Monmouth House & Lowther Lodge

Wednesday, 15 April 2026, 1pm-4:30pm

Monmouth House, 29a Hyde Park Gate, London, SW7 5DJ (meet outside)

There is an optional meet up at the V&A Café from 11:30am for refreshments and lunch (not included), after which the group will be led on foot to the first property.

We are delighted to offer this tour of Monmouth House, Kensington. 29 Hyde Park House was re-modelled by Lutyens in 1928 for Sir Roderick Jones of Reuters and his wife Lady Enid (Enid Bagnold, playwright and author of National Velvet and Chalk Garden). Monmouth House occupies the former coach house, which Lutyens altered to create further reception rooms, plus a nursery on the 2nd floor. After the wars, No.29 eventually became the Bulgarian Embassy and the former coach house (29a) was subdivided into flats. Much of the 1920s interiors were lost at that time. Under the present owner, the house has once again been re-modelled following much research into its history. Work was completed in early 2021. At each stage the designers looked to Lutyens for inspiration, taking, where possible, existing fragments for reference whilst incorporating new technology and employing the best British craftspeople to work inside and out. Our thanks go to Hamish Ogston for so generously opening his home to us.

Following this, we will depart Hyde Park Gate (2:30pm) for Lowther Lodge (1 Kensington Gore, SW7 2AR). Home to the Royal Geographical Society since 1913, Lowther Lodge was built to the designs of Richard Norman Shaw from 1872-1875. The client was William Lowther, an MP, nephew of the Earl of Lonsdale, the head of the Lowther family of Westmorland and Cumberland. “Its forms exhibiting the new gaiety and liveliness for which Shaw stood: tall, slim Queen Anne windows combined with Dutch pilasters and gables- and very tall chimneys, a free and eminently picturesque group” (Pevsner, 2002 ed). We will be led by Christine Quigley on a tour of the principle reception rooms and some of the main bedrooms on the first floor.

Many of our members will recognise Norman Shaw as a key inspirational figures in Lutyens’s early work. “In architecture Palladio’s the game!! It is so big – few appreciate it now, and it requires training to value and realise it. The way Wren handled it was marvellous. Shaw has the gift…” These are Lutyens own words and today we will see Shaw and Lutyens’s hand in buildings just 10 minutes walk from each other. “I believe Norman Shaw is a really great and capable designer, one of the first water [sic]. I put him with Wren – really.”

Price: £49 per person.

The tour will be led by Rebecca Lilley.

(Non-member tickets are also available with an additional charge of £5 for a day-membership).