Above: “EXTERIOR: 7 storeys. Central entrance (with large fanlight) framed by 2-light, 4-centre-headed window on left, similar single light window on right. Further entrance on far right. On first floor, pairs of 4-centre-headed windows with small panes in the heads, in centre 2-light square-headed window. Second, third and fourth storeys with 3-sided bay windows framing 2-light windows in the centre. Fifth storey with broad segmental headed windows framing a 2-light window. Sixth floor 2-1-2 square-headed window configuration. Dormers in attic storey.” (Historic England)
From Survey of London: Volume 45, Knightsbridge. Originally published by London County Council, London, 2000:
“Until 1903, the properties along the south side of Knightsbridge between Brompton Road and Trevor Street were mostly numbered as part of the High Road, sometimes known as the High Street. At the east end, on the Brompton Road corner, a terrace of houses, then recently replaced by Park Mansions, had been separately numbered under the name Middle Row, or Middle Row North, since its construction in the 1720s…When the old names were abolished and the premises all renumbered as part of Knightsbridge, High Road was coming to the end of a period of piecemeal redevelopment, begun in the 1870s, which transformed the character of this part of Knightsbridge, socially and commercially as well as architecturally.
By the 1860s, the High Road had become one of the least salubrious parts of Knightsbridge, a centre for low pleasures in sharp contrast to the increasingly select character of the district in general. From Knightsbridge Green all along the High Road was ‘a succession of music-halls, taverns, beer-stores, oyster saloons, & cheap tobacconists’, that would have been ‘a disgrace to any portion of London’, the nightly meeting-place of disorderly men and women whose behaviour made the area ‘quite as unseemly as the Haymarket’. Not three hundred yards long, the south side of the High Road accommodated five public houses, two or three of them with purpose-built music-halls attached, while on the north side there was a concentration of shops, pubs and lodging-houses adjoining Knightsbridge Barracks in and around Park Place and Mills’s Buildings.
The High Road’s rambunctious nocturnal character stemmed naturally enough from the combined presence of several old inns and the cavalry barracks. The Marquis of Granby, the immediate precursor of the present-day Paxton’s Head, was one of the oldest-established of these inns, dating back at least as far as 1632, when it was called the King’s Arms – it was later known as the Golden Lion, the Red Lion and the Sun…
…The triangle east of Knightsbridge Green is largely occupied by Park Mansions, a block of flats and shops erected in 1897–1902. The site was assembled in 1887–90 by Frederick Yeats Edwards of Hampstead and Robert Clarke Edwards, an architect then in practice in Norfolk Street, Strand – presumably with an eye to complete redevelopment. Some of the old buildings on the corner of Brompton Road and Knightsbridge were pulled down at this time. Whatever plans the Edwardses had came to nothing, and the property – ‘long disfigured by unsightly hoardings and sheds of corrugated iron’ – was acquired in 1897–8 by Abram or Abraham Kellett, a contractor of Castle Bar, Ealing and Old Oak Wharf, Willesden.
Kellett, his architect G. D. Martin, and their solicitor were originally to have undertaken the development through a specially formed company, backed by the lightopera impresario and property developer Richard D’Oyly Carte. However, this scheme seems to have fallen through, possibly because of Carte’s illness early in 1897, and at least part of the project was financed by a loan to Kellett from the Bradford Commercial Joint Stock Bank, whose successor, the Knightsbridge and Bradford Estate Company Ltd, subsequently owned Park Mansions until its dissolution in the 1930s.
The site was developed in two phases: the eastern corner in 1897–8, and the western part in 1900–2. The Paxton’s Head public house was rebuilt as part of the western section…
…The Marquis of Granby was rebuilt or remodelled in 1851 and renamed the Paxton’s Head, in honour of the designer of the Crystal Palace: it was again rebuilt in the early 1900s as part of the Park Mansions development. It is the only public house in Knightsbridge which originated as a village inn.”
From the Historic England entry:
“HISTORY: A fine example of an ornate pub of c.1900 which retains its island servery and many of its other contemporary fittings.
MATERIALS: red brick with stone dressings; first floor painted. Timber and glass ground floor facade with larvikite pilasters. Slate-hung Mansard roof. Red brick stack straddling the angle of the roof.
PLAN: single ground floor bar (formerly with subdivisions)
with island servery. Corridor and stairs to right. Assembly room on first floor.
INTERIOR: Bar lined with plain and etched glass mirrors under square and semi-circular heads and rising to full height. Island servery with curved ends and fielded panel counter front. Contemporary bar back with ornate detail.
Large gantry above counter probably mid C20. Lincrusta ceiling of 2 different patterns, that at the front with foliage trails,
that at the back with geometrical designs.
Fireplace to rear left with corbelled-out overmantel. Corridor also extensively covered with mirrors.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/anemoneprojectors/46826616564/
Staircase to first and second floors with flat, pierced cast iron balusters.
2 brass light fittings on the half-landing to first floor. Assembly room with cast iron grill inscribed David Wilson & Co. 77 Lever Street, London EC’; floral tiled borders. Timber panelling to window jambs. Marble fireplace.”
Julia Upton 