Spencer House

Spencer House stands on St James's Place, overlooking Green Park, built between 1756 and 1766 for John, first Earl Spencer, and his wife Georgiana. It is London's last surviving 18th-century private palace, returned to its Georgian state through a restoration carried out between 1985 and 1994. The interiors were designed first by John Vardy and then by James "Athenian" Stuart, an early voice in the neoclassical revival, and the house keeps its paintings, gilding and chimneypieces room by room.

Private events take the whole house: a circuit of eight State Rooms across two floors, hired exclusively, with the stone terrace open to the garden from May to September. The first-floor Great Room served as both a ballroom and a picture gallery, its red walls hung with paintings beneath a coffered ceiling, and seats up to 84 for dinner; Lady Spencer's Room adjoins it in crimson damask. On the floor below, the Dining Room runs the length of the garden front in green with scagliola columns, the Palm Room is screened by gilded palm-frond columns rising to a domed apse, and the Painted Room remains one of the earliest complete neoclassical interiors in Europe.

The house holds up to 450 guests for a reception and 120 for a seated dinner, with an in-house events team handling planning, catering and service. Music and production are arranged for each event rather than fixed in place, which suits a dinner that carries into the evening across the interconnecting rooms. The house is licensed for civil ceremonies, and August is reserved each year for conservation.