St. James's Square - Addresses

Addresses

The numbering starts with Number 1 to the north of Charles Street on the eastern side of the square and proceeds anti-clockwise as far as Number 21. The Army and Navy Club's clubhouse occupies the former sites of Number 22, a smaller adjacent house which may have had a George Street number, and several former houses in Pall Mall. Norfolk House at the southern end of the square is Number 31, and the two houses to its north are Numbers 32 and 33. A small house in the angle of the square south of Norfolk House, originally numbered in John Street, and the adjacent house in Pall Mall, have been combined and allocated the number 31A.

The smaller houses along the southern side had Pall Mall numbers until 1884. This block is now occupied by a mixture of 19th and 20th century buildings which are fully built up to the pavements on both sides. Some of them have their main entrance in Pall Mall and others in the square, and there are two separate sets of numbers for them. The numbers in the square range from 22A to 30, with some omissions.

• No. 1: BP head office. Also occupies the site of the former No. 2 and several demolished houses in Charles Street. It is a post-modern building dating from c.2000 which defers to the Georgian style of the street. It was built to be Ericsson's London office and was sold to BP for £117 million in 2001.
• No. 3: The original house had many owners and tenants, including the holders of at least three separate dukedoms, and was worked on by various architects including John Soane. The present building is a 1930s office block.
• No. 4: The Naval & Military Club in a Georgian house of 1726-28 by Edward Shepherd. Former home of Nancy Astor and the only house in the square to retain its large garden and the original mews house to the rear.
• No. 5: Present house by Matthew Brettingham 1748–9. Refronted in stone, porch added, and attic converted into a full storey in 1854. Now offices; former Libyan embassy, site of the 1984 Libyan Embassy Siege.
• No. 6: Rio Tinto Group head office. Modern. This building was the home of the Hervey family (Earl's and Marquesses of Bristol) for nearly 300 years. They moved out in the 1950's when the old building was knocked down.
• No. 7: Neo Georgian, architect Edwin Lutyens, 1911.
• No. 8: Neo Georgian, architects Robert Angell and Curtis, 1939. In November 2007, No. 8 and neighboring No. 7 were bought for £125m.
• Nos. 9 to 11: Numbers 9, 10 and 11 were built in the 1730s on the site of the former Ormonde House, once the largest house in the square. Henry Flitcroft supervised number 10 and probably also numbers 9 and 11. No. 10 is Chatham House, former home of British Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder and of the Earl and Countess of Blessington.
• No. 12: Built 1836, probably by Thomas Cubitt. Former home of Augusta Lovelace.
• No. 13: Built 1735-1737, possibly by Matthew Brettingham. Now houses the embassy of the Republic of Cyprus.
• No. 14: Occupied by the London Library since 1845, rebuilt for them 1896-98 and subsequently extended to the rear.
• No. 15: By James Stuart, 1764–6. Balcony added circa 1791 by Samuel Wyatt. Now offices.
• No. 16 and site of former No. 17: East India Club, built in 1865 to designs by Charles Lee.
• No. 18: Italianate reconstruction of 1846. Now apartments.
• No. 19: The London home of the Dukes of Cleveland and family from 1720 to 1894. A replacement building of 1898-99 used variously as offices and residentially was replaced by the present stone-clad offices in 1999-2000. Current site of the Rolex UK headquarters.

• No. 20/21: Robert Adam's reconstruction of No. 20 for Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn from 1771-75 is one of the most praised of his smaller works. The house was three bays wide and had three main storeys plus an attic. In 1936 it was extended to include the rebuilt No. 21 to its south, forming a uniform seven bay facade with an extra full storey on top. This address became the London offices for the enterprise software company Autonomy Corporation in December 2010.
• (Former) No. 22 and adjacent buildings: replaced by the Army and Navy Club 1848–51. It had a bold Venetian exterior. This has been lost and the present building is in a mean mid 20th century style.
• Nos. 22A to 30: See above. Little historical or architectural significance, except that the now defunct Junior Carlton Club once occupied a grand clubhouse at the western end of the block.
• No. 31: "Norfolk House" - the London residence of the Dukes of Norfolk for many generations. Replaced between the wars with a neo-Georgian office building of the same name which was U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower's headquarters during World War II, where Operation Torch and Operation Overlord were planned.
• No. 32: Built by Samuel Pepys and Charles Robert Cockerell in 1819–21. Later alterations. Used as offices.
• No. 33: By Robert Adam (1770–72) replacing an earlier house. Altered by John Soane 1817–23. Later alterations including an additional storey, but still essentially Georgian. Used as offices.