Striking 1930s entrance hall and staircase, sculpted river front panels and other fine architectural details.
I recently took some interior photos in one of London's finest Art Deco buildings, St Olaf House, which is not open to the public. I also took shots of the outside of the building, near London Bridge in Southwark, including the sculpted panels on its Hay's Wharf side, only clearly visible from the river and therefore easily missed.
Walks available for booking
For a schedule of forthcoming London On The Ground guided walks, please click here.
St Olaf House stands on Tooley Street in Southwark, just across from the Duke Street Hill entrance to London Bridge Station. Its name derives from St Olave's Church, which had stood at this location from the 11th century until it was demolished in 1928.
The six storey Grade II* listed building was completed in 1932, to designs by architect Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendell, as the head office for the Hay's Wharf Company.
Today, St Olaf House is part of a private hospital, London Bridge Hospital, which also occupies the adjacent former warehouse building and three floors of nearby skyscraper, the Shard.
The Hay's Wharf Company, founded in 1867, operated warehouses and wharves on the south bank of the River Thames between London Bridge and Tower Bridge. These included the former wharf buildings known today as Hay's Galleria, a short distance to the east of St Olaf House.
Hay's Wharf can be traced back to one Alexander Hay, who bought what was then a brewhouse in 1651. The property was converted into a wharf in the 1850s and pioneered cold storage in the 1860s. Nicknamed the Larder of London, at its height Hay's Wharf handled 80% of dry produce imported into the Pool of London. It was one of the most important places for the import of tea (brought from China and India by clippers such as the Cutty Sark).
The development of container shipping in the 1960s led to the demise of the Pool of London as a port and Hay's Wharf was closed by 1970. The wharves and warehouses were redeveloped in the 1980s. London Bridge Hospital opened in 1986, followed in 1987 by Hay's Galleria, which has restaurants, shops, offices and residential accommodation.
The architect of St Olaf House, Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendell (1887 to 1959), was Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University from 1933 to 1936 and President of the Royal Institute of British Architects from 1937 to 1939. He was also a writer and musician. As an architect, he is best known for churches (mostly outside London).
The outside of St Olaf House is steel framed and clad in Portland Stone. The left hand corner of its Tooley Street façade features a black and gold mosaic figure of St Olave, by sculptor Frank Dobson. The right hand corner includes an inscription referring to the church of St Olave that previously stood here.
Tooley Street's name is a corruption of 'St Olave' (via 'Stolave' to 'Tolave' and then 'Tooley').
Olaf (also spelt 'Olave') was an 11th century King of Norway, who became a saint after his death in 1030 and is the country's patron saint. Olaf helped the Anglo-Saxon King Ethelred the Unready to defend London against the invading Danes in the Battle of London Bridge in 1014. Two churches across the river in the City of London were also dedicated to him: St Olave Hart Street still stands, while St Olave Silver Street was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 and never rebuilt.
The name of the building is depicted in gilt lettering over the Tooley Street entrance. The present sign replaces the original, which was in the same style but spelt out 'Hay's Wharf Head Offices'. Either side of the entrance are decorative lamps.
Above the entrance, four stories of wide oriel bay windows are flanked by sets of three diagonally stepped windows on the right and three horizontally arranged windows on the left.
An external entrance bay, used for parking cars, has a striking ceiling of white and black, lit by rectangular lamps on white and black square columns. This space leads to the doorway into the entrance hall.
The words 'St Olaf House' are set into the stone to the left of the doorway. Above the door are three shields (I am not sure what they symbolise) and the words 'Head Offices' in gilt lettering.
The door into the building is made of glass and steel, with a subtle zigzag pattern (the wavy lines suggesting the river, perhaps).
Behind the door, a bright and spacious foyer greets the visitor.
Notable Art Deco features in the entrance hall include horizontally striped walls, the doors to the lifts, the clock above the lift doors and octagonal ceiling lights.
The staircase, with its steel framed bannister, is particularly eye catching.
There is also a terazzo floor in shades of beige.
The public footpath to the west of the building and the river path to the north are separated from St Olaf House by a steel fence, painted black and topped with a zigzag pattern.
The river path runs level with the ground floor, but underneath the first floor. This means that the sculpted relief panels by Frank Dobson on the riverside façade cannot be seen by those walking past on the river path. They are only visible from the river side of St Olaf House. They can be seen from London Bridge and from the opposite bank of the Thames, but the detail is too distant to be noticed without a zoom lens.
Frank Dobson (1886 to 1963) became Professor of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art in 1946 and a member of the Royal Academy in 1953. Regarded as one of Britain's most important 20th century sculptors, his public works in London include London Pride outside the National Theatre and the zodiac clock outside Bracken House in the City.
Dobson's relief panels on St Olaf House are made in gold faience (a form of ceramic, glazed with metallic oxide) and mounted on polished black granite.
Entitled 'Capital, Labour and Commerce', they form a border for three narrow windows three stories high. They would have been best seen by sailors and dockworkers on board ships at Hay's Wharf when it was in operation.
There are more photographs of St Olaf House (inside and outside) as it appeared in 1979, before London Bridge Hospital moved in, on this website. These include some internal areas beyond the entrance hall, which can only be seen today by hospital patients and staff.
The striking beauty of St Olaf House is a testament to the wealth of the Hay's Wharf Company and, more generally, to the role of Britain's commercial and maritime past as patron of art and architecture.
It is also a reminder that London offers endless rewards if you take a moment to notice and observe details hiding in plain sight!
Walks available for booking
For a schedule of forthcoming London On The Ground guided walks, please click here.