Adelaide House is a Grade II listed office building in London's primary financial district, the

City of London The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...

Location

Adelaide House is located on the north bank of the

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after th ...

, adjacent to

London Bridge The name "London Bridge" refers to several historic crossings that have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark in central London since Roman Britain, Roman times. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 197 ...

and

St Magnus the Martyr St Magnus the Martyr, London Bridge, is a Church of England church (building), church and parish within the City of London. The church, which is located in Thames Street (London), Lower Thames Street near Monument to the Great Fire of London, Th ...

church. It is on King William Street, and also borders the

Thames Path The Thames Path is a National Trail following the River Thames from one of its sources near Kemble, Gloucestershire, Kemble in Gloucestershire to the Woolwich foot tunnel, south east London. It is about long. A path was first proposed in 1948 ...

and Thames Street.

History

In the early 1830s, the old London Bridge Waterworks on the site was demolished and replaced with the Adelaide Hotel. The building was named in honour of King

William IV William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded hi ...

's wife

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

, who, in 1831, had performed the opening ceremony of London Bridge. In the 1850s, the hotel was converted into offices and renamed the Adelaide Buildings. In the early 1920s, the site was acquired by Richard Tilden Smith, who had the old Adelaide Buildings demolished to make way for a new office building. It was designed in the

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

style by Sir John Burnet and Thomas S. Tait, with some Egyptian influences, popular at the time after the recent discovery of

Tutankhamen Tutankhamun or Tutankhamen, (; ), was an Egyptian pharaoh who ruled during the late Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt. Born Tutankhaten, he instituted the restoration of the traditional polytheistic form of ancient Egyptian religion, undo ...

's tomb. The building features a sculpture by William Reid Dick above the main entrance, depicting a 3.2 metre high figure in draped materials carrying an orb with an astrological band. When completed in 1925, it was the city's tallest office block, at . Adelaide House was the first building in the city to employ the

steel frame Steel frame is a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame. The develop ...

technique that was later widely adopted for skyscrapers around the world, and also the first office block the United Kingdom to have central ventilation and telephone and electric connections on every floor. In addition, on opening the building featured a roof garden including an 18-hole putting course, rockeries, fruit trees and beehives. The building has been Grade II listed since 1972. It was occupied by law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP from 1970 to 2020. In 2021, planning permission was granted to refurbish the building. Work on the refurbishment started in late 2023, with aims to renovate the building to category A office standard, including reopening the roof terrace area. Work is expected to be completed in early 2025.

References

*''I Never Knew That About London'', Christopher Winn, 2007

Location

History

References

Further reading