13, Allsop Place London, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

1900/0/10440 ALLSOP PLACE 15-DEC-09 13

II Offices. Built 1912-13 as the company headquarters of the Metropolitan Railway to the design of Charles Walter Clarke (1885-1972), Chief Architectural Assistant, under William Willox, Engineer to the MR.

MATERIALS: Reinforced concrete frame; façade clad in white faience.

PLAN: The main building has a broadly symmetrical U plan with a rectangular frontage block facing Allsop Place and two rear wings, from which extend two lower wings supported on piers above the Metropolitan Line platforms and tracks. Although of uniform height, the building is constructed on two levels; the principal façade to Allsop Place being of 4 storeys and the rear part seven. The internal plan has been radically altered to create open-plan offices.

EXTERIOR: Principal block of 3 main storeys plus attic and basement. Described at the time as 'neo-Grec', the facade is executed in a French-inspired classical style. 9 principal bays; the central 3 bays are broader with 3 windows; the outer 3 bays of 2-3-2 windows. Rusticated ground floor with central porch, with additional porch and a bay window in penultimate bays to N and S respectively. Main central entrance porch framed in low quadrant walls, surmounted by pair of cherubs supporting the Company's armorial bearings. Both porches have panelled doors with geometric fanlight. Above ground floor, the bays are separated by pilasters with stylised Ionic capitals. Central windows of the 3-window bays accentuated by moulded architraves and aprons. The upper part of the second storey is decorated with applied railway motifs in cast iron, including wheels, signal posts, buffers and coupling chains. Timber multi-pane sashes; attic windows replaced. Deep modillion cornice and blocking course. Bronze plaque commemorating laying of foundation stone by Lord Aberconway, Chairman of the Metropolitan Railway, on 12 July 1912.

The rear elevations are plain and of little architectural merit.

INTERIOR: The interior is clad throughout in modern materials, with suspended ceilings. There are no visible decorative features, although some may remain concealed by modern finishes.

HISTORY: The Metropolitan Railway (MR) was the world's first underground railway. The first section opened in January 1863 between Paddington, Bishop's Road (now Paddington), and Farringdon Street (now Farringdon). Baker Street station opened on 10 January 1863. On 13 April 1868 two surface-level platforms opened on the north side as part of an intended spur to Swiss Cottage station and the line was incrementally extended north-westwards reaching Aylesbury in 1892. Branch lines were opened from Harrow to Uxbridge (1904), Moor Park to Watford (1925) and finally Wembley Park to Stanmore (1932). To the south-west, the MR absorbed the Hammersmith & City Railway from Paddington to Hammersmith and Kensington in 1867, extended to Richmond by 1877; in 1868 a new branch opened from Edgware Road to South Kensington. To the east, the MR was extended to Moorgate (1865), Liverpool Street (1875) and Aldgate (1876).

The MR was fiercely independent, deliberately cultivating the image of a mainline company (which in effect it was). The line was electrified by 1907, and in 1911 the MR embarked on a comprehensive rebuilding programme in which Baker Street was to be its new company headquarters and flagship station. This was prompted not only by increasing congestion, but also the drive to exploit suburban expansion to the north-west, in which the MR enjoyed a uniquely privileged position whereby it was legally enabled to retain surplus land it had acquired for railway development in the late C19. Thus was born 'Metro-land', the term coined by the MR's publicity department in 1915 and used henceforth in MR marketing, and which rapidly entered common parlance as an idealised evocation of north-west London commuter land. The de