Queen's Gate House, still commonly known by its previous name of Baden-Powell House, is a conference centre in

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 ...

, London. It was built as a tribute to Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of

Scouting Scouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth Social movement, movement employing the Scout method, a program of informal education with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities, including camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hik ...

, and has served as the headquarters for

The Scout Association The Scout Association is the largest Scouting organisation in the United Kingdom and is the World Organization of the Scout Movement's recognised member for the United Kingdom. Following the origin of Scouting in 1907, the association was fo ...

, as a hostel providing modern and affordable lodging for Scouts, Guides, their families and the general public staying in London and as a conference and event venue. The building committee, chaired by Sir Harold Gillett,

Lord Mayor of London The Lord Mayor of London is the mayor of the City of London and the leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign and retains various traditional pow ...

, purchased the site in 1956, and assigned

Ralph Tubbs Ralph Tubbs OBE FRIBA (9 January 1912 – 23 November 1996) was a British architect. Well known amongst the buildings he designed was the Dome of Discovery at the successful Festival of Britain on the South Bank in London in 1951. Ralph was educa ...

to design the house in the modern architectural style. The foundation stone was laid in 1959 by World Chief Guide Olave, Lady Baden-Powell, and it was opened in 1961 by

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...

. The largest part of the £400,000 cost was provided by the Scout Movement itself and the building previously included a number of tributes to the founder including hosting a small exhibition about Scouting, and a

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies un ...

statue of Baden-Powell by

Don Potter Donald Steele Potter (21 April 1902 – 7 June 2004) was an English sculptor, wood carver, potter and teacher. Don Potter was born in Newington, near Sittingbourne, Kent, the son of a school teacher, and attended a private school. He joined ...

located outside the building. Following the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and a decline in numbers of Scouts using the facility, the Scout Association sold the building to Mander Portman Woodward who run it as an events and conference venue and are converting the hostel rooms into boarding accommodation for students.

History

Construction

Acting on a 1942 initiative by Chief Scout

Lord Somers Baron Somers, of Evesham in the County of Worcester, is a title that has been created twice. The title was first created in the Peerage of England in 1697 for Sir John Somers, so that he could sit in the House of Lords and serve as Lord Chancel ...

, a formal Baden-Powell House Committee was established by

in 1953 under the direction of Sir Harold Gillett, later

. The committee's directive was to build a hostel to provide Scouts a place to stay at reasonable cost while visiting

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. For this purpose, in 1956 the committee purchased a bombed-out property at the intersection of

Cromwell Road Cromwell Road is a major London road in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, designated as part of the A4. It was created in the 19th century and is said to be named after Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver Cromwell, who once owned a hous ...

and

Queen's Gate Queen's Gate is a street in South Kensington, London, England. It runs south from Kensington Gardens' Queen's Gate (the edge of which gardens are here followed by Kensington Road) to Old Brompton Road, intersecting Cromwell Road. The street ...

at a cost of £39,000. The Scout Movement raised the major part of the funding of £400,000 for building and furnishing the building between 1957 and 1959. Scouts throughout the country collected 'ship' halfpennies, and this raised the bulk of the money for the building. Money was also raised through public appeals supported by publication in Scout Movement magazines, a collection of donations in 15,000 brick-shaped boxes, and 5,000 appeal letters signed personally by then Chief Scout Lord Rowallan. Scouts representing every county were present at the opening. In a celebration on 17 October 1959 the foundation stone was laid by the World Chief Guide (

Olave Baden-Powell Olave St Clair Baden-Powell, Baroness Baden-Powell (''née'' Soames; 22 February 1889 – 25 June 1977) was the first Chief Guide for Britain and the wife of Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting and co-founder o ...

), in the presence of Lord Mayor Sir Harold Gillett, the new Chief Scout Sir Charles Maclean, and 400 other guests. A casket was buried under the foundation stone which held 1959 Scout mementoes, stamps, coins, photographs, etc., and a programme of the ceremony.

Use by the Scout Association

With 142 Queen's Scouts as Guard of Honour, and live broadcast by the BBC (commentator

Richard Dimbleby Frederick Richard Dimbleby (25 May 1913 – 22 December 1965) was an English journalist and broadcaster, who became the BBC's first war correspondent, and then its leading TV news commentator. As host of the long-running current affairs ...

), Baden-Powell House was opened on 12 July 1961 by

. Afterwards, she toured the house with the Chief Scout and the president of The Scout Association, her uncle Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester. A black marble panel with gold lettering was put on the balcony in the hall to commemorate the event. From 1974 to 2001, Baden-Powell House was the

headquarter Headquarters (commonly referred to as HQ) denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the top ...

s of The Scout Association, replacing their previous location in Buckingham Palace Road for which a dedicated office extension to the house was opened by the Queen in November 1976. As the association had expanded, the staff were split between Baden-Powell House and

Gilwell Park Gilwell Park is a camp site and activity centre in East London located in the Sewardstonebury area of Waltham Abbey, within Epping Forest, near the border with Chingford. The site is owned by The Scout Association, is used by Scouting and Gui ...

in the historic White House. In 1987 elements of the building were adapted as an events and conference space, expanding the appeal of the building more broadly. In 1993, the Scout Association took the decision to relocate their headquarters and all of their staff to a new purpose-built building at Gilwell Park housing all the association's staff. The decision was in part led by the deteriorating condition of the historic White House at Gilwell Park with the three phase project concluding in April 2001 when the headquarters formally moved to Gilwell House. As part of this development, the adjoining office block was sold to raise funds for the new construction. As the owner of Baden-Powell House, The Scout Association received at this time a net income out of the revenues of approximately £1.5 million. Thirty-five years after its opening, Baden-Powell House was refurbished in a six-month £2 million programme, providing all modern amenities such as private facilities for all rooms, double glazing, and air conditioning, as well as enhancing conference facilities for large and small events. Upon completion of the programme, the house was opened by the president of The Scout Association,

Prince Edward, Duke of Kent Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, (Edward George Nicholas Paul Patrick; born 9 October 1935) is a member of the British royal family. Queen Elizabeth II and Edward were first cousins through their fathers, King George VI, and Prince George, Duke ...

on 5 June 1997. Since its inception, Baden-Powell House provided a hostel for people visiting London and since 2001 this became the main focus of the building. In the period 2004–2006 the hostel participated in the Youth Hostel Association, after which the Scout Association entered into an agreement with German company Meininger Hotels with Scout members from the UK and abroad being able to stay at a reduced rate. It remained owned by the Scout Association, and advertised alongside the Gilwell Park Conference Centre and the Scout Activity Centres. At its peak, it saw on average 30,000 people spending the night and 100,000 meals served in the restaurant.

Use by Mander Portman Woodward

In November 2020 it was announced that the Scout Association would sell the building as a result of the impact of the 2020 Covid crisis on the Scout Association's revenues. In March 2021, the property was valued at £46,000,000. The sale was completed in August 2021 to an independent school Mander Portman Woodward whose London campus is located in converted town houses a short distance away in Queen's Gate. They plan to retain the events and conference facilities as well as adding other bespoke teaching areas, including an art studio, and converting the hostel rooms into boarding accommodation for international students and students over the age of 14 years from September 2022.

Architecture

Architectural inspiration

The house was designed by the architect

in 1956, whose works included the Dome of Discovery, the highlight of the 1951

Festival of Britain The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Historian Kenneth O. Morgan says the Festival was a "triumphant success" during which people: ...

. Tubbs' floor plans and a model of his design were displayed during a fundraising campaign and exhibition on 21 February 1957 in the Egyptian Hall of the Mansion House. The six storied building is designed in the modern architectural style, as pioneered by the Swiss architect

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

from the late 1920s onwards, and predominating in the 1950s. At Baden-Powell House, Tubbs made the first floor overhang the ground floor, a Le Corbusier architectural design choice to free the building from the ground, such as seen in his Pavillon Suisse at the Cité Internationale Universitaire in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

. Additionally, Le Corbusier's

Sainte Marie de La Tourette Sainte Marie de La Tourette is a Dominican Order priory, located on a hillside near Lyon, France, designed by the architect Le Corbusier, the architect’s final building. The design of the building began in May 1953 and completed in 1961. The comm ...

priory in

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of ...

shows two floors of monk's cells with small windows,

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cant ...

ed over the more open floors below, another design choice used by Tubbs in the facade of Baden-Powell House. While Tubbs created Baden-Powell House in the modern architectural style of Le Corbusier, he used more architectural restraint in his own design choices. For example, he made the main visible building component brick rather than concrete. This heavier evolution of Le Corbusier's style was popular in England throughout the post-war years until replaced by the

Brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...

style in the later 1960s. Baden-Powell House was built to Tubbs' design by Harry Neal Ltd, for which they received the 1961 Gold Medal of the

Worshipful Company of Tylers and Bricklayers The Worshipful Company of Tylers and Bricklayers is one of the livery companies of the City of London. The organisation of Tylers (roof and floor tile layers) and Bricklayers existed in 1416; it was incorporated by a royal charter in 1568. Origi ...

. At the opening, the house received the building design award for 'The building of most merit in London.'

Layout

The hostel and conference centre is entered from

through a wide glazed atrium which serves as a large

foyer A lobby is a room in a building used for entry from the outside. Sometimes referred to as a foyer, reception area or an entrance hall, it is often a large room or complex of rooms (in a theatre, opera house, concert hall, showroom, cinema, etc. ...

containing the cafe. From the atrium the large hall is reached which can serve as an

auditorium An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theatres, the number of auditoria (or auditoriums) is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoria can be found in entertainment venues, communit ...

with seating for up to 300 people. The first floor has a restaurant seating 100 guests; the second floor has meeting rooms and conference facilities for groups up to 80 delegates per room.In American usage (where the ground level is termed the "first floor"), the restaurant is on the second floor and the meeting/conference rooms are on the third floor The upper floors contain 180 hostel bedrooms.

Baden-Powell collection

Robert Baden-Powell by Don Potter 1960 crop

For a number of years a notable collection of Baden-Powell memorabilia was displayed for visitors in 'The story of B-P' exhibition. This included many drawings and letters by Baden-Powell himself, such as the original of his '' Last Message to Scouts'', ''Laws for me when I am old'' and several

first edition The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed from substantially the same setting of type, including all minor typographical variants. First edition According to the definition of ''edition'' above, a b ...

s of his books. The exhibition also displayed the original painting by

David Jagger David Jagger, RP, ROI (1891–1958) was an acclaimed English portrait painter. He was a prolific portrait painter, renowned for his commissioned portraits of London's high society and British aristocracy, notable portraits include Robert Ba ...

, as presented to Baden-Powell on 29 August 1929 at the 'Coming of Age' 3rd World Scout Jamboree. This painting, a personal favourite of Baden-Powell, is often used in publications throughout the Scout movement. The Baden-Powell memorabilia was later moved to the headquarters for Scouting in the UK,

and was instead replaced with a number of smaller displays available to the public in the reception area showing some traditional Scouting skills. A nearly three-metre high statue of Baden-Powell, at the time the only

statue in London, sculpted by his personal friend

, was unveiled on 12 July 1961 by the

Duke of Gloucester Duke of Gloucester () is a British royal title (after Gloucester), often conferred on one of the sons of the reigning monarch. The first four creations were in the Peerage of England and the last in the Peerage of the United Kingdom; the curre ...

as part of the official opening. It was located outside the main entrance to the building for the duration of its time owned by the Scout Association and was moved in August 2021 to Gilwell Park.

References

External links

Official website of the Queen's Gate House

Location of Baden-Powell House on Streetmap
{{Coord, 51.4955, N, 0.1795, W, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Buildings and structures in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Scouting spoken word files Scouting museums Biographical museums in London Museums in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Residential buildings completed in 1961 Hostels South Kensington