Tudor Gothic
Sion Hall is located on London's Victoria Embankment overlooking the River Thames at Blackfriars. The building, designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield, was completed in 1886. Historic England describe it as being in Tudor Gothic style (elsewhere it is perpendicular Gothic), particularly noteworthy for its irregular storeys and fenestration. It is a Grade II listed building.
The site originally formed part of the garden of Salisbury House, the mediaeval London home of the Bishops of Salisbury. Buildings here were destroyed in the Great Fire in 1666, following which the Earl of Dorset commissioned a lavish theatre designed by Sir Christopher Wren.
By the 1720s the land was being used as a wharf and timber yard, replaced in 1814 by the City of London Gas Works, before being sold to Sion College in 1884. The College's Library held some 100,000 volumes which were accessible to the public and to scholars, and was a place of wholehearted commitment to achievement.
The College disposed of the site in 1996 and is now administered from offices in Fleet Street; the library was divided between Lambeth Palace Library (manuscripts, pamphlets and pre-1850s books) and The Maugham Library in King's College (the newer books).
Sion Hall was converted into offices and is currently occupied by a specialist institutional investment management company.
Tudor Gothic
Sion Hall is located on London's Victoria Embankment overlooking the River Thames at Blackfriars. The building, designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield, was completed in 1886. Historic England describe it as being in Tudor Gothic style (elsewhere it is perpendicular Gothic), particularly noteworthy for its irregular storeys and fenestration. It is a Grade II listed building.
The site originally formed part of the garden of Salisbury House, the mediaeval London home of the Bishops of Salisbury. Buildings here were destroyed in the Great Fire in 1666, following which the Earl of Dorset commissioned a lavish theatre designed by Sir Christopher Wren.
By the 1720s the land was being used as a wharf and timber yard, replaced in 1814 by the City of London Gas Works, before being sold to Sion College in 1884. The College's Library held some 100,000 volumes which were accessible to the public and to scholars, and was a place of wholehearted commitment to achievement.
The College disposed of the site in 1996 and is now administered from offices in Fleet Street; the library was divided between Lambeth Palace Library (manuscripts, pamphlets and pre-1850s books) and The Maugham Library in King's College (the newer books).
Sion Hall was converted into offices and is currently occupied by a specialist institutional investment management company.