Eighty Strand

Eighty Strand, formerly Shell Mex House, is a grade II listed building located at 80 Strand, London, England. The building was opened in 1932 on the site of the Hotel Cecil and stands behind the original façade of the hotel, between the Adelphi building and the Savoy Hotel. Broadly Art Deco in style, it was designed by Frances Milton Cashmore of the architectural firm of Messrs Joseph. Standing 58 m (190 ft) tall, with 537,000 sq ft (49,900 m2) of floor space, Eighty Strand has 12 floors (plus basement and sub-basement) and is immediately recognisable from the River Thames and the South Bank by the clock positioned on the south side of the building. The clock is flanked by four large, hieratic marble figures at the south corners sculpted by William Charles Holland King. The clock, which was known for a time as "Big Benzene", has the largest clock faces in the UK, at 7.62 metres in diameter, just 0.02 metres more than the clocks on the Royal Liver Building in Liverpool; it was supplied by Gillett & Johnston of Croydon. The building faces the river and the Strand. It was described by architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner as "thoroughly unsubtle, but...hold[s] its own in London's river front."