22 St Peter's Square (London)

22 St Peter's Square, in Hammersmith, London, is a grade II Listed building with a former laundry that has been converted to an architects' studio and office building. The property is situated in the western corner of St Peter's Square, that was laid out and built from 1827, opposite St Peter's Church, Hammersmith. In the basement of the rear of the building is the former studio of Island Records known as The Fallout Shelter, 47 British Grove. Many musicians began their careers or recorded in the building; Steve Winwood and Traffic, Robert Palmer, Cat Stevens, Bob Marley, U2, Nick Drake and Sandy Denny. It has a Hammersmith Society Conservation award plaque (2009) and has been included in tours in Architecture Week.

Number 22, unlike the predominant pattern of housing in St Peter's Square, consists of a trio of linked houses, each of three stories plus basement, the only example of this layout in the square. The center part is recessed, with a projecting Ionic colonnade to the ground floor forming a balcony to the raised ground floor, and this has a cast-iron balustrade in the 'Heart and Honeysuckle' Anthemion pattern. The houses on either side have two bays projecting beneath a pediment. Their outermost bays are recessed and have projecting porches with Ionic columns. The entrance to No. 22 retains the original eagle statue (of plaster or composite stone) on the porch. Paired statues of dogs sit on the piers flanking the steps up to the front door. Until the 1890s the large private garden at the rear of the house was laid out as a long rectangular lawn bordered by shrubs and trees, with an open field to the South.

By 1894 the garden was completely covered by laundry buildings. The Royal Chiswick Laundry Western Dying and Cleaning Works was constructed behind the house fronting British Grove, a lane to the rear. The laundry buildings consist of two long sheds running almost the full length of the former garden. They are of London stock brick with red brick window arches under slate roofs, with glazed skylights running along the roof ridges.

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