Mortimer House

The house is built in the late 19th-century Tudorbethan 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…

The site had been formally occupied by Crescent House, which had been inhabited by the former Governor of the Bank of England Edward Howley Palmer, 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 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 to design a house on Cadogan Square for him, but did not occupy it, and Palmer was…