Victoria Coach Station in London is jaded and tired, but was once an influential Art Deco work of architecture

Victoria Coach Station at the corner of Buckingham Palace Road and Elizabeth Street is an Art Deco landmark designed by the architect Thomas Wallis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I was looking at the Victoria Library, a Victorian library near Victoria Station, in a posting yesterday. On the facing street corner site of Buckingham Palace Road and Elizabeth Street, Victoria Coach Station at 164 Buckingham Palace Road is one of London’s most prominent Art Deco landmarks.

With its soaring art-deco frontage, Victoria Coach Station harkens back to a more stylish era in public transport. It was built for London Coastal Coaches, known simply as Coastal, and was designed by the architect Thomas Wallis (1873-1953) of Wallis, Gilbert & Partners.

Wallis originally began working as a grocer’s assistant. He was articled to Sidney RJ Smith (1858-1913), who designed the National Gallery of British Art on Millbank, now Tate Britain, and in his early career worked for the Office of Works designing public buildings.

He was introduced in 1916 to the American engineer and architect Moritz Kahn (1879-1939) and his brother Julius Kahn (1874-1942) who pioneered the ‘Kahn trussed bar’ in the US, a method of concrete reinforcement, and the ‘Kahn daylight system’, a basic structure of concrete column, beam and slab, infilled by glazed units. The system was used extensively in the US, mainly in building large factory buildings.

Wallis was also influenced by American approaches to employee welfare and production need and he transformed design for industry and transport in the 1920s and 1930s. By the early 1930s, Wallis, Gilbert & Partners had become ‘specialists in industrial buildings’, responsible for many outstanding buildings of the inter-war period.

The identity of Gilbert in the name of the partnership has never been established, and ‘Gilbert’ may even have been an invention by Wallis to add an appearance of gravitas to his business.

Wallis considered the symbolic potential of buildings and saw a striking façade as free advertising for a business and its goods. He described his style, which featured large, adaptable spaces behind elaborate Art Deco façades, as ‘Fancy’, seen in his ‘fancy’ factories built in 1927-1935, with coloured glazed ceramic decorations and Egyptian styling.

His notable interwar projects include the first purpose-built recording studios in the world at Abbey Road, St John’s Wood (1930-1931). His other works include the Grade II* listed Hoover factory in Perivale, West London, described by Historic England as ‘possibly the most significant arterial road factory of its date’, although the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner has described it as ‘perhaps the most offensive of the modernistic atrocities’ in the area. It was recently converted to residential use.

Wallis’s other designs in the 1920s and the 1930s include the now demolished former Firestone Tyre Factory in Brentford and factories for Wrigley’s chewing gum, EMI, Glaxo, Hayes Cocoa Ltd and Coty Cosmetics.

Wallis drew up his plans for the new coach station in January 1931 in his offices in South Kensington, and it was built by Wilson Lovatt & Sons of Wolverhampton. The new station was formally opened on 10 March 1932 by the Minister of Transport and Liberal MP Sir Percy John Pybus (1880-1935). With parking and loading space for up to 80 coaches, Victoria Coach Station was said to be the largest coach station in the world at the time.

The central tower is recognised for its distinctive art deco style and was admired for its beauty and strength. Its concrete was reportedly made by combining cement with recycled coloured glass. The passenger facilities includied a booking hall, shops and refreshment spaces. The site operated a one-way system, with buses and coaches entering from Buckingham Palace Road and exiting onto Elizabeth Street.

Wallce wanted his buildings to have good amenities for the workers, and a notable feature of his Victoria Coach Station was the staff restaurant, where a good meal could be had for a shilling. There was a 200-seat restaurant with a dance floor, painted pale green and pink with a gold spray.

In addition to the offices for London Coastal Coaches, there were private offices on the upper floors. Wallis, Gilbert and Partners were based there from 1933 until Wallis retired in 1946. Other tenants of these upper floor offices included the architect Wells Coates, decorators Mollo and Egan, and the Inland Revenue.

Although Wallis’s designs were controversial and his approach to architecture was considered unconventional by his contemporaries, he revolutionised how architects considered workers and incorporated their needs and welfare into plans and designs. He is commemorated with a blue plaque at Victoria Coach Station, which he designed, and where the Wallis, Gilbert and Partners had their offices.

Victoria Coach Station was listed as a Grade II building by Heritage England in 2014 for its architectural and historic interest. These days it sends 10 million or passengers to 1,200 destinations across the UK and 400 throughout Europe every year.

Sadly, time has not been kind to the coach station, now almost 100 years old, and it has become a shadow of its former self. The entrance and interior of Victoria Coach Station have been changed over time and it has also lost its decorative faience. Indeed, I might wonder whether its listing may have been too late to save the original fabric of the building.

The Victoria Library near Victoria Station is a gem of Victorian architecture first built as a parish library

The Victoria Library at the corner of Buckingham Palace Road and Elizabeth Street was designed by the architect Abert J Bolton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

In my walk around Belgravia and Pimlico earlier this month, the impressive works of architecture I wanted to see include the streets and squares designed and laid out by Thomas Cubitt for the Grosvenor estate, with their elegant Victorian and Edwardian terraces, Saint Peter’s Church on Eaton Square, Gothic churches such as Saint Saviour’s, Saint Gabriel’s and Saint Michael’s, and Victoria Station with its Imperial Baroque Revival version of the French Renaissance style.

But as I watched the daily rush, I wondered how many commuters notice the Victoria Library at 160 Buckingham Palace Road, an architecturally attractive building on the corner with Elizabeth Street and close to both Victoria Station and Victoria Coach Station?

The Victoria Library is a Grade II building designed in 1892-1894 by the architect Abert J Bolton as the public lending library for the parish of Saint George’s, Hanover Square. It was built on land given by Hugh Lupus Grosvenor (1825-1899), first Duke of Westminster, and was designed by Bolton after a design competition.

Bolton is best known for his work for the Grosvenor estate in 1889-1895 at 87-102 Mount Street with a return into South Audley Street, purpose-built shops and flats that form what is regarded as one of the finest listed terraces in central London.

The reconstruction of Mount Street began when Bolton won a limited competition in 1884-1885 for a Vestry Hall for Saint George’s Parish on the site of No 103 after Saint George’s Vestry bought the freehold. He then built the adjacent Nos 87-102 to the west, together with the deep return plot to South Audley Street and the library in Chapel Place North. The Duke of Westminster had hoped but failed to get Bolton to follow the designs of Ernest George and Harold Peto at 104-111 Mount Street, on the other side of the vestry hall.

The Victoria Library on Buckingham Palace Road, designed by AJ Bolton, is of special architectural interest because of the quality of its exuberant Queen Anne exterior with its stone dressings on the façade, terracotta dressings to the rear and its substantially complete interior, with a surviving book hoist and galleries and ornamental ironwork.

The library is also a relatively early example of an institution like this in London. Public libraries from the late 19th and early 20th century survive in good numbers in England and a number of them are of special architectural interest as reflections of the civic or philanthropic pride that created them.

Libraries dating from 1850 to 1914, such as Bolton’s Victoria Library, often show a good degree of articulate architectural expression, and some retain interior details and even may remain substantially unaltered and without extension.

The Victoria Library on Buckingham Palace Road was built of red brick laid in a Flemish bond with Portland Stone dressings, and some terracotta to the rear, and it has a slate roof behind a lowered parapet.

Bolton’s plan is of a three-part composition with two double-height halls to the rear, an entrance foyer, a stair hall and two-storey-and-attic accommodation to the front.

The Buckingham Palace Road façade is a three-bay composition with a central porch carrying a four-light mullion and transom window breaking forward with a narrow single lights to either side.

The lettering carved in the stonework between the ground and first floors reads ‘SG HS Public Library’, the initials meaning Saint George’s Hanover Square. There are four-light mullion and transom casement windows at either side. The windows on the first floor have Corinthian pilasters and a frieze, while those on the second floor have a greater profusion of pilasters, set over the cornice.

The rear elevation has two brick gables with double-height windows, and the one furthest south has an oculus window above. Before and set between the gables is a projecting porch that leads to the ‘Reading Room’ that is signposted in terracotta along with the date 1892. The inscription forms part of an imposing pedimented terracotta door case topped by finials.

The highly decorative wrought iron railings at the front are consistent with the similar railings seen along the adjacent terrace.

Inside, the Victoria Library has a coffered ceiling above the vestibule, leading to a foyer from which rises a straight single-flight stair with cast-iron balustrade, and there is some panelling to reading area in the inner foyer. There is a geometric ribbed moulded decorative plaster ceiling in the first floor rooms of the front block.

The lending library, which is the former reading room, has a first floor gallery on three sides supported on columns with a cast-iron balustrade under an open timber clerestoried roof comprised of three queen post trusses, with the posts formed of small classical columns.

The former lending library has a gallery with a more elaborate ironwork balustrade and its original fixed shelving. This hall also retains the original book hoist: there books for lending that were not openly accessible to the public had to be ordered from the catalogues once located in the hall - this is now an extremely rare feature for a library.

I can hardly imagine members of the royal family taking a stroll from Buckingham Palace along Buckingham Palace to borrow books from the Victoria Library or to browse the shelves of their local library. But the Victoria Library remains an architecturally attractive building and a centre for reading, research and community interaction. As well as its core book collection, it has a flexible cultural space that hosts diverse local activities, including community workshops and readings.

Around the corner and close-by on Elizabeth Street, the Thomas Cubitt is a Georgian pub whose name is a reminder of Thomas Cubitt, the master builder who was instrumental in developing the streets and squares of Belgravia and Pimlico.

Almost beside the Victoria Library, on the facing corner site of Buckingham Palace Road and Elizabeth Street, Victoria Coach Station at 164 Buckingham Palace Road is one of London’s most prominent Art Deco works . But more about that landmark building, hopefully, tomorrow.

The name of the Thomas Cubitt is a reminder of the master builder who developed the streets and squares of Belgravia and Pimlico (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Peter’s Church, Eaton Square, is ‘one of the most beautiful churches’ in the ‘most expensive place in London’

Saint Peter’s Church is at the east end of Eaton Square, has been described as ‘one of the most beautiful churches in London’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During my visit to Pimlico and Belgravia last week, I visited three interesting churches in the area: Saint Gabriel’s Church, Warwick Square; Saint Saviour’s Church, Saint George’s Square; and Saint Peter’s Church, Eaton Square. In recent years, I have also visited Saint Michael’s Church, Chester Square.

Saint Peter’s Church is at the east end of Eaton Square, which is, in fact, an oblong about one-third of a mile long and arranged around six private garden squares covering 2.5 ha of Belgravia, close to Mayfair and Knightsbridge.

Eaton Square is part of the Grosvenor Estate and takes its name from Eaton Hall in Cheshire, the principal home of the Dukes of Westminster. Its origins go back to an Act of Parliament in 1826 that allowed Lord Grosvenor – who owned most of the land that now makes up Belgravia and Mayfair – to drain the ‘open and rural space known as the Five Fields and build a new and elegant town connecting London and Chelsea’.

Saint Peter’s Church, Eaton Square, was inspired by the west portico of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Eaton Square was once named as the ‘most expensive place to buy property in Britain’. The residents have included former Prime Ministers Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain, actor Vivien Leigh, Austrian statesman Prince Metternich, philanthropist George Peabody and the exiled and deposed former Greek royal family.

James Bond’s fictional home was also in Eaton Square, while real-life residents in the past have included the Bond actor Sean Connery, film star Rex Harrison, Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi.

No 22 was once the childhood home of John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, who as Lord Lucan who was suspected of murdering his children’s nanny Sandra Rivett in 1974.

Inside Saint Peter’s Church, Eaton Square, rebuilt in 1990-1991 after a fire in 1987 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

If Eaton Square can be described as the ‘most expensive place to buy property in Britain’, then Saint Peter’s Church was once described in The Times ‘as one of the ost beautiful churches in London’ (19 October 1991).

Saint Peter’s is a neoclassical church designed by the architect Henry Hakewill with a hexastyle portico with six Ionic columns and a clock tower, and is a Grade II* listed building.

The architect Henry Hakewill (1771-1830) had a large practice, mostly involving English country houses. He was the architect to Rugby School, and also worked for the Radcliffe trustees in Oxford and the Middle Temple in London. His two Greek Revival buildings of note are Coed Coch (1804), a now-demolished country house in Denbighshire, Wales, and Saint Peter's Church, Eaton Square.

Saint Peter’s was first built in 1824-1827 during the early stages of the development of Eaton Square. This building burnt down, and the church was rebuilt in 1837 according to Hakewill’s drawings by Arthur William Hakewill (1808-1856) and Charles Jearrad. From its founding, Saint Peter’s, Eaton Square, was considered in Pimlico and until at least 1878 was usually recorded as Saint Peter’s, Pimlico.

Saint Peter’s was founded as a district a district church of Saint George’s, Hanover Square, in 1827, and remained so until 1844. It was the parish church of Saint Peter, Pimlico, from 1844 until 1954.

The High Altar and apse in Saint Peter’s Church, Eaton Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Peter’s is built of yellow stock brick and ashlar and stone dressings. It is a basilica-style church with a pedimented west portico, a narthex, tower and cupola, rectangular nave, chancel with small north and south transepts, and flanking chapels.

The hexastyle Ionic portico has six Ionic columns and a plain entablature that are inspired by the west portico of the Erechtheion on the north side of the Acropolis in Athens. Some years earlier, William Inwood (1771-1843) in his design of Saint Pancras New Church (1822) on Euston Road had been inspired by both the Tower of the Winds in Athens, with Ionic-style pillars at the west end, and two sets of caryatids that stand above the north and south entrances to the crypt, modelled by John Charles Felix Rossi (1762-1839).

The portico of Saint Peter’s is set on four steps, surmounted by a pediment. There are pilasters at the rear angles, three tall doorways with moulded architraves, and flat cornices on carved brackets, each with a pair of doors with fielded panels.

The tower is set on a wide stylobate with a tall plinth forming a clock stage, each face with a clock. At the bell stage, a louvred round arched opening is flanked by Ionic half columns with pilasters at the angles. The cupola is set between pedimented blocks at the angles and is surmounted by a gilded metal cross.

The interior was, as so often at the time, a ‘preaching box’, with galleries along three sides and the organ and choir at the west end. The architect James Elmes (1782-1862) described the effect as ‘chaste and simple’.

The original building was a commissioners’ church, receiving a grant from the Church Building Commission towards its cost. The full cost of the building was £22,427, the equivalent to more than £2 million today, with the commission paying £5,556.

Looking towards the west end of Saint Peter’s from the apse and High Altar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The church was enlarged in 1875, and reordered to designs by Sir Arthur Blomfield (1829-1899), who added a chancel at the east end and north and south transepts and ‘fiercely normanised’ the interior. Internally, Blomfield’s chancel and transepts are in a Romanesque Revival style, but externally they follow with Hakewill’s neoclassical style.

All of the parish of Christ Church, Broadway, and half of that of Saint Andrew’s Church, Ashley Place were merged into Saint Peter’s after they were both damaged beyond repair in the Blitz, with the other half of Saint Andrew’s parish going to Saint Stephen’s Church, Rochester Row.

The crypt with about 400 burials was cleared in 1951 and the remains were reinterred at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey. Since 1954, it has been the Parish of Saint Peter, Pimlico, with Christ Church, Westminster. Choristers for the choir were provided by London Choir School until 1958, when the choir school closed.

A statue of Saint Peter in Saint Peter’s Church, Eaton Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Almost 40 years ago, an anti-Catholic arsonist set fire to the east end of the church on 20 October 1987, in the mistaken belief that the building was a Roman Catholic church. Within hours the church was engulfed. By the next day the fire was out but only the Georgian shell of the building remained. It was roofless, with most of its furnishings destroyed. The church needed total rebuilding.

The Braithwaite Partnership of architects was commissioned to completely redesign the church with a new and simpler interior, and to incorporate within the site a vicarage, offices, flats for a curate, verger and music director, a meeting hall, nursery school rooms and a large playroom for the parish youth club.

Work on the new church began at Easter 1990, and the foundation stone of the new sanctuary was laid by the Duchess of Kent on 25 September 1990 and dedicated by Bishop John Klyberg of Fulham. The rebuilding work was completed in 1991, the church reopened on 20 October 1991, the fourth anniversary of the fire, and was reconsecrated by the Bishop of London, David Hope, on 7 May 1992.

The organ in Saint Peter’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Peter’s retains its grand Georgian portico but beyond that the interior is clean, bright and modern. The choir and organ are at the west end, as in the 1827 plan, but the fittings are thoroughly modern. The church is accessible and has disabled-accessible toilets.

The apse behind the altar is decorated entirely in gold mosaic. Around the side of the apse, part of the 1873 sanctuary that survived the fire can be seen, and also a side chapel now used as the vestry office, complete with stained glass.

Saint Peter’s has been described as ‘a serene sanctuary amidst the bustling cityscape … providing solace and spiritual nourishment for both residents and visitors.’ It is a venue for celebrated classical concerts in spring and autumn, and is known as a venue for society weddings. Lord Lucan’s daughter, the barrister Lady Camilla Bingham, and Michael Bloch were married in the church in 1998.

Saint Peter’s stands in the inclusive Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church of England and serves a diverse community across Belgravia, Victoria, and Pimlico, with services using both the Book of Common Prayer and Common Worship. Father Jonathan Kester has been the Vicar of Saint Peter’s since 2022; the other clergy include Father Carlos Remotti-Breton, assistant curate, and Father Herbert Bennett, honorary associate priest.

The foyer and welcome area in the narthex in Saint Peter’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

• Sunday Services are: 8 am, Holy Communion (Book of Common Prayer); 9:30 am, Family Eucharist; 11 am, Choral Eucharist. A Parish Eucharist at 10:30 am replaces the Family Eucharist and Choral Eucharist on some Sundays. Weekday services are: 8 am, Morning Prayer (except Wednesdays); 5 pm, Evening Prayer; 8 am Wednesdays, the Eucharist; 12.30 pm, Monday to Friday, the Eucharist.

Saint Peter’s is in the inclusive Anglo-Catholic tradition and serves a diverse community in Belgravia, Victoria, and Pimlico (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)