Stratford Place

Stratford Place is a small road in London, off Oxford Street, next to Bond Street underground station. The road is a cul-de-sac.

Stratford House was built as the London seat of the Stratford family between 1770 and 1776 for Edward Stratford, 2nd Earl of Aldborough, who paid £4,000 for the site. The central range was designed by Robert Adam. It had previously been the location of the Lord Mayor of London's Banqueting House, built in 1565. There have been several people of note who stayed there including the sons of the Tzar of Russia, and the wife of Sir Winston Churchill was born there, and the house until 1832 was owned by the Wingfield Stratford branch of the family who inherited it from Edward's Will. It belonged briefly to Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, a son of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. The house was little altered until 1894, when its then owner, Mr Murray Guthrie, added a second storey to the east and west wings and a colonnade in front. In 1903, a new owner, the Liberal politician Sir Edward Colebrook, later Lord Colebrooke, reconstructed the Library to an Adam design. In 1908, Lord Derby bought a lease and began more alterations, removing the colonnade and adding a third storey to both wings. He took out the original bifurcated staircase (replacing it with a less elegant single one), demolished the stables and built a Banqueting Hall with a grand ballroom above.

In 1960 the house was purchased by the Oriental Club and converted to its present state. The ballroom was turned into two floors of new bedrooms, further lifts were added, and the banqueting hall was divided into a dining room and other rooms. The house now has a main drawing room, as well as others, a members' bar, a library and an ante-room, a billiards room, an internet suite and business room, and two (non)smoking rooms, as well as a dining room and 32 bedrooms.

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