The Venetian Gothic Former Overseas Bankers' Club, 7 Lothbury, City of London. Architect: George Somers-Clarke. St Margarets Church at left. (Photo: Quintin Lake)

White Portland stone facade above a brown sandstone plinth of the Former Overseas Bankers' Club, 7 Lothbury, City of London (Photo: Quintin Lake)

Portland stone meeets brown sandstone behind the carved sign at the former Overseas Bankers' Club, 7 Lothbury, City of London

Energetic forms surrounding the entrance of former Overseas Bankers' Club, 7 Lothbury, City of London (Photo: Quintin Lake)

The finely carved medievalizing relief by Redferm on the facade of the Former Overseas Bankers' Club, 7 Lothbury, City of London (Photo: Quintin Lake)

One of the five buxom carved sphinx corbels below the balcony of the former Overseas Bankers' Club, 7 Lothbury, City of London (Photo: Quintin Lake)

Located opposite the Bank of England in the City of London architectural historical Nikolaus Pevsner describes the slender five-storey Venetian Gothic building as being “An amazing building for its date” yet “Stiffer and more rectilinear than anything the Venetian Quattrocento produced”.

Built in 1868 while the  convention was for the neo-classical, architect George Somers Clarke (1825-1882) designed the General Credit and Discount Company’s new head office in a Venetian Gothic style, no doubt inspired by John Ruskin‘s Stones of Venice. It later became the headquarters of Speyer Brothers Banking House before being taken over by the Overseas Bankers’ Club in the Sixties. But by early this century it had fallen into disuse and disrepair, despite its Grade II* listing. In 2005 the buildings new owner investment company Tigerwater, approached specialist niche developer Marldon with a proposal for conversion to residential use.

View the developer’s Website and a Telegraph article on the restoration of the property

These photographs were commissioned by Thames & Hudson / View Pictures for an upcoming book on the architecture of the City of London

View more images of  the Former Overseas Bankers’ Club, 7 Lothbury Here
 
Photography © Quintin Lake, 2010