Seaford House

Seaford House, Belgrave Square

Coordinates: 51°29′57″N 0°9′4″W / 51.49917°N 0.15111°W / 51.49917; -0.15111

Seaford House, originally called Sefton House, is a former aristocratic mansion at 37 Belgrave Square, London, England. It is the largest of three detached houses which occupy three corners of Belgrave Square in the district of Belgravia.^[1] Seaford House is a magnolia stucco building with four main storeys.

Dating from 1842, Sefton House was designed by Philip Hardwick for the 3rd Earl of Sefton.^[2] The house and its railings and gate piers have been listed Grade II* for their architectural merit.^[3] The 3rd and 4th Earls used it as their town house; the 5th Earl, being an invalid, could not do so and after he died childless in 1901, the house was sold.

Lord Howard de Walden, who was also Baron Seaford, acquired Sefton House in 1902 and renamed it Seaford House. He had friezes and panelling installed, and a staircase of marble imported from South America.^[4] The house was requisitioned by the wartime Government in 1940, and for a while was used as offices by the Air Ministry. In 1946 the house became the home of the Imperial Defence College, now the Royal College of Defence Studies. It is usually open to the public free of charge on Open House Weekend each September.

The main vestibule of Seaford House was used as Titanic's Grand Staircase in the 1979 miniseries SOS Titanic. Seaford House later stood in as the exterior of the home of Maggie Gyllenhaal's character Nessa Stein in the BBC and SundanceTV television miniseries The Honourable Woman in 2014.

References[]

^ Girling, Brian (10 September 2013). Belgravia & Knightsbridge Through Time. Amberley Publishing Limited. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-4456-2684-0.
^ Avery, Derek (2003). Victorian and Edwardian Architecture. Chaucer. p. 127. ISBN 978-1-904449-02-7.
^ Historic England, "Seaford House and railings and gate piers (1066459)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 15 February 2016
^ Douglas-Home, Jessica (1996). Violet: The Life and Loves of Violet Gordon Woodhouse. Harvill Press. p. 191. ISBN 978-1-86046-269-6.

Bibliography[]

Stourton, James (2012). Great Houses of London. London: Frances Lincoln. ISBN 978-0-7112-3366-9.

External links[]

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[Girling2013-1] Girling, Brian (10 September 2013). Belgravia & Knightsbridge Through Time. Amberley Publishing Limited. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-4456-2684-0.

[Avery2003-2] Avery, Derek (2003). Victorian and Edwardian Architecture. Chaucer. p. 127. ISBN 978-1-904449-02-7.

[Historic_England_Seaford-3] Historic England, "Seaford House and railings and gate piers (1066459)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 15 February 2016

[Douglas-Home1996-4] Douglas-Home, Jessica (1996). Violet: The Life and Loves of Violet Gordon Woodhouse. Harvill Press. p. 191. ISBN 978-1-86046-269-6.

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