Zimbabwe House
ZIMBABWE HOUSE, 429, STRAND WC2
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II*
- List Entry Number:
- 1237039
- Date first listed:
- 05-Feb-1970
- List Entry Name:
- Zimbabwe House
- Statutory Address:
- ZIMBABWE HOUSE, 429, STRAND WC2
Location
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II*
- List Entry Number:
- 1237039
- Date first listed:
- 05-Feb-1970
- Date of most recent amendment:
- 01-Dec-1987
- List Entry Name:
- Zimbabwe House
- Statutory Address 1:
- ZIMBABWE HOUSE, 429, STRAND WC2
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- ZIMBABWE HOUSE, 429, STRAND WC2
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- County:
- Greater London Authority
- District:
- City of Westminster (London Borough)
- Parish:
- Non Civil Parish
- National Grid Reference:
- TQ 30280 80640
Details
CITY OF WESTMINSTER STRAND WC2 TQ 3080 NW 72/118 No 429 (Zimbabwe House, formerly listed as 5.2.70 Rhodesia House) GV II* High Commission offices. 1906-08 by Charles Holden as partner in Adams and Holden, for the British Medical Association and originally with letting shops on the ground floor. Grey Cornish granite and Portland stone cladding steel frame, slate roof. Exceptional neo-Mannerist design with classical motifs and forms deployed with the freedom allowed by the stone cladding of the structural frame. Corner block. 5 storeys and dormered mansard, the top 2 storeys in Portland stone slightly recessed. 2 windows to Strand, canted corner and 7-window return to Agar Street. Main entrance in centre of Agar Street front with isolated architrave and inset Doric columns; the doorway and the ground and 1st floor windows are contained in sharply cut semi- circular arched recesses between broad pilaster-piers - transomed ground floor display windows and on 1st floor a tripartite variant on Venetian or thermal window with small plane glazing and slender Doric columns; the pilaster piers rise through breaks in block cornice to flank complex, planar, tripartite 2nd floor composition of niches and windows, the niches containing the contentious and subsequently mutilated standing figures sculpted by Jacob Epstein. The pilaster theme is continued in the Portland stone of 3rd floor but in shallower relief and more fragmentary form whilst with the recession of the 4th floor they become buttress-piers, 2 of them developed as chimney stacks. The entrance bay is slightly emphasised by the doubling up of the pilaster theme. Horizontal stratification emphasised by block cornices and sill cornices. Edwardian Architecture and its Origins; Alistair Service, editor. London 1900: Alistair Service Architectural Design; Vol; 48, Nos. 5-6; Gavin Stamp
Listing NGR: TQ3028080640
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 428225
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Sources
Books and journals
Service, A, London 1900, (1979)
Service, A, Edwardian Architecture and its Origins, (1975)
Architectural Design in Number 5, Vol. 48, ()
Architectural Design in Number 6, Vol. 48, ()
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 13-Jun-2026 at 21:10:03.
Download a full scale map (PDF)End of official list entry
All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.