Eighty Strand

City of Westminster, United Kingdom

Exterior only

Visible from the street; the inside is private.

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Eighty Strand, a grade II listed office building in London's City of Westminster, opened in 1932 as Shell Mex House on the site of the Hotel Cecil, retaining the original hotel façade while rising 58 metres behind it between the Adelphi and the Savoy Hotel. Designed by Frances Milton Cashmore of the architectural firm Messrs Joseph in the Art Deco style, the twelve-storey building commands 537,000 square feet across basement, sub-basement, and main floors. Its most distinctive feature is the massive clock positioned on the south side, flanked by four marble figures sculpted by William Charles Holland King; the clock faces measure 7.62 metres in diameter—the largest in the UK, marginally exceeding those on the Royal Liver Building in Liverpool—and were supplied by Gillett & Johnston of Croydon. Facing both the River Thames and the Strand, the building is immediately recognisable from the South Bank, though architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner characterised it as "thoroughly unsubtle" while acknowledging it "hold[s] its own in London's river front."