85 Fleet Street is a prominent building in Fleet Street, London. The building, which was commissioned by the Reuters new agency, is a Grade II listed building.[1]
The building was commissioned by the Reuters new agency in the early 1930s. The site it selected, on the south side of Fleet Street, had previously accommodated a building used by Punch magazine. The new building was designed by Edwin Lutyens in the neoclassical style, built in ashlar stone and was completed in 1935.[1]
The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of six bays facing onto the street. The lower two bays were rusticated. The central bay featured a round headed opening, three bays high, which accommodated a doorway and a fine bronze statue by William Reid Dick known as "The Herald".[2][3] The statue was unveiled by Lutyens on 10 July 1939.[4] The upper floors (from the second to the fifth floor) were fenestrated by a series of square-shaped casement windows. Above the main structure, there were three more floors (from the sixth to the eighth floor) which were recessed with a concave façade and surmounted by a drum.[5]
The building accommodated the Press Association until it moved out to Vauxhall Bridge Road in 1995.[7][8][9] It also accommodated Reuters until it moved to 30 South Colonnade in Canary Wharf in 2005.[10][11][12] Reuters was the last major news outlet to leave Fleet Street at that time.[13] The building was subsequently occupied by a firm of solicitors, Powell Gilbert.[14]
