Victoria Station Arcade including Nos. 15 and 16 Terminus Place, and Nos. 9-14 Terminus Place (facade only)

Summary

Shopping arcade incorporating entrances to Underground station, with attached range of shops. Built 1909-11 to the design of George C Sherrin, with minor modifications by HW Ford. The façade only of Nos. 9-14 Terminus Place is included in the List.

Victoria Underground Station and entrance stairs are not included in the listing.

Reasons for Designation

Victoria Station Arcade, including Nos. 15 and 16 Terminus Place, and Nos. 9-14 Terminus Place (façade
only) are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Architectural interest: a good example of Edwardian retail architecture associated with the rebuilding of stations along the MDR line, with elegant stone street frontages and an ornate arcade interior;

* Survival: the decorative scheme of the arcade interior is virtually intact; in addition there are four good-quality shop fronts;

* Group value: with the frontages of Victoria mainline stations opposite, both rebuilt in the Edwardian period in the Baroque manner.

History

Victoria Station Arcade and the attached range of shops in Terminus Place formed part of the rebuilding of Victoria Metropolitan District Railway (MDR) Station in 1909-11. The MDR (known as the District Railway), had been acquired in 1901 by the American transport entrepreneur, Charles Tyson Yerkes, becoming a subsidiary of his Underground Electric Railways Co of London Ltd, which implemented the planned electrification of the line in 1901-5. Electrification meant that stations could now be fully enclosed and ticket halls sited below ground, freeing up valuable space at street level for retail lets. Victoria was one of several MDR stations to be rebuilt during this period. The architect, George C Sherrin, had designed MDR stations at Liverpool Street, South Kensington and Kensington High Street, each incorporating a shopping arcade. Steel framing was by now routinely employed in Underground station construction, which enabled the addition of extra storeys for commercial lets at a later date. At Victoria, a large superstructure over the station and arcade was envisaged at the outset, enabled by the provision of deep concrete foundations and a reinforced concrete raft over the station platforms. Sherrin had produced designs for a grand hotel in the Edwardian Baroque manner, but the plans were rejected by the London County Council. After Sherrin’s death in December 1909 the station design was completed by Harry W Ford, architect to the MDR, who made some minor modifications to the arcade. In 1922-5 a large office block, Victoria Station House, was built over the arcade to the design of Trehearne and Norman. At the same time a single-storey restaurant was built at the rear of the shops in Terminus Place.

Details

Shopping arcade incorporating entrances to Underground station, with attached range of shops. Built 1909-11 to the design of George C Sherrin, with minor modifications by HW Ford.

MATERIALS: steel frame clad in rusticated Portland stone (the north elevation overpainted); granite plinths.

PLAN: the shopping arcade runs north-south from Victoria Street to Terminus Place, beneath Victoria Station House, with an entrance to the station at the north-west. On the west side of the southern entrance is a long parade of shops, the six western bays of which (Nos. 9 and 10 Terminus Place) were adapted in 1922-5 as the frontage of the restaurant, now a nightclub.

EXTERIOR: the north elevation is an open arcade of four bays - originally six; the two eastern bays were rebuilt in 1922-5 as part of Victoria House. It has segmental arches with wrought ironwork in the tympana with scrolled roundels. Each pier has a bronze double poster frame of a type fitted from the mid 1920s onwards; each with a ‘London Transport’ glass plate and metal lamp above, now rare and of special interest. The station canopy* is not of special interest.

The south elevation to Terminus Place, a more ornate Edwardian Baroque composition, consists of 12 arcaded bays with elliptical arches, scrolled keystones and carved wreaths to the spandrels; the tympana have mainly mullion-and-transom windows, some lighting the former restaurant have 1920s decorative coloured glass. Above is a moulded cornice. The arcade entrance (penultimate bay to east) is broader and flanked by pilasters. The sixth bay from the west, which is narrower, intended as the hotel entrance and used in the 1920s as the restaurant exit, is also pilastered with a semi-circular arch and stylised drop ornament.

INTERIOR: the shopping arcade has five bays, each with a shop unit (the central bay on the west side originally incorporated a station exit, now infilled). The bays are divided by panelled pilasters with wreath heads; above is a deep frieze and cornice with bead-and-reel moulding. The pilaster bases and plinths/stallrisers are green and black granite; a few sections of the latter have been removed. The segmental vaulted ceiling has transverse beams; the beams and ceiling soffits with Baroque plaster enrichment. Each tympanum has a wreath decoration; that near the north entrance with the DR monogram. The mirrored pair of shops flanking the northern entrance (Nos. 7 and 10 Victoria Station Arcade) have original curved shopfronts: each has two entrances with a curved recessed lobby and a scrolled panel above. The left-hand shop (No. 10), originally a jewellers, has coloured 1930s transom lights, and one original mahogany door and fanlight carved with the shop number, and terrazzo lobby floors with ‘A Orsi & Co’ in black lettering. Above the cornice of both shops is a row of horizontal windows divided by pilasters lighting the upper storage spaces. The shop unit at the south-west end (No 15 Terminus Place), also a jewellers, retains two shop fronts: that facing Terminus Place is original with timber glazing bars and a curved recessed lobby and terrazzo lobby floor; that within the arcade was modified in the 1930s and has flattened bronze glazing bars and a glazed timber door. All other shop fronts*, with the exception of the surviving stallrisers, are modern replacements. Shop interiors were not fully inspected but are generally much altered with modern shop fittings*.

* Pursuant to s.1(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.

Sources

Books and journals
MacKeith, M, The History and Conservation of Shopping Arcades, (1985)
Morrison, K, English Shops and Shopping An Architectural History, (2003)
in The Builder, (14 April 1911), 456-7

End of official list entry

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