Swainsthorpe House, Fitzroy

10 January 2025

This extravaganza of High Victorian stucco makes quite a statement, but oddly nobody knows much about its creation. It sits boldly on the corner Nicholson Street and King William in Fitzroy, near the Exhibition Buildings, and I took the pics in 2014.

It’s on the Heritage Register, but all they say is architect John Denny built it in 1862, and it was ‘later refaced’; the style is clearly 1880s not 1862. All I can add is that yes Denny lived there, in fact died there in 1892, aged 83, but that also through the 1880s this address (then 106, now 122) had rooms to let, and by 1889 it was known as Swainsthorpe House. Hard to tell if it was refaced or rebuilt, it does have a rather titchy entrance hall.

Anyway it survived as a family home, then a boarding house as Fitzroy went downmarket in the 20thC, then a house again perhaps by the 90s, and then King Accomodation boutique hotel c2001-2010. At some point the render was refreshed, it looks very clean. Last sold in 2017, interiors from then.