Carpenters' Hall

The Carpenters' Company has held ground on London Wall and Throgmorton Avenue since its first hall went up in 1429 — the first written record of the Company in the City dates to 1276. Fire destroyed the second hall in the mid-nineteenth century; an air raid gutted its replacement in 1941. What stands today is the third hall on the site, its 1880 exterior rebuilt whole behind the façade between 1955 and 1960 by Whinney, Son & Austen Hall and opened in 1960 — a reconstruction conceived, the Company says, as a showcase for the carpentry trade itself, with at least eighteen different kinds of wood used throughout.

The Livery Hall is the room that reconstruction is remembered for: a carved Tree of Life reredos, full-height stained glass, a musicians' gallery, and cedar panelling under a coffered ceiling, all Grade II listed. It seats 220 for dinner and takes 350 standing, and has hosted everything from AGMs and awards dinners to book launches and the occasional television shoot. The first-floor Reception Room, used for pre-dinner drinks ahead of it, hangs a portrait of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands over Regency mirrors and French-style furniture.

A smaller ground-floor Court Room keeps the Company's older character: an octagonal oak table dating to 1606, carried across all three halls on this site, sits beneath four Royal Charters — from James I, Charles I, Charles II and James II — and a Frank Brangwyn painting of a Carpenters' Master boarding the Company barge for the Lord Mayor's Show. Catering throughout is in-house, run by Searcys.