Mortimer House is a large detached house on Egerton Gardens in the

South Kensington South Kensington, nicknamed Little Paris, is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with ...

district of London SW3. The house occupies a large corner plot on the corner of Egerton Gardens and the

Brompton Road Brompton Road is a street located in the southern part from Knightsbridge and in the eastern part from Brompton in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and partly the City of Westminster in London. It starts from Knightsbridge U ...

Description

The site had been formally occupied by Crescent House, which had been inhabited by the former

Governor of the Bank of England The governor of the Bank of England is the most senior position in the Bank of England. It is nominally a civil service post, but the appointment tends to be from within the bank, with the incumbent grooming their successor. The governor of the Ba ...

Edward Howley Palmer Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Sax ...

, since 1881. In the mid-1880s the trustees of the Smith's Charity estate, the local freeholders, agreed to Palmer's decision to rebuild the property. Palmer agreed with the trustees to pay a ground rent of £100 for the first year and £240 annually subsequently. The house was built by the

Hatton Garden Hatton Garden is a street and commercial zone in the Holborn district of the London Borough of Camden, abutting the narrow precinct of Saffron Hill which then abuts the City of London. It takes its name from Sir Christopher Hatton, a favouri ...

builder William Goodwin. It is not known who designed the house, nor why it was named Mortimer House. Palmer had recently commissioned architect

Richard Norman Shaw Richard Norman Shaw RA (7 May 1831 – 17 November 1912), also known as Norman Shaw, was a British architect who worked from the 1870s to the 1900s, known for his country houses and for commercial buildings. He is considered to be among the g ...

to design a house on

Cadogan Square Cadogan Square () is a residential square in Knightsbridge, London, that was named after Earl Cadogan. Whilst it is mainly a residential area, some of the properties are used for diplomatic and educational purposes (notably Hill House School) ...

for him, but did not occupy it, and Palmer was last listed as the occupier of Mortimer House in 1892. Palmer sold the house in 1896. A Charles Sheridan Swan owned Mortimer House in the early 20th-century, his widow, Mary Kelly Swan, died there in 1909. The house was later sold in May 1913. Mortimer House was owned by the chairman of British American Tobacco, Sir Frederick Macnaghten, in the 1950s and 1960s. His widow, Dame Ada, died there in 1969. The gardens of Mortimer House were open to the public in 1965 as part of the

National Gardens Scheme The National Garden Scheme opens privately owned gardens in England, Northern Ireland, Wales, and the Channel Islands on selected dates for charity. It was founded in 1927 with the aim of "opening gardens of quality, character and interest to th ...

. They were described by ''The Times'' as featuring "...an attractive display of roses and a rock garden". The ''

Survey of London The Survey of London is a research project to produce a comprehensive architectural survey of central London and its suburbs, or the area formerly administered by the London County Council. It was founded in 1894 by Charles Robert Ashbee, an A ...

'' felt that Mortimer House "...exudes an air of mystery and surprise amid the surrounding terraces of South Kensington". Mortimer House had been owned by the financier Nigel Broackes in the 1980s and was sold to a Middle Eastern buyer for £3 million in 1983. It has continued to be privately owned since then.

Design

The house is built in the late 19th-century

Tudorbethan Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...

style in red and blue interspersed brickwork, with various decorations including gables and statues of griffins and bears with shields. Tall groups of brick chimney stacks surmount the property. The stables of the house have a conical roof and are now garages. A swimming pool in a conservatory was added in the late 20th century. The ''Survey of London'' described the interior as having "...a predictable eclecticism of style, ranging from Jacobean in the long hallway containing an oak open-well staircase with twisted balusters and wide handrail to Adamesque in the double drawing-room at the front. The fittings include fine marble chimneypieces in a late-eighteenth-century manner. A room on the first floor may originally have been used as a chapel." The ''London: North'' edition of the

Pevsner Architectural Guides The Pevsner Architectural Guides are a series of guide books to the architecture of Great Britain and Ireland. Begun in the 1940s by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the 46 volumes of the original Buildings of England series were published b ...

describes Mortimer House as "a picturesque composition", highlighting its "Tudor chimneys with crenelated pots and stone mullions".

References

{{Reflist Houses completed in 1888 Houses in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea South Kensington Tudor Revival architecture in England