1909 AD
HGS
Site: Henry Gage Spicer - keystone (1 memorial)
SW1, Old Queen Street, 20
In 2020 The Daily Mail was advertising this property for sale: "... originally built in 1909 as family home of paper mill tycoon. Townhouse bears the initials of Henry throughout the property including monogram carved in the fireplace. The property offers 4,764 square feet of elegant living space over six floors with views over St James’s Park... built by Scottish architect Francis William Troup, a specialist in Arts & Craft architecture.... including an original bespoke weathervane, with the H G S monogram carved in the original fireplace mantels and above the portico entrance in stone.... In 1909 the family closed the Alton Mill and transferred paper manufacturing to a new complex in Eynsford in Kent. In this same year Henry Spicer and his wife Sarah decided that they needed a large London home in order to entertain clients, business associates and friends so Henry commissioned Francis William Troup to build him the townhouse at 20 Old Queen Street. In 1922 the two sister companies remerged and the Spicers brand continues to this day as a thriving wholesale retailer. Henry gaining himself political goodwill in 1923 when he funded the landscaping of the Victoria Park Gardens in Westminster, adjacent to the Houses of Parliament, so that MPs had somewhere to sit during breaks in parliamentary business."
That article incorrectly gives Spicer's date of death as 1939, it was actually 1944. And our researches show that Spicer's rather spicy private life included two wives, neither of them named Sarah.
The back of the house can be seen from St James's Park.
The Spicer offices were at 19 New Bridge Street. Compare that Google street view with the house in Old Queen Street. Despite their huge discrepancies of scale they have near identical pillars at the entrance. The London Picture Archive has this: "Blackfriars House of 1913-16 at 19 New Bridge Street ... designed by F. W. Troup. ... On the side of the building is a sign with 'Spicer Brothers' written on it. Blackfriars House ... is now a hotel known as Crowne Plaza."
