This information is taken from the statutory List as it was in 2001 and may not be up to date.
CAMDEN
TQ3082SW RUSSELL SQUARE 798-1/95/1423 (East side) 03/12/70 Russell Hotel and attached railings with piers and lamps
GV II*
Hotel. 1892-98. By Charles Fitzroy Doll, surveyor of the Bedford Estate. Red brick with terracotta dressings. Roofs and turrets with green fishscale tiles. Tall slab chimney-stacks with horizontal brick and terracotta bands. Originally with central copper dome and lantern, now with tile mansard roof.
STYLE: flamboyant French Renaissance style derived from engravings of the Chateau de Madrid, with elaborate decorations. EXTERIOR: 8 storeys, attics and basements. Symmetrical facade of 7 gabled bays with octagonal corner turrets. Return to Bernard Street, 12 windows; return to Guilford Street, 8 windows and attached rectangular tower at the right-hand angle. Facade articulated vertically by octagonal turrets with ogee roofs at angles, penultimate gabled bays with canted bay windows rising from ground to 6th floor terminating in half ogee roofs with 2-light windows, and a 3-bay central, projecting porch with round-arched entrance flanked by single window bays rising to 4th floor level with recessed bay windows forming the central bay above the entrance. Projecting modillion cornice at 5th floor level above which flanking bays become 3 storey semicircular turrets surmounted by conical tile roofs with gablets and linked across the now flat, recessed central bay by a wide arch surmounted by a scrolled pediment with 2 round-arched, paired windows, an entablature with the date 1894, above which a rectangular gabled dormer.
All with elaborate terracotta decoration. Round-arched ground floor windows in shallow, arcading with attached Ionic columns. Other windows square-headed, mostly mullion and transom casements. 1st floor with continuous projecting arcaded terracotta balconies with round-arched balustrade and coats of arms in the spandrels. At 1st floor level flanking the balcony over the entrance, figures wearing historical costume in corbelled niches. 2nd floor continuous balconies with terracotta round-arched balustrades. 3rd and 4th floor windows with cast-iron continuous balconies. Projecting modillion cornice at 5th floor level above an enriched frieze, following the contours of the bays. Shaped gables with horizontal brick and terracotta bands and small windows. Returns in similar style.
INTERIOR: entrance hall lined in pink and red marble divided into 3 by grey marble round-arched arcades on grey marble columns with gilding. Frieze and spandrels with sumptuous plaster moulded females of proto art-nouveau character. Marble staircase rises to right. Ceiling in Jacobean style. Chandeliers, and some stained glass. Woburn Suite beyond a large hall now with low partitions, with black and white marbled pilasters, heavy modillion cornice and coved ceiling with lavish swags under false ceiling. 'Victorian Carvery' with grey marble panelling to frieze height and grey marble clad hexagonal columns which culminate in alternating little Ionic columns and sculpted figures. Similar columns in frieze around walls. Projecting fireplace in matching marble. Chandeliers. King's Bar panelled to frieze height with some organic capitals to pilasters, doorcases (one now a bookcase) with giant Jacobean keystones under plaster friezes of chubby putti. Marble fireplace. Trabeated ceiling with a variety of mouldings. Virginia Woolf room with art nouveau plaster spandrels and plaster ceiling cornices. Bedford Suite with pilasters and plaster ceilings. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached wrought-iron railings with terracotta piers and cast-iron lampstandards with figures at the bases on piers. HISTORICAL NOTE: Doll's flamboyant use of terracotta is a distinctive feature of the Bedford Estate; this is his finest remaining building and the survivor of two extravagant 1890's hotels that imposed a fin-de-siecle character on Russell Square.
Listing NGR: TQ3017882085
This is part of the Series: IOE01/1089 IOE Records taken by Brian Jackson; within the Collection: IOE01 Images Of England
© Mr Brian Jackson. Source: Historic England Archive
This photograph was taken for the Images of England project
Photographer: Jackson, Brian
Rights Holder: Jackson, Brian
Brick, Cast Iron, Copper, Terracotta, Tile, Wrought Iron, Victorian Gate Pier, Unassigned, Lamp Bracket, Gardens Parks And Urban Spaces, Street Furniture, Hostel, Commercial, Domestic, Residential Building, Railings, Monument (By Form), Barrier, Date Stone, Commemorative, Commemorative Stone, Commemorative Monument
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