Decorating Jermyn Street

Jermyn Street's commercial buildings present a rich variety of facade treatments: painted stucco over brick, polished Aberdeen granite at ground-floor level, buff terracotta faience on later Victorian and Edwardian frontages, and surviving timber shopfronts with their original glazing bars and mouldings. The stucco facades, typically Portland cement-rich Victorian renders applied over earlier lime work, require careful assessment before repainting to identify areas of hollow or delaminating render. Original timber shopfronts — where they survive — are of considerable heritage significance and should be decorated with flexible, breathable systems that do not obscure historic profiling or fill glazing-bar rebates. Cast iron columns and decorative metalwork are present on several facades and require specialist rust treatment.

Floris, the perfumer at No. 89 Jermyn Street, has occupied its current premises since 1730 and possesses one of the finest surviving Victorian shop interiors in London, complete with original mahogany showcases acquired from the Great Exhibition of 1851. Paxton & Whitfield at No. 93 has traded continuously since the eighteenth century and its painted timber shopfront represents an important surviving example of pre-war retail architecture. The Cavendish Hotel, which replaced Rosa Lewis's original establishment after the Second World War, anchors the eastern end of the street and its facade illustrates the post-war commercial rebuilding that punctuates the otherwise Victorian and Edwardian streetscape.