London - County Hall. And its 7 Miles of Corridors.

            The Postcard

A postally unused postcard which is an RA Series - 'The Seal of Artistic Excellence'. The card was published by R.A. (Postcards) Ltd. of London E.C.4. They state on the back of the card that it is a real photograph.

County Hall

County Hall is a building in London that was the headquarters of London County Council (LCC) and later the Greater London Council (GLC). The building is on the South Bank of the River Thames, with Westminster Bridge being next to it. It faces west toward the City of Westminster and is close to the Palace of Westminster. The nearest London Underground stations are Waterloo and Westminster.

Today, County Hall is the site of businesses and attractions, including the London Sea Life Aquarium, London Dungeon and a Namco Station amusement arcade. The London Eye is next to County Hall, and its visitor centre is inside the building. 

There is also a suite of exhibition rooms which was home to the Saatchi Gallery from 2003 to 2006. Other parts of the building house two hotels (a budget Premier Inn & a 5 star Marriott Hotel), several restaurants, the UK headquarters of the company Cloudflare, and some flats. 

Various spaces are available for hire for functions, including the council chamber at the heart of the building. Until January 2010 the Dali Universe was also in the building but this has now closed.

The main six storey building was designed by the 29-year-old architect Ralph Knott. His design bested 50 other entries in a ‘Design County Hall’ contest. It is faced in Portland stone from the Isle of Wight in an Edwardian Baroque style, and the foundations are composed of Cornish granite.

County Hall has seven miles of corridors.  The total cost of construction was nearly £4 million.

Before its completion in 1922, the building was damaged by six bombs during the First World War.

Ralph Knott died in 1929; four years before the entire complex of seven buildings was completed.

The construction, which was undertaken by Holland, Hannen & Cubitts, started in 1911, and the building was opened in 1922 by King George V. The North and South blocks, which were built by Higgs and Hill, were added between 1936 and 1939. The Island block was not completed until 1974.

For 64 years County Hall served as the headquarters of local government for London. During the 1980's the then powerful Labour-controlled GLC led by Ken Livingstone was locked in conflict with the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. Since the Parliament buildings were just across the river from County Hall, the façade of County Hall frequently during her tenure served as a billboard for opposition slogans. 

When the government of Margaret Thatcher abolished the GLC in 1986, County Hall lost its role as the seat of London's government. Talk soon became of what was to happen to the building, and plans to relocate the London School of Economics to the site from its Westminster campus were overruled by Mrs Thatcher, seemingly disapproving of further slogans from students. 

The building remained in use by the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) until its abolition in 1990 when the building was transferred to the London Residuary Body and eventually sold to private investors. 

On the 21st. October 2005, the High Court of England and Wales upheld a bid by the owners of the building, Shirayama Shokusan, to have the Saatchi Gallery evicted on grounds of violating its contract, particularly using space outside of the rented area for exhibits. 

Today (2019), a large proportion of the building, including the entire fifth floor, remains empty since the dissolution of the GLC.

The County Hall Island Block, an annex of the main building, was demolished in 2006 to make way for a hotel, the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge. The building, also known as No 1 Westminster Bridge Road, had been disused since 1986 and had become a derelict eyesore.

Taken on: June 8, 2019

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Sets appears in: • London • UK

Groups appears in: • London Vintage Postcards

Camera: HP Scanjet djf4100 (more info) (hide info)

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