The Lloyd’s building in central London has been given Grade I listed status for its architectural innovation, historic interest and celebrated design.

LLoyds Building, London. Pic English Heritage

On the advice of English Heritage, Heritage Minister John Penrose made the announcement earlier to protect the building in the City of London.

Opened in 1986 it is a high tech office building and insurance market for the major insurance firm Lloyd’s.

Designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership (RRP) from 1978, work began in 1981.

The Queen Mother poured concrete for one of the main columns in a ceremony in November 1981, and returned in May 1984 for the topping-out.

Lloyd’s takes its name from Edward Lloyd, a Welshman who opened a coffee house in Tower Street in 1688 and became a meeting place for seafarers, ship-owners, and the first underwriters who insured the ships and their cargoes.

Escalators in atrium. Pic English Heritage

The main interior space of the building is organised around a central, soaring atrium with a columnar structure and expressed ductwork.

The building integrates the traditions and fabric of earlier Lloyd’s buildings, including the Adam Room moved originally from Bowood House, the 1925 Cooper façade and other fixtures such as the Lutine Bell.

From the outside the building is identified by the six different towers that engulf the core of the site.

It is one of the best known and admired modern commercial buildings in the country.

English Heritage’s designation director Roger Bowdler said: “We are delighted that the Minister has endorsed our advice to list the landmark Lloyds building at Grade l.

“Its listing at the highest grade is fitting recognition of the sheer splendour of Richard Rogers’s heroic design.

“Its dramatic scale and visual dazzle, housing a hyper-efficient commercial complex, is universally recognised as one of the key buildings of the modern epoch.’

London at War - Relics of the Home Front from the World Wars

The two world wars of the twentieth century seem so distant from us now, a lifetime ago, in a different age.

Yet in London the evidence of these conflicts is around us, near at hand, in the many relics and reminders that are scattered across the fabric of the modern city.

And, as Alan Brooks demonstrates in this fascinating photographic record, they can be seen and visited today.

Plaques and inscriptions, graves, cemeteries and rolls of honour, stone monuments and stained glass, war-damaged buildings, pillboxes and air-raid shelters, painted signs and camouflage – these are just some of the mementoes of war, and of the experience of Londoners, during the greatest conflicts the country has known.

More information >>
London at War – Relics of the Home Front from the World Wars

Scattered throughout London are small green sheds which, as you approach them, are often bathed in the smell of fresh coffee and cooking bacon.

Positioned at key locations in the Capital, these wooden buildings were constructed to provide shelter and hot food for the drivers of hansom cabs and hackney carriages (taxis).

To pay for the shelters a charity was formed in 1875 by The 7th Earl of Shaftesbury called the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund.

The registered charity number is 236108 and  was registered with the Charity Commission on 27 September 1966.

According to their accounts of 2004,  ’ the Fund’s main objective is to supply Cabmen with shelters in which they can have protection from wind and  rain, snow and frost in winter and from the sun in summer.’

Between 1875 and 1914, the fund built a total of 61 shelters at cost of around £200 each.  These shelters were all positioned within a 6 mile radius of Charring Cross.

Because the shelters stood on a public highway, the police stipulated they could be no larger than a horse and cart. Yet even with these restrictions, they squeezed in a working kitchen and seated up to 13 men. 

Today, there are 13 cabmen’s shelters surviving in the capital, all of which are Grade II listed buildings.

Cabbies bought their own mugs, which were kept for them at the shelter and looked after by the ‘shelter boys’.

The shelters are run by tenants who pay a contribution to the Charity to maintain the shelters.

The Russell Square Cabmen’s Shelter

The Russell Square shelter spent most of its life in Leicester Square, once a major stopping point for taxis.

Russell Square Cabmen's Shelter

When pedestrianisation arrived in the late 1980s, the shelter became obsolete and was moved to Russell Square.

Door plaques

On the green painted door are two plaques.

The lower of the two indicates that the shelter was presented by Sir Squire Bancroft in 1901. He was an English actor and manager.

The larger round plaque reads ‘ The restoration of this shelter in 1987 for the cabmen’s shelter fund was promoted by the Heritage of London Trust with generous assistance from the former Greater London Council, The Bedford estate, The Swan Trust, Miss Hazel wood and Brenda Bancroft and her family.’

The first shelter.

It is said that the first shelter was erected in 1875 and paid for by Sir George Armstrong, a newspaper publisher, after his servant was unable to find him a cab on a blustery January day.

The remaining cabmen’s shelters can be found at: 

• Chelsea Embankment – near the Albert Bridge 
• Embankment Place 
• Grosvenor Gardens – west side of north garden 
• Hanover Square – north of central garden 
• Kensington Park Road – outside numbers 8-10 
• Kensington Road – north side 
• Pont Street 
• St George’s Square, Pimlico 
• Temple Place 
• Thurloe Place, Kensington – opposite the Victoria & Albert Museum 
• Warwick Avenue – Clifton Gardens 
• Wellington Place, St John’s Wood 

Cabmen’s shelters around the world

Whilst 13 shelters exist in London a number of similar shelters exist elsewhere. 

In Ripon, in North Yorkshire, a shelter was was bought in 1911 with a £200 legacy to provide a shelter for cabmen waiting for fares on Ripon’s Market Square.

Four cabmen’s shelters were opened in Portsmouth according to an article transcribed from the Hampshire Telegraph, 24th April 1876.

In Albany, Australia is located a Taxi Rank and Women’s Rest Room, formerly the Cabmen’s Shelter and  Women’s Rest Room, on Reserve 19464 at the foot of York Street.

St. Giles in Oxford . An appeal was launched for the first cabmen’s shelter in St Giles in October 1875, and a committee was formed in December that year with the aim of making the shelter “worthy of the place which it is to occupy”.

Market Place cabin in Hitchin. This Edwardian Cabmen’s Shelter used to stand on the forecourt of Hitchin Railway Station and was paid for by the donations of rail users collected by Edward Boxall who ran a cab business from The Red Lion.

Do you know of others?  Let us know about them using the comments section below.

Further information