and gardens and other natural and historic landscapes, conservation areas, World Heritage Sites, registered battlefields, scheduled monuments, archaeological remains and memorials should be identified, so that the desirability of sustaining and enhancing their significance and of utilising their positive role in place shaping can be taken into account.

B Development should incorporate measures that identify, record, interpret, protect and, where appropriate, present the site’s archaeology.

Planning decisions

C Development should identify, value, conserve, restore, re-use and incorporate heritage assets, where appropriate.

D Development affecting heritage assets and their settings should conserve their significance, by being sympathetic to their form, scale, materials and architectural detail.

E New development should make provision for the protection of archaeological resources, landscapes and significant memorials. The physical assets should, where possible, be made available to the public on-site. Where the archaeological asset or memorial cannot be preserved or managed on-site, provision must be made for the investigation, understanding, recording, dissemination and archiving of that asset ...’

The development plan for the City of Westminster comprises the London Plan 2016 (and revisions), the Westminster City Plan: Consolidated with all changes since November 2013, and the ‘saved’ policies of the Unitary Development Plan 2007. These documents provide local guidance with regard to development affecting heritage assets.

Westminster’s City Plan 2016 Westminster City Plan: Consolidated with all changes since November 2013 was adopted by full council on 9 November 2016, and has full weight as part of the development plan in taking planning decisions from that date. This document was the result of a review of the City Council’s Core Strategy adopted in January 2011 to ensure consistency with the Government’s National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), the new London Plan published by the Mayor of London in July 2011, changes to legislation and other updates up to 2016.

Among the Strategic Objectives outlined in this document, the following are relevant to this report:

Strategic Objective 1 states that Westminster intends

To accommodate sustainable growth and change that will contribute to Westminster’s role as the heart of a pre‐eminent world class city, building on its internationally renowned business, retail, cultural, tourism and entertainment functions within the Central Activities Zone; to support the unique economic breadth and diversity of the West End and its fringe areas including the Opportunity Areas; whilst maintaining its unique and historic character, mix, functions, and townscapes.

Policy S25 (Heritage) states,

‘Recognising Westminster’s wider historic environment, its extensive heritage assets will be conserved, including its listed buildings, conservation areas, Westminster’s World Heritage Site, its historic parks including five Royal Parks, squares, gardens and other open spaces, their settings, and its archaeological heritage. Historic and other important buildings should be upgraded sensitively, to improve their environmental performance and make them easily accessible.’

City of Westminster Unitary Development Plan 2007 (Saved) The Unitary Development Plan (UDP) for the City of Westminster was adopted in 2007. Following issue of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, in January 2010 the Secretary of State issued a Direction that ‘saved’ the majority of the existing UDP policies beyond this date.

Saved Policy DES1 Principles of urban design and conservation of the UDP aims to ensure the highest quality in the form and quality of new development in order to preserve or enhance the townscape of the City.

Policy DES5: Alterations and Extensions

This policy seeks to ensure the highest standards of design in alterations or extensions for all buildings. It sets out that

‘(A) Permission will generally be granted for development involving the extension or alteration of buildings in the following circumstances:

1) where it is confined to the rear of the existing building

2) where it is does not visually dominate the existing building

3) if it is in scale with the existing building and its immediate surroundings

4) if its design reflects the style and details of the existing building

5) if the use of external materials is consistent with that of the existing building

6) where any necessary equipment, plant, pipework, ducting or other apparatus is enclosed within the external building envelope, if reasonably practicable

7) where external apparatus such as surveillance equipment is needed it is located so that visual or any other impact on amenity is avoided or minimised.

(B) Permission may be refused for development involving the alteration or extension of buildings in the following circumstances:

1) where an extension rises above the penultimate storey of the existing building (excluding roof storeys)

2) where it occupies an excessive part of the garden ground or other enclosure

3) where any added floorspace is obtained by the roofing over or physical enclosure of basement areas

4) where it involves the loss of significant gaps between buildings

5) where it involves the installation of entrance canopies which either obscure or are at variance with the architectural features of the building’

Policy DES9: Conservation Areas

This policy seeks to preserve or enhance the character or appearance of conservation areas in the City and their settings. It states the following:

‘(A) Applications for outline planning permission in conservation areas

In the case of outline planning applications within designated conservation areas it may be necessary to require additional details to be produced in order that the physical impact of the proposed development may be fully assessed.

(B) Planning applications involving demolition in conservation areas

1) Buildings identified as of local architectural, historical or topographical interest in adopted conservation area audits will enjoy a general presumption against demolition

2) Development proposals within conservation areas, involving the demolition of unlisted buildings, may be permitted a) If the building makes either a negative or insignificant contribution to the character or appearance of the area, and/or b) If the design quality of the proposed development is considered to result in an enhancement of the conservation area’s overall character or appearance, having regard to issues of economic viability, including the viability of retaining and repairing the existing building

3) In any such case, there should also be firm and appropriately detailed proposals for the future viable redevelopment of the application site that have been approved and their implementation assured by planning condition or agreement.

Planning permission will be granted for proposals which

1) Serve to reinstate missing traditional features, such as doors, windows, shopfronts, front porches and other decorative features

2) Use traditional and, where appropriate, reclaimed or recycled building materials

3) Use prevalent facing, roofing and paving materials, having regard to the content of relevant conservation area audits or other adopted supplementary guidance

4) In locally appropriate situations, use modern or other atypical facing materials or detailing or innovative forms of building design and construction.

(D) Conservation area audits

The existence, character and contribution to the local scene of buildings or features of architectural, historical or topographical interest, recognised as such in supplementary planning guidance, such as conservation area audits, will be of relevance to the application of policies DES 4 to DES 7, and DES 10.

(E) Changes of use within conservation areas

Permission will only be granted for development, involving a material change of use, which would serve either to preserve or enhance the character and appearance of the conservation area, bearing in mind the detailed viability of the development.’

Policy DES 10: Listed Buildings

This policy seeks to preserve the special interest of listed buildings. It states the following:

(A) Applications for planning permission

Applications for development involving the extension or alteration of listed buildings will where relevant need to include full details of means of access, siting, design and external appearance of the proposed development in order to demonstrate that it would respect the listed building’s character and appearance and serve to preserve, restore or complement its features of special architectural or historic interest.

Other Guidance and Material Considerations

National Planning Practice Guidance (NPPG) 2019 National Planning Practice Guidance (NPPG) was first issued by the Government in 2014 as a web based resource and living document. It was revised in July 2019, in order to reflect changes made to the NPPF in 2018 and 2019. The NPPG is intended to provide more detailed guidance and information with regard to the implementation of national policy set out in the NPPF.

NPPG helps to define some of the key heritage terms used in the Framework. With regard to substantial harm, it is outlined that in general terms this is a high test, so it may not arise in many cases. For example, in determining whether works to a listed building constitute substantial harm, an important consideration would be whether the adverse impact seriously affects a key element of its special interest. Optimum viable use is defined in the NPPG as the viable use likely to cause the least harm to the significance of the heritage asset, not just through necessary initial changes, but also as a result of subsequent wear and tear and likely future changes.

Public benefits are also defined in NPPG, as anything that delivers economic, social and environmental progress as described in the Framework. Public benefits should flow from the proposed development, and they may include heritage benefits.

Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport Circular: Principles of Selection for Listed Buildings, 2018 The Principles of Selection for Listed Buildings sets out the statutory criteria and general principles for assessing the special architectural or historic interest of a building in paragraphs 16 and 17, as below:

‘Architectural Interest:

• To be of special architectural interest a building must be of importance in its design, decoration or craftsmanship. Special interest may also apply to particularly significant examples of building types or techniques (e.g. buildings displaying technological innovation or virtuosity) and significant plan forms. Engineering and technological interest can be an important consideration for some buildings. For more recent buildings in particular, the functioning of the building (to the extent that this reflects on its original design and planned use, where known) will also be a consideration. Artistic distinction can also be a factor relevant to the architectural interest of buildings and objects and structures fixed to them.

Historic Interest:

• To be able to justify special historic interest a building must illustrate important aspects of the nation’s history and / or have closely substantiated historical associations with nationally important individuals, groups or events; and the building itself in its current form will afford a strong connection with the valued aspect of history.

17. When making a listing decision, the Secretary of State may also take into account:

• Group value: The extent to which the exterior of the building contributes to the architectural or historic interest of any group of buildings of which it forms part, generally known as group value. The Secretary of State will take this into account particularly where buildings comprise an important architectural or historic unity or a fine example of planning (e.g. squares, terraces or model villages) or where there is a historical functional relationship between the buildings. Sometimes group value will be achieved through a co-location of diverse buildings of different types and dates.

• Fixtures and features of a building and curtilage buildings: The desirability of preserving, on the grounds of its architectural or historic interest, any feature of the building consisting of a man-made object or structure fixed to the building or forming part of the land and comprised within the curtilage of the building.

• The character or appearance of conservation areas: In accordance with the terms of section 72 of the 1990 Act, when making listing

decisions in respect of a building in a conservation area, the Secretary of State will pay special attention to the desirability of preserving or enhancing the character or appearance of that area.

In addition to the criteria and general principles set out in the guidance, a number of Selection Guides for different building types were first published by Historic England in 2011 and later updated. These Selection Guides provide further information regarding each building type, and demonstrate what features are considered significant and likely to make a building of special architectural or historic interest when assessing each building type.

Historic England, Conservation Principles: Policies and Guidance, 2008 This guidance document sets out Historic England’s approach to making decisions and offering guidance about all aspects of England’s historic environment. The contribution of elements of a heritage asset or within its setting to its significance may be assessed in terms of its ‘heritage values’:

‘Evidential Value: the potential of a place to yield evidence about past human activity.

Historical Value: the ways in which past people, events and aspects of life can be connected through a place to the present.

Aesthetic Value: the ways in which people draw sensory and intellectual stimulation from a place.

Communal Value: the meanings of a place for the people who relate to it, or for whom it figures in their collective experience or memory.’ (Paras. 30-60)’

Historic England has recently consulted on a revision to this document (Conservation Principles: For the sustainable management of the historic environment). The revision is more closely aligned with the terms used in the NPPF and is in the interests of consistency, and to support the use of the Conservation Principles in more technical decision-making.

Historic England, Historic Environment Good Practice Advice in Planning Note 2: Managing Significance in Decision-Taking in the Historic Environment, 2015 This document provides advice on the implementation of historic environment policy in the Framework and the related guidance given in the PPG. For the purposes of this report, the advice includes: assessing the significance of heritage assets; using appropriate expertise; historic environment records; and design and distinctiveness.

It provides a suggested staged approach to decision-making where there may be a potential impact on the historic environment:

1) Understand the significance of the affected assets;

2) Understand the impact of the proposal on that significance;

3) Avoid, minimise and mitigate impact in a way that meets the objectives of the Framework;

4) Look for opportunities to better reveal or enhance significance;

5) Justify any harmful impacts in terms of the sustainable development objective of conserving significance and the need for change;

6) Offset negative impacts on aspects of significance by enhancing others through recording, disseminating and archiving archaeological and historical interest of the important elements of the heritage assets affected.

Historic England: Advice Note 1: Conservation Area Appraisal, Designation and Management 2019 (2nd edn) This document sets out a series of conservation principles and guidance regarding the management of Conservation Areas. It outlines the fundaments of designation, and, importantly, puts in place processes for character appraisals which may be used to manage development in the area moving forward. It sets an over-arching objective for character appraisals as documents which understand and articulate why the area is special and what elements within the area contribute to this special quality and which don’t. Having done this, it outlines an approach to assessments of special interest which uses desk and field-based inquiry.

Historic England Advice Note 2: Making Changes to Heritage Assets, 2016 This advice note illustrates the application of the policies set out in the Framework in determining applications for planning permission and listed building consent, as well as other non-planning heritage consents, including scheduled monument consent. It provides general advice according to different categories of intervention in heritage assets, including repair, restoration, addition and alteration, as well as on works for research alone, based on the following types of heritage asset: buildings and other structures; standing remains including earthworks; buried remains and marine sites; and larger heritage assets, including conservation areas, landscapes, including parks and gardens, and World Heritage Sites. The contents of this advice note were first published as part of the Planning Policy Statement 5 Practice Guide in 2010. This edition has been revised following consultation in 2015.

Historic England: Advice Note 12: Statements of Heritage Significance: Analysing Significance in Heritage Assets 2019 This advice note provides guidance with regard to the NPPF requirement for applicants for heritage and other consents to describe heritage significance, to help local planning authorities make decisions on the impact of proposals for change to heritage assets. It explores the assessment of heritage significance as part of a stage approach to decision-making, in which assessing significance precedes designing the proposals. It also describes the relationship with archaeological desk-based assessments and field evaluations, as well as Design & Access Statements.

Emerging Policy: Draft London Plan – Intend to Publish version December 2019 (Greater London Authority) In December 2017, a Draft London Plan was published for public consultation. This plan sets out the Mayor of London’s strategy for the next 20–25 years. The Mayor consulted on the draft New London Plan between 1st December 2017 and 2nd March 2018. The Examination in Public (EiP) on the London Plan was held between 15 January and 22 May 2019. The Panel of Inspectors appointed by the Secretary of State issued their report and recommendations to the Mayor on 8 October 2019.

The Mayor has considered the Inspectors’ recommendations and, on the 9 December 2019, issued to the Secretary of State his intention to publish the London Plan. Once adopted, the New London Plan will replace the London Plan (Minor Alterations to the London Plan) 2016.

Policy D1 London’s form, character and capacity for growth (A) states,

‘A Boroughs should undertake area assessments to define the characteristics, qualities and value of different places within the plan area to develop an understanding of different areas’ capacity for growth. Area assessments should cover the elements listed below:

1) demographic make-up and socio-economic data (such as Indices of Multiple Deprivation, health and wellbeing indicators, population density, employment data, educational qualifications, crime statistics)

2) housing types and tenure

3) urban form and structure (for example townscape, block pattern, urban grain, extent of frontages, building heights and density)

4) existing and planned transport networks (particularly walking and cycling networks), and public transport connectivity

5) air quality and noise levels

6) open space networks, green infrastructure, and water bodies

7) historical evolution and heritage assets (including an assessment of their significance and contribution to local character)

8) topography and hydrology

9) land availability

10) existing and emerging Development Plan designations

12) land uses

13) views and landmarks.’

Policy HC1 Heritage conservation and growth states,

‘A. Boroughs should, in consultation with Historic England and other relevant statutory organisations, develop evidence that demonstrates a clear understanding of London’s historic environment. This evidence should be used for identifying, understanding, conserving, and enhancing the historic environment and heritage assets, and improving access to the heritage assets, landscapes and archaeology within their area.

B. Development Plans and strategies should demonstrate a clear understanding of the historic environment and the heritage values of sites or areas and their relationship with

their surroundings. This knowledge should be used to inform the effective integration of London’s heritage in regenerative change by:

1) setting out a clear vision that recognises and embeds the role of heritage in place-making

2) utilising the heritage significance of a site or area in the planning and design process

3) integrating the conservation and enhancement of heritage assets and their settings with innovative and creative contextual architectural responses that contribute to their significance and sense of place

4) delivering positive benefits that sustain and enhance the historic environment, as well as contributing to the economic viability, accessibility and environmental quality of a place, and to social wellbeing.

C. Development proposals affecting heritage assets, and their settings, should conserve their significance, by being sympathetic to the assets’ significance and appreciation within their surroundings. The cumulative impacts of incremental change from development on heritage assets and their settings, should also be actively managed. Development proposals should seek to avoid harm and identify enhancement opportunities by integrating heritage considerations early on in the design process.

D. Development proposals should identify assets of archaeological significance and use this information to avoid harm or minimise it through design and appropriate mitigation. Where applicable, development should make provision for the protection of significant archaeological assets and landscapes. The protection of undesignated heritage assets of archaeological interest equivalent to a scheduled monument should be given equivalent weight to designated heritage assets.

E. Where heritage assets have been identified as being At Risk, boroughs should identify specific opportunities for them to contribute to regeneration and place-making, and they should set out strategies for their repair and re-use.’

Emerging Policy: Westminster City Plan 2019–2040 Regulation 19 Publication Draft (with Minor Modifications) November 2019 The council submitted the City Plan 2019–2040 to the Secretary of State on 19 November 2019. The 'Examination in Public' has now started, which is the last stage of the plan-making process.

Policy 39 – Design principles states,

‘A. New development will incorporate exemplary standards of high quality, sustainable and inclusive urban design and architecture befitting Westminster’s world-class status, environment and heritage and its diverse range of locally distinctive neighbourhoods.

RESPONDING TO WESTMINSTER’S CONTEXT

B. All development will positively contribute to Westminster’s townscape and streetscape, having regard to:

1. (i) the character and appearance of the existing area, adjacent buildings, the spaces around and between them

1. (ii) the pattern and grain of existing streets, squares, mews and passageways;

2. materials, building lines, scale, orientation, access, definition, surface treatment, height and massing;’

Policy 40 – Westminster’s heritage states,

‘A. Westminster’s unique historic environment will be valued and celebrated for its contribution to the quality of life and character of the city. Public enjoyment of, access to and awareness of the city’s heritage will be promoted.

B. Development must optimise the positive role of the historic environment in Westminster’s townscape, economy and character and will:

1. ensure heritage assets and their settings are conserved and enhanced, as appropriate to their significance;

2. secure the conservation and continued beneficial use of heritage assets through their retention and sensitive adaptation which will avoid harm to their significance, while allowing them to meet changing needs;

3. place heritage at the heart of place making and good growth, maintaining the unique character of our heritage assets and delivering high quality new buildings and spaces which enhance their settings.

[…]

LISTED BUILDINGS

G. Works to listed buildings will preserve their special interest, relating sensitively to the period and architectural detail of the original building and protecting or, where appropriate, restoring original detail and significant historic fabric.

H. Changes of use to listed buildings will be consistent with their long-term conservation and help to restore, retain and maintain buildings, particularly those which have been identified as at risk.

I. Development within the settings or affecting views of listed buildings will take opportunities to enhance or better reveal their significance.

[…]

CONSERVATION AREAS

K. Development will preserve or enhance the character and appearance of conservation areas, retaining features that contribute positively to their significance and protecting their settings. Opportunities will be taken to enhance conservation areas and their settings, wherever possible.

M. The contribution of existing uses to the character, function and appearance of conservation areas will be considered and changes of use supported where they make a positive contribution to conservation areas and their settings.’

Policy 41 – Townscape and architecture states,

‘A. Development will be sensitively designed, having regard to the prevailing scale, heights, character, building lines and plot widths, materials, architectural quality and degree of uniformity in the surrounding townscape.

B. Spaces and features that form an important element in Westminster’s local townscapes or contribute to the significance of a heritage asset will be conserved, enhanced and sensitively integrated within new development, including important architectural details, boundary walls and railings, historic roof forms or structures, open lightwells, historic or characteristic shopfronts and street furniture, as well as squares, parks and gardens. Where possible, lost or damaged features will be reinstated or restored.

EXTENSIVE DEVELOPMENTS

C. Extensive development will maximise opportunities to enhance the character, quality and functionality of the site and its surroundings, including creating new compositions and points of interest, and high-quality new streets and spaces, linked to the surrounding townscape to maximise accessibility.

ALTERATIONS AND EXTENSIONS

D. Alterations and extensions will respect the character of the existing and adjoining buildings, avoid adverse visual and amenity impacts and will not obscure important architectural features or disrupt any uniformity, patterns, rhythms or groupings of buildings and spaces that contribute positively to Westminster’s distinctive townscape.’

Repairs and Alterations to Listed Buildings 2004 This guide expands upon the conservation and urban design policies set out in the then City of Westminster UDP (now superseded). It is intended to help owners, occupiers and potential purchasers of listed buildings in Westminster to understand the system of Listed Building control and the standards applied by the City Council.

Shopfronts, Blinds and Signs – A Guide to their Design SPG 2004 This Design Guide was originally produced by WCC to supplement policies contained in Chapter 9 of its UDP. The purpose of this Guide is to provide guidance for the alteration, replacement and restoration of shopfronts.

Advertisement Design Guidelines SPG 2004 The Design Guidelines gives detailed guidance on different types and methods of advertising. It provides guidance on advertisements on listed buildings and specifically notes that advertisements must not harm the character of the building or obscure architectural features.

A Guide to Regent Street Shopfronts & Advertisements 1993 This document provides guidelines on proposals which include alterations to shopfronts in Regent Street. It provides detailed guidelines on shopfronts, fascia signs, projecting signs, blinds, canopies, shutters and flagpoles.

Conservation Area Directory No. 12: Regent Street (1998) and Regent Street Conservation Area Information Leaflet (2004) These documents identify the key items of significance in the conservation area.

The Crown Estate, Regent Street Design Guidelines (1999) All the buildings in Regent Street from Piccadilly Circus to All Souls Church in Langham Place (apart from odd numbers 289-319) are in the ownership of the Crown Estate. This document provides guidance on alterations to the external appearance of the Regent Street buildings. It gives detailed guidelines on a wide number of areas, including, signs and lettering, projecting hanging signs, canopies and blinds, flagpoles, entrances, external lighting, hoarding, and illumination strategy.

Turley Office 8th Floor Lacon House 84 Theobald’s Road London WC1X 8NL

T 020 7851 4010

Turley Office 8th Floor Lacon House 84 Theobald’s Road London WC1X 8NL

T 020 7851 4010