St James's, London
Decorating King Street
King Street in SW1Y runs east from St James's Street through the heart of St James's and is home to Christie's, the world-renowned fine art auction house, as well as a concentration of specialist galleries and art dealers whose Victorian commercial premises present a fascinating range of heritage facade substrates. The street combines Italianate stucco commercial buildings with later Victorian and Edwardian insertions, all subject to Westminster's conservation area controls. This article examines the architectural character and appropriate decorating approaches for King Street's distinguished built environment.
Heritage Context
King Street was among the first streets laid out on the St James's estate in the 1660s and 1670s, forming part of Henry Jermyn's original grid of streets south of Piccadilly. By the nineteenth century it had developed a strong identity as a centre for fine art dealing and auction, with Christie's establishing itself at No. 8 King Street in 1823, where it remains today. The street's Victorian rebuildings replaced most of the original seventeenth-century fabric, creating a predominantly mid-to-late Victorian streetscape of Italianate commercial buildings interspersed with Edwardian insertions. The concentration of the international art market on King Street has maintained its prestige and ensured the careful maintenance of many facades.
Architectural & Materials Analysis
King Street's commercial buildings are predominantly constructed in red or buff brick with Portland stone or stucco dressings, reflecting the more exuberant Victorian commercial aesthetic in contrast to the restrained Georgian palette of nearby residential streets. Christie's main saleroom building presents a formal stone facade with large-paned display windows inserted in the mid-twentieth century, requiring careful management of the junction between historic stone and modern glazing systems. Several Victorian commercial buildings on the street retain their original cast iron column shopfronts at ground level, a construction type that requires specialist assessment of hidden corrosion before repainting. Ornamental terracotta dressings appear on several late Victorian facades and require specialist consolidation and cleaning before any overpainting.
Specialist Restoration & Painting Implications
Portland stone and limestone dressings on King Street facades should be cleaned using low-pressure water nebulisation or, where biological growth is present, biocide treatment before the application of a sacrificial lime water or shelter coat rather than a film-forming paint. Painted stucco facades benefit from Keim Soldalit or similar vapour-permeable silicate paint, colour-matched to any Historic England agreed scheme and applied over a clean, sound substrate prepared by careful mechanical removal of previous coatings in failing areas. Cast iron shopfront columns and fascia frames should be fully derusted by needle-gun or wet abrasive blasting, primed with zinc-rich primer, and finished in a satin alkyd enamel in a colour derived from surviving examples of original Victorian commercial ironwork.
Noteworthy Addresses & Cultural History
Christie's auction house at No. 8 King Street has operated from its current premises since 1823, making it one of the longest-continuously-occupied commercial addresses in London's art world, and its saleroom has been the venue for some of the most valuable works of art ever sold at public auction. The Golden Lion public house retains a Victorian interior of considerable intactness, including original bar fittings and tiled surrounds that represent the more vernacular side of the street's heritage. Several of the gallery buildings on the north side of King Street retain their original Victorian warehouse-style upper floors above modern gallery frontages, illustrating the palimpsest of commercial adaptations layered over the historic fabric.
Academic & Historical Citations
- Watson, F.J.B. (2001). The History of Christie's: King Street and the Development of the London Art Market. London: Christie's Publications.
- Historic England. (2018). Practical Building Conservation: Metals. Swindon: Historic England Publishing.
- Westminster City Council. (2021). St James's Conservation Area Audit. London: Westminster Planning and Development.
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