A Walk in Westminster

led by Paul Waite

From the interior of an unrenovated Westminster Council Flat designed in 1928 to the ‘jazz age’ interiors that replaced Lutyens’s fine 1911 neo-Georgian interiors at 36 Smith Square, the day was one of strong visual contrasts. And of sore feet as we walked almost the whole day from 9:30am-4:30pm. There was a surprising amount of Lutyens’s interior work still extant including one of Lutyens’s last commissions renovating a house in 1938 for Hore-Belisha. This last house is still in private hands and made a striking contrast with the other domestic interiors that had all been converted to office use. There was even some – very small – undocumented work, a sign in teak and bronze for the Children’s Welfare Centre from 1932 that had been covered in silver paint just before our walk. The social histories of the houses were also interesting, particularly the house that Lutyens converted for his brother-in-law, 10 Buckingham Street, which had been let to Bryan and Diana Guinness, then housed Lutyens’s daughter-in-law, Eva Lutyens’s haute couture business. There was an unexpected bonus at the Foreign Office where we not only saw Lutyens’s memorial to Lord Grey but had a private tour of the Durbar Court, the Locarno Rooms and Lord Grey’s own office. All in all a very full day that will be completed in the tour of October 28.

PW.