Summary
Restaurant and offices built 1994, incorporating the re-erected early-C18 façade of Bradmore House, demolished 1913, and a room containing panelling and carved decoration from the same house, installed in 2002. The building is listed solely for these elements.
Reasons for Designation
Bradmore House is listed for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural and historic interest: while much restored, the facade is a very good example of English Baroque domestic architecture; its re-erection, at considerable effort, in 1913 was a remarkable response at a time when the concept of preserving such buildings was barely nascent;
* Interior: fine-quality early-C18 panelling and carved decoration salvaged from the original house, installed in 2002.
History
Bradmore House originated as an early-C18 extension to a large C16 mansion known as Butterwick House. The extension was built onto the north side of the house and may have been a remodelling of an existing wing. It was almost certainly built by Henry Ferne, Receiver General of Her Majesty’s Customs, who purchased Butterwick House in 1700 and lived there until his death in 1723. According to the late-C18 historian Daniel Lysons, the new wing was intended for Ferne’s mistress, Mrs Anne Oldfield (1683-1730), the leading actress of the day. This liaison is alluded to in Oldfield’s memoirs and probably began after 1712, but there is little else to authenticate the connection with Ferne's house. In 1739 Butterwick House was bought by Elijah Impey, merchant, father to Sir Elijah Impey, Chief Justice of Bengal. It appears that Impey divided the main house and wing into two, the latter becoming a school for several decades. Butterwick House was demolished in 1836. In 1913 the site was bought by the London General Omnibus Company (LGOC) and redeveloped as a garage. At the behest of the London County Council (LCC), the fine baroque elevation, which faced east onto the garden, was dismantled and re-erected as the façade of the new LGOC offices fronting the garage, now facing west rather than east. The facade was jacked up to allow headroom for buses, with a large vehicle entrance in each of the wings leading to a shed behind. Also retained were two panelled first-floor rooms, the larger of which was incorporated into the new offices as a billiard room; this in turn was relocated to Trinity House Almshouses, Mile End, in the 1950s. The smaller room was installed in part at the Geffrye Museum, along with a brick alcove from the external stair on the north side which remains at the Museum. The garage closed in 1983. Bradmore House was rebuilt in the baroque style in 1994 as part of the Hammersmith Broadway development, incorporating the restored early-C18 façade. The panelled room from the Geffrye Museum was installed at Bradmore House in 2002.
Although Bradmore House was long thought to be the work of Thomas Archer, one of the foremost architects of the English Baroque, there is no documentary evidence to support this attribution.
Details
MATERIALS: buff stock brick with cut and rubbed red brick dressings; Portland stone.
EXTERIOR: symmetrical façade of two-storeys and seven-bays. Semi-circular headed windows with multi-pane sash windows. The central three bays are taller and slightly advanced, flanked by giant stone fluted pilasters of the Composite order; the central bay again breaks forward slightly. The brick entablature (restored in 1994) is upswept; the three central bays are surmounted by a stone balustraded parapet with urns. A perron stair (added 1994) leads up to central round-arched entrance with a moulded cornice; the window above is set within a pilastered surround with a Doric frieze. The wings each have stone Doric angle pilasters.
Only the facade and the first floor room (described below) is of special interest; the building of the 1990s to the rear is not of special interest.
INTERIOR: the first-floor south-west room has full-height raised and fielded panelling, moulded dado rails and three panelled doors set in tall round arches with panelled tympana, some elements of which are reproduction. The doors and windows are framed by Composite pilasters. The cornice and the spandrels of the door and window arches are elaborately enriched with carved foliage.
