This building on
Cockspur Street in Central London was
designed by Sir Aston Webb for the Grand
Trunk Railway. Apparently many of
the investors in that railway were
British. In 1923 the Grand Trunk
Railway was absorbed into the Canadian
National Railway and the company's name
was added to the Cockspur facade.
However, the Grand
Trunk name still appears on the end of
the building.
Today it is a Grade II Listed building
described in its listing notes as,
"Portland
stone on steel frame, slate roof.
Lofty, restrained "Roman Mannerist"
desiqn. 6 storeys and dormered
mansard. 6 windows wide. Ground floor
has 1970s shop front with facing
carried up to 1st floor sills. 1st
floor channelled with plain square
headed windows; 2nd floor with
architraved windows grouped in pairs
with alternating segmental and
triangular pediments; architraved
windows to upper floors, the attic
windows set in concave splays between
piers. Dentil cornice below
attic storey, and heavy crowning
modillion cornice. Dormers with
alternating pediments. Second and 5th
floors have stone balconettes.
Sculpted and coloured heraldic panels
at 3rd and 4th floor levels and
cartouche plaques flanking central
pair of 2nd floor windows with similar
plaque dead centre above them. ....
.... Interior of ground floor has a
wide painted frieze by Sir Frank
Brangwyn."
