Picture this. You are standing before Mortimer House a grand house on Egerton Gardens in South Kensington. This impressive building boasts a fascinating history. It wasn’t always known as Mortimer House. The site was once home to Crescent House. This was inhabited by Edward Howley Palmer the former Governor of the Bank of England.
In the mid-1880s Palmer decided to rebuild. The Smith’s Charity estate trustees agreed. Palmer paid a substantial ground rent. He commissioned the Hatton Garden builder William Goodwin. The architect remains unknown. The reason for the name Mortimer House remains a mystery.
Palmer also employed Richard Norman Shaw for a house on Cadogan Square. However he didn’t live there. Palmer was listed at Mortimer House until 1892. He sold it in 1896. The house had various owners. Charles Sheridan Swan owned it early in the 20th century. His widow Mary Kelly Swan died there in 1909. It was sold again in 1913.
Sir Frederick Macnaghten chairman of British American Tobacco owned Mortimer House in the 1950s and 60s. His widow Dame Ada died there in 1969. In 1965 the gardens opened to the public as part of the National Gardens Scheme. The Times described them as having attractive roses and a rock garden.
The Survey of London described Mortimer House as exuding mystery and surprise. Financier Nigel Broackes owned it in the 1980s. It was sold to a Middle Eastern buyer for 3 million pounds in 1983. It has remained privately owned since then.
Mortimer House is built in a late 19th-century Tudorbethan style. Red and blue brickwork is interspersed. Decorations include gables statues of griffins and bears with shields. Tall brick chimney stacks top the property. The stables now garages have a conical roof. A 20th-century addition is a conservatory swimming pool.
The interior is eclectic. It ranges from Jacobean in the hallway to Adamesque in the drawing-room. Fine marble chimneypieces are in a late-eighteenth-century style. A first-floor room may have been a chapel. The Pevsner Architectural Guides calls it a picturesque composition. Its Tudor chimneys stone mullions are noted.
Mortimer House stands as a testament to a rich past. It’s a captivating blend of history architecture and mystery. A true London gem.