Baynard House is a

brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...

office block in Queen Victoria Street in Blackfriars in the City of London, occupied by BT Group. It was built on the site of Baynard's Castle. Most of the land under it is a scheduled monument. From 1982 to 1997 it housed the BT Museum.

Features and uses

The building was designed by

William Holford William Graham Holford, Baron Holford, (22 March 1907 – 17 October 1975) was a British architect and town planner. Biography Holford was educated at Diocesan College, Cape Town and returned to Johannesburg. From 1925–30 he studied arch ...

incorporating a separation of pedestrians from streets, with a first-floor adjoining walkway along Queen Victoria Street that connects to

Blackfriars station Blackfriars, also known as London Blackfriars, is a central London railway station and connected London Underground station in the City of London. It provides Thameslink services: local (from North to South London), and regional (Bedford and ...

. The entrance foyer to Baynard House remains off this first floor level. A plaque in the building foyer reads: Legislation protecting the sightline of

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grad ...

from bridges across the Thames and from places such as Putney and Richmond Park restricted the overall height of the building to three full levels above ground. Baynard House was for a few years a

telephone exchange A telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It interconnects telephone subscriber lines or virtual circuits of digital syst ...

, and housed the first operational System X telephone exchange, which went live in 1980. From 1982 to 1997 it housed the BT Museum. It is the site of an unusual cast aluminium public sculpture by

Richard Kindersley Richard Kindersley is a British typeface designer, stone letter carver and sculptor. Career Kindersley studied lettering and sculpture at Cambridge School of Art and in the workshop of his father David Kindersley, who was also a noted sto ...

, entitled ''The Seven Ages of Man''. The sculpture, consisting of a column made up of sculptural heads resembling a totem pole, was commissioned by Post Office Telecommunications and unveiled in April 1980. it had the largest

solar panel A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a photo ...

area in the City of London and the second largest of a corporate building in the UK. The

Faraday Building The Faraday Building is in the south-west of the City of London. It was originally built as a sorting office for the General Post Office. In 1902 it was converted to a telephone exchange serving sections of London, and underwent several capaci ...

, one of the first major telephone exchanges in the UK, is across the road.

In film

Actor Tom Cruise broke his ankle whilst performing a stunt, jumping from the roof in 2017, shooting scenes for the film '' Mission: Impossible – Fallout''.

References

External links

Baynard House – Brutalist Beauty

The Seven Ages of Man

Gallery

File:Baynard House 03.jpg, Waterfront side of Baynard House File:Blackfriars Bridge - geograph.org.uk - 1572060.jpg, Waterfront side of Baynard House and Blackfriars Railway bridge. Viewed from the Millennium Bridge. File:City of London School - DSC08162.JPG, Baynard House and Faraday Building (green roof) on the left, City of London School centre on the north bank of the River Thames, London. Shows height of construction restriction. {{coord, 51, 30.7151, N, 0, 6.0734, W, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Buildings and structures in the City of London British Telecom buildings and structures Telephone exchange buildings Telecommunications buildings in the United Kingdom Scheduled monuments in London Brutalist architecture in London Blackfriars, London