162 New Bond Street

Summary

162 New Bond Street is a four-storey mid-18th century house, built during the early development of this area of London. In the 19th and 20th centuries the building was remodelled multiple times for retail and office use, but still retains its essential mid-18th century character and internal fixtures such as some joinery, panelling and the main staircase.

Reasons for Designation

162 New Bond Street, Westminster, erected in the mid-C18 is listed at Grade II for the following principal reason:

Architectural interest:

* as a good example of a well-proportioned mid-C18 house with a surviving interior to its ground, first floor, and central stairwell.

History

New Bond Street was developed from the early C18 as a continuation of (Old) Bond Street, which was developed from about 1686. Roque’s map of 1746 shows this southern section of New Bond Street developed by this date. In the C18 the land later occupied by number 162, on the west side of New Bond Street and north of Grafton Street, was owned by Robert Ireland who is recorded in 1766 as seeking to construct a building in Barlow’s Mews (Barlow Place in 2025), which is probably the building now numbered 162.This appears to have been a central block of five bays with one bay lower wings in line. Access was via a passage from New Bond Street between numbers 161 and 163 (shown in Tallis’s London Street Views, 1838-40) and the house faced a small courtyard enclosed by buildings on the three other sides, with its back wall to the buildings along Grafton Street.

In the early C20 the house was conjoined with number 161 New Bond Street. This is shown by Tallis as a three-bay frontage to the main street but later extended south by a bay in the space of the passage to 162. The conjoined buildings were altered for use by a Rolls Royce dealer in 1958, effectively replacing the ground and basement.

Much more extensive alterations took place in about 1985. Basement structures were removed and replaced by Michael Aukett Associates, and most floors of 161 were altered for installation of stairs and a lift, and the introduction of a mansard roof. A storey was added to the eastern wing of 162 at this time. The courtyard was given a glass roof, and a four-storey extension to 162 constructed at the west end of the courtyard with an entrance in Barlow Place.

Between 2013 and 2016 both buildings were united with 160 New Bond Street and adapted as Dior’s London store by Michael Blair Associates, with new shopfront extending to 160 and shop interiors by Peter Marino of New York. The facade of 161 to New Bond Street was retained but the body of the building partly demolished, its basement lowered and a new roof constructed over the courtyard between this and 162. The resulting loss of much historic fabric led to the removal of 161 from the List in 2025 but 162 remains on the list.

Details

A four-storey mid-C18 house, remodelled for its current retail and office use.

MATERIALS: primarily constructed in yellow brick with a slate roof.

PLAN: orientated on an east-west axis, a five bay plan, one room deep, with central entrance to a staircase from the ground floor to third floor and a single room either side providing access to the roooms in the one-bay east and west wings.

EXTERIOR: the mid-C18 north (courtyard) elevation is five bays and over four storeys with a basement. The windows on the ground to second floors comprise horned six-over-six timber sliding sash windows and smaller three-over-three windows on the third floor. All are recessed with stone sills and flat gauged brick arches and a C21 stone stair to the door. The sixth (east) bay is three storeys of matching design with a fourth storey added in about 1985. The corresponding face of the three storey west bay is covered by the late-C20 range (excluded from the listing) that encloses the west end of the courtyard.The courtyard is covered by a C21 glazed diagrid roof (excluded from the listing).

INTERIOR: on the ground floor the west room of the principal part has full height panelling with in-built glazed cabinets to the wall adjoining the stairwell, under-stair cupboard with three panel door, chimney piece and grate, modillion cornice, dado, skirting, architraves, and window linings. The east room has similar decorative features but has lost its panelling and its fireplace is covered over. The adjoining rooms within each wing retain fewer historic decorative features, but the eastern room retains its cornice, dado, skirting, architraves, and window linings.

On the first, the western room adjoining the staircase retains a chimneypiece. Cornices, dados, skirtings, architraves, and window linings survive throughout this and the second floor.

Most of the panelling and window linings on the third floor appear to be late C20. Parts of the roof structure are visible.

The central staircase from ground to third floor has a closed string and slender columnar newel posts, upswept handrails, and column and vase balusters. Original doorcases with panelled doors survive within most of the stairwell. The full height panelling is understood to have been reinstated in the late C20.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

420546

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Wheatley, H B, A Short History of Bond Street Old and New: from the reign of King James II to the coronation of King George V., (1911)
Garnier, R, Grafton Street, Mayfair in The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. XIII, (2003), 201-272

Other
John Rocque's map of London (1746)
Richard Horwood's map of London (1799)
Ordnance Survey maps of various periods
Kelly's, Kent's, and Robson's directories from various periods

End of official list entry

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