Furniture Makers' Hall

Furniture Makers' Hall stands at 12 Austin Friars, a quiet City lane a few minutes' walk from Bank and Liverpool Street. The building went up in 1882 for Fruhling and Goschen, a Leipzig banking house that had traded in London since around 1800, and George Goschen, later Chancellor of the Exchequer, worked here. German bombing in 1940 left the front and the windows damaged but the building standing, while the church opposite, on its site since 1350, was destroyed. Much of the Victorian interior survived, including the ornate oak staircase that spirals through the centre of the house.

Three rooms are let. The David Burbidge Room runs across the ground floor under high ceilings, with daylight, a hardwood oak floor and the Company arms on the end wall. It dines 76 on banqueting rounds, takes 120 for a reception, and has floor for dancing; a large open reception area sits outside its doors for arrivals. Upstairs, reached by the spiral staircase, the Mike Clare Room holds a mahogany table beneath ornate cornicing and a carved wood and marble fireplace, with three tall sash windows looking across to the Dutch Church. The Arnold Moore Room is the smallest, panelled and lit from the front of the building, with a boardroom table for ten.

Catering is handled on site by Life's Kitchen, working to menus agreed with each client, and an events manager stays with the room throughout. The Hall takes conferences, filming and exhibitions as readily as it takes dinners, and the Company still uses it for its own Livery events.