Summary
Seaford House (known as Sefton House when constructed) is a large detached palazzo at the east corner of Belgrave Square, built in 1842-1845 by Thomas Cubitt to the designs of Philip Hardwick for Charles Molyneux, 3rd Earl of Sefton. The lease was sold in 1902 to Thomas Evelyn Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden and 4th Baron of Seaford (1880-1946) who had the interior refurbished, probably by J J Stevenson, and renamed the house.
Reasons for Designation
Seaford House, 37 Belgrave Square, built to the designs of Philip Hardwick for the Earl of Sefton in 1842-1845, remodelled, probably by J J Stevenson, for 8th Baron Howard de Walden in 1902, is listed at Grade ll* for the following principal reasons:
Architectural Interest:
* for its elegant and well-proportioned Italianate classical elevations;
* for the interior plan-form of a mid-C19 and early-C20 high status town house, in particular the arrangement of the grand stair and polite rooms which illustrates the lifestyles of the gentry of the period;
* for the opulent interior features, fixtures and finishes, which provide a rich texture and exuberant character. The materials are high quality, deployed with considerable craftsmanship.
Historic Interest:
* a palazzo representative of the work of noted architect Philip Hardwick, following the tradition of James Wyatt and George Basevi, in the townscape context of Belgravia Square. This development is of national historic importance for its assocation with the Grosvenor estate and was influential in the promotion of planned squares and residences for the elite from the early-C19.
Group Value:
* as part of a planned architectural entity and historical assocation with numerous listed buildings in and around Belgrave Square.
History
Belgrave Square was built on land owned by the 2nd Earl Grosvenor between Grosvenor Place and Sloane Street. Its layout was probably based on the plan of around 1812 by James Wyatt who proposed unbroken terraces on each side and a substantial villa standing in its own grounds at each corner of the square. Development of the square started in the 1820s when George Basevi desiged the terraces; each villa had its own architect. Thomas and William Cubitt and Seth Smith, the principal builders of the area, were responsible for much of the building works.
The land at the east corner of the square was leased by Charles Molyneux, 3rd Earl of Sefton to build his London seat, in addition to the family seats of Croxteth Hall, Lancashire (National Heritage List for England entry 1280299, Grade II*) and Sefton Park, Buckinghamshire (NHLE entry 1124385, Grade II). He engaged Philip Hardwick (1792-1870) to design Sefton House (as it was then known) and it was built by Thomas Cubitt at a cost of £22,600 (Hobhouse, pp135-7). The house was constructed in 1842 and Lord Sefton was in residence by 1846.
Philip Hardwick was a pupil in his father’s office before enrolling at the Royal Academy Schools and travelling to Italy and France. In 1816, he began his independent practice and was architect to St Bartholomew’s Hospital and Euston Railway Station. One of his earlier institutional commissions was for the design of Goldsmiths Hall, City of London, 1829-1835 (NHLE entry 1286469, Grade I).
For the design of Sefton House, Hardwick followed the same Classical principles and stuccoed treatment employed by Basevi for the terraces of the square. The house included a stable yard, coach house, grooms' quarters, servants’ dormitories and an octagonal clock tower. A historic image indicates that a twin-columned triple porte-cochère with a balustraded balcony above was at the principal front. This was destroyed by bomb damage in 1940. The 1878 Ordnance Survey map (1:2500) indicates that the main driveway ran from Belgrave Square south of the house into the stable yard. The Indenture map of 1902 indicates that this entrance had been blocked up.
None of the documentation concerning the building’s construction during the 1840s appears to have survived. Details of the interior plan-form and fixtures of this earliest phase are unknown but it is probable that there was a columned hallway with a central staircase and that the present oval lantern with its gallery and caryatids are of the 1840s (Hobhouse, p134 and Pevsner, p741). The reception rooms were located on the ground and first floors with the family bedrooms on the second and third floors. The numerous servants were housed in the mews accommodation above the stables, known as 5 Groom Place in 2025.
The 4th Earl of Sefton died in 1897 and the lease was first acquired by William Tebb and in 1902 by Thomas Evelyn Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden and 4th Baron of Seaford (1880-1946). Lord Howard de Walden was a keen medievalist and had antiquarian tastes in genealogy, heraldry and armour. He was also a fencer of repute and a spare man for the British Olympic fencing team.
Howard de Walden renamed the building Seaford House and, in 1902, commenced a programme of renovating the interior. It is said that John James Stevenson (1831-1908) was the architect responsible (Stourton, p168), although Pevsner (p741) speculates that ‘surely no single designer created this whole compendium’. Stevenson, a Scottish architect, joined the London office of Gilbert Scott in 1858. In 1880 he published ‘House Architecture’ arguing for a revival of C17 and C18 building techniques. He was known for designing buildings in the Queen Anne style and works in London included 3-21 Kensington Court, 1883-1884 (NHLE entries 1267698 and 1267712, both Grade II) and 126-158 Buckingham Palace Road, late C19 (NHLE entry 1220207, Grade II).
A contemporary account indicates that the programme of renovation was ‘radical’. such that few people ‘would be able to recognise in the house the former residence of the Earl of Sefton’ (Gentlewoman at Home, 1903, p310). There are no known plans of the alterations to Seaford House surviving. The function of the rooms following the 1902 remodelling can be postulated with a degree of certainty, but what remains of the 1840 plan-form and decorative treatment is less clear. In general, most of the ground floor and first floor rooms, including the stairs, are from Lord de Walden's refurbishment of 1902, but ceilings of the first floor rooms and the domed lantern are probably mid-C19, although Stourton (p173) suggests that the lantern supported by caryatids is by Stevenson. Numerous sources assert that the centre of the villa was gutted by the new owner, and a new grand staircase built, clad with rare pale green onyx, sourced by Howard de Walden from a mine he purchased in Mexico, which led to the reception rooms on the first floor. A contemporary writer described the impact stating ‘nothing can excel the beauty – nay, grandeur – of the house’. The writer enthused that following her entrance into the ‘splendid’ Seaford House she was received by her hosts waiting at the head of the stairs before attending a ‘great concert’ (The Gentlewoman, Recent Gaieties, 1902, p85).
Historical sources suggest that the bedrooms of Lord and Lady de Walden were located on the ground floor. Lord de Walden occupied a bedroom on the north side which he designed himself in medieval style (known as The de Walden Room in 2025) with a beamed ceiling (painted white in the late C20), incised plaster to the walls to imitate ashlar and hooded fireplace; double doors led to a private bathroom to the west (known as the Waiting Room in 2025). Lady de Walden’s bedroom (informally known also as The Wedgwood Room, or the Reading Room in 2025) was located on the south side and had a private bathroom to the east (in 2025, the female toilets). The Day Room became the Library. The Morning Room was at the north side, facing the square (Pevsner p741, previously Seminar Room A and The Music Room in 2025).
The first-floor reception rooms included the panelled Dining Room across most of the width of the north elevation (in 2025 the Lecture Theatre). The room to the front of the building, used by the orchestra for musical evenings (the Gun Room in 2025) had access to the balcony over the porte-cochère and led to the Writing Room to the south which also served as the Drawing Room. Across the south elevation was the Ante Room, used as a ballroom for entertainment (in use as a coffee lounge and bar in 2025). The ceilings and wall panelling in the latter rooms may be of the 1840s. The landings around the grand stair and colonnade at the rear of it provided additional spaces for convening. Accommodation for children and servants were on the second and third floors respectively. Family accommodation on the second floor comprised rooms arranged in pairs to provide a bedroom and dressing or sitting room, with a nursery above the Ante Room and a school room. Across the north elevation, the conference room was a guest suite with a bathroom. The service rooms were in the basement. Most of the rooms at the third floor and basement have been remodelled, and the latter extended to the north to provide additional dining facilities and kitchens.
Seaford House was requisitioned in 1940 for the Assistance Board. After being damaged by bombing, it remained unoccupied until 1942. It was then requisitioned again and used by the Air Ministry. In 1946, the Imperial Defence College, now the Royal College of Defence Studies, moved into the building. It has since been used as a teaching facility for its military programmes.
Significant changes to the house that occurred from the 1940s onwards, particularly during the post-war period and in the early C21, include the following:
- the destruction of the porte-cochère during the Second World War and a post-war reconstructed central entrance with Doric columns and main C20 entrance door; the interior lobby area and basement rooms below were also remodelled following the bomb damage;
- insertion of a lift, adjacent to the rear stairs, from lower ground floor to third floor;
- during the 1960s, the basement was extended and reconfigured to create a dining room, kitchen, addition of covered passageway, and additional storage facilities;
- at the first floor, the projection room to the Lecture Theatre was remodelled and the former dumb waiter to the kitchen was removed;
- some of the second and third floor bedrooms have been remodelled to provide lecture facilities;
- replacement of the railings in the post-war period.
Mechanical and electrical services and security systems are late-C20 or early-C21. While they are too numerous to exclude from the listing, their modern date is noted.
Details
Seaford House (known as Sefton House when constructed) is a large detached palazzo at the east corner of Belgrave Square built in 1842-1845 by Thomas Cubitt to the designs of Philip Hardwick for Charles Molyneux, 3rd Earl of Sefton. The lease was sold in 1902 to Thomas Evelyn Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden and 4th Baron of Seaford (1880-1946) who had the interior refurbished in 1902, probably by J J Stevenson, and renamed the house.
MATERIALS: brick with stucco render, slate covering to the roofs. Ground and first floor interior fixtures are in a number of materials, notably green onyx and marble with decorative ironwork and plasterwork. There is joinery throughout the ground and first floors, some in mahogany, including wall panelling, doors and their surrounds.
PLAN: rectangular on plan, the principal front facing west onto Belgrave Square. On all floors rooms are arranged around the four sides of the building, lit by a roof lantern on a gallery above the central grand staircase that serves the former north and south facing reception rooms and bedrooms at the ground and first floors. The accommodation at the second and third floors, formerly bedrooms and nursery accommodation (offices in 2025) is accessed by rear stairs and a lift. There is a mezzanine at the east side of the house between the first and second floors. Service facilities are in the basement areas and modern toilet facilities* are found at the east side of the house on most floor levels. Attached to the east is the former stable and mews building and stable yard (teaching facilities in 2025 and known as 5 Groom Place, listed separately).
EXTERIOR: a four storey symmetrical building with basement. The principal west front and east rear elevation are of seven window bays, the north and south elevations are of four window bays. There are full-height, rusticated quoins to each corner and a rich modillion cornice, above which the parapet has balustraded panels. The hipped roofs are located to the north, west and south of an off-centre drum, with domed lantern above topped by a finial. There are numerous chimney pots.
Each elevation shares a similar Classical arrangement having stucco render and moulded storey bands to each floor, and six-over-six sash windows of different dates with glazing bars. The ground floor is rusticated; the windows are recessed in plain surrounds with square heads and plain aprons below. The three-bay, centrally-placed main entrance at the west elevation projects slightly and is approached by a flight of stone steps flanked by paired Doric columns. The entrance has a C20 door with an arched fanlight over and has an arched window to each side. At the first floor (the piano nobile) the elongated sash windows have pediments supported on scrolled brackets, with moulded aprons and balconettes. At the north and south elevation of this floor are projecting balconies on brackets with balustrades supporting plain columns with Corinthian capitals at the north elevation and Ionic capitals at the south, both with plain entablatures above. Between the second and third floors is a plat band with guilloche moulding. At the third and fourth floors the windows are smaller, with those at the third floor having eared, square heads and those at the fourth floor having bracketed balconettes. The rear, east elevation is plainer; the central three bays project slightly to accommodate the rear stairs and lift core and have an external staircase. Number 5 Groom Place is attached towards the north end of the rear elevation, partially obscured to the north by a raised lantern which lights the basement and modern kitchen below.
At the ground floor of the east elevation is a secondary entrance to the stable yard, but this was not the main route into the building which is believed to be bricked up.
The basement extends beneath the main entrance and to the north where it has a modern flat roof, linked by a glazed corridor to the north elevation, over which there is a pedestrian bridge with balustrades.
INTERIOR: the polite rooms and spaces at the ground and first floors retain the most opulent fixtures and finishes and are the focus of the interior’s architectural significance. Decorative treatment, fixtures and fittings are in loosely C18 French style throughout with Classical and C16 Italian influences. Columns and pilasters are of Ionic or Corinthian order, with bronzed bases, onyx-clad or plastered fluted shafts and gilded capitals. The walls have dado rails and decorative plasterwork panels with geometric, oval and ogee moulded central frames and Classical entablatures comprising egg and dart decoration to friezes, mutules, and deeply moulded cornices. Ceilings are compartmentalised or coffered with decorative plasterwork or painted. Window openings have deep reveals and panelled aprons, mostly with unhorned or horned six-over-six pane sash windows. There are fireplaces throughout, some with highly ornate chimney pieces and surrounds, generally in C18 style but associated with the early C20 campaign of refurbishment and remodelling. Doors associated with the early-C20 scheme are in mahogany and have moulded panels with foliate and shell motifs and bronze door furniture, set within moulded architraves with sculpted heads, some bearing central plaques with foliate designs and swags.
The Ground Floor
The entrance hall is broadly divided between the reception area and staircase hall by an arched colonnade on a dwarf wall with bronze ironwork panels and onyx or marble cladding. The windows to the front have bronze grilles.The flooring is of mixed marble in geometric patterns.
On the north side of the staircase hall are teaching rooms. At the west is The Music Room in Italian Renaissance style with a coffered, painted wooden ceiling and a painted and carved hooded chimneypiece.
The room was linked to the Waiting Room (Lord de Walden’s former bathroom), via double-doors but this access is blocked. The Waiting Room is accessed from the entrance hall. It has an apsidal end, decorative wall panels and a C18-style fireplace with carved surround. The openings for French windows which once led to the verandah on the north side are blocked.
The Waiting Room is linked to The de Walden Room to the east, formerly Lord de Walden’s bedroom and apparently designed by him in a medieval style, with a painted, beamed ceiling supported on carved corbels, plastered walls (incised to imitate ashlar) and a hooded chimneypiece, the mantelpiece supported by brackets carved with female faces. The windows here are casements, with moulded surrounds, mullions and transoms.
On the south side of the staircase are the Library and Reading Room. The Library at the west side has a 1960s ceiling in a mid-C19 style with mid-C20 bookcases and a fireplace with a panelled chimneypiece. The Reading Room, once known as the Wedgewood Room, is accessed through a closet from the Library and is understood to have been Lady de Walden’s bedroom. It has a C18-styled decorative ceiling, which may be 1840s, with delicate foliate swags in the corners and a fireplace surround with reeded pilasters and swags which may be of the same date. The walls have simple pilasters, probably of the early-C20, supporting a lightly moulded cornice with egg and dart decoration.
To the rear of the Reading Room are toilet facilities*, remodelled in the late-C20.
At the centre of the entrance hall are the grand stairs, the centrepiece of the house, known to date to the early C20. Richly ornamented with green onyx from Mexico, green marble skirtings, gilded wrought-iron decorative panels, gilded newels and onyx handrails. The stairs have marble treads and risers. At the landing are panels framing bronzes by A C Luchessi of about 1910. At the rear of the stairs at the first floor is a colonnade of five columns, atop plinths incorporated into the balustrade, which support the opening of the drum above and partial mezzanine floor at the rear of the building. They create a gallery, which along with the landings surrounding the staircase, provided spaces for guests to navigate and access the former Dining Room to the north of the stairs, Writing Room to the west and Ballroom to the south. The walls surrounding the staircase have pairs of pilasters and decorative wall panels with a classical entablature comprising mutules and cornice, above which are elaborately carved classical figures draped on arches with foliate swags and cartouches. The ceiling above the staircase is dominated by a central drum with a balustrade from which caryatids on plinths support a domed lantern, probably of the 1840s.
The First Floor
To the north of the stairs is the lecture theatre (former Dining Room) in an early C17 French style with a modern projector screen at the east end. The walnut panelling, frieze and coffered ceiling above are of the early C20. Above the panelling, the coffered frieze has pairs of gilded brackets with wreaths and the ceiling is of painted and gilded timber with foliate and Greek key motifs. There is a large white marble fireplace of early-C18 design, the surround of which has a frieze of intertwining acanthus leaves with guttae and egg and dart detailing to the mantelpiece supported by scroll brackets with carved female faces. A pair of double doors leads to a lobby, known as the Gun Room, at the far west of the building, which in turn leads enfilade through double-leaf doors to the Writing Room to its south, from where there is access into the Ante Room (former Ballroom) along the south side of the house. These three rooms share similar neoclassical proportions and treatment; a decorative palette of cream and gold with richly ornamented ceilings, the latter, and possibly also the wall panelling, are probably from Hardwick's mid-C19 scheme. The Gun Room has gilding to the pilasters and capitals, architraves, cornices and mutules. The ceiling has a central saucer dome with spine decoration and an oval roundel with heavy, gilded foliate moulding; there is a band of coffered vaulting. Above the entablature are segmental pediments. The Writing Room is similarly proportioned with wall panels, pairs of columns and pilasters and a heavy cornice. The frieze has lattice ribbing with centrally-placed flower heads. Above, the ceiling has a central dome set in gilded panels with foliate motifs. There is a C18-style fireplace at the south end, the surround of which is carved with classical pastoral scenes.
The Ante Room (formerly the Ballroom) is on an east-west axis facing south and shares the same style of lattice frieze as the Writing Room. The frieze has inset paintings depicting night, day, dawn and evening all of which are mid-C19, apart from night which is a 1960s replacement. The ceiling has gilded panels with guilloche plasterwork inset with smaller octagonal paintings depicting stars and classical figures, probably also mid-C19. The walls have pilasters with gilded capitals, in between which are framed panels. The C18 fireplace is said to have been cut down to fit the available space. The doorways to the grand stairs space have gilded architraves with flat hoods supported on gilded scrolls. There is a modern bar at the east end.
Other Floor Levels
The second and third floors are accessed by mid-C19 plain stairs with stick or columnar balusters, simple newel posts and ramped timber handrails. One set of stairs has been reconfigured, probably when the lifts were installed which also provide access from the basement to the third floor. At the east corner there is a truncated back staircase.
The rooms on the second and third floors are accessed from a corridor which runs around the central drum. They are much plainer, with simple joinery and plasterwork. Most rooms have fireplaces with a variety of different types of surround, some marble, some with tile insets and others decorative. The lantern has replaced glass and a central dome with a finial.
The basement rooms are plain with simple detailing. On the north side of the building is the dining room* created in the 1960s and beyond that modern kitchen facilities*. A flagstone corridor to the north accesses storage rooms. Arched vaulting extends beyond the building line to the west, but this area was bombed and has been remodelled.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: to the west and south of the building are entrance gateways to the south-west and south-east which access the forecourt. The gate piers are rendered with mouldings.
* Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’), it is declared that these aforementioned features are not of special architectural or historic interest, however any works which have the potential to affect the character of the listed building as a building of special architectural or historic interest may still require LBC and this is a matter for the LPA to determine.
