Arundel House
Arundel House is a significant address on the Victoria Embankment in the London Borough of Westminster, situated just off the Strand in the heart of central London. The name recalls one of the most storied aristocratic residences that once stood along this stretch of the Thames, and today the site forms part of a cluster of legal and civic institutions that define this part of the city. The current building bearing the name Arundel House is a substantial late Victorian and Edwardian-era structure that serves primarily as office and institutional accommodation, positioned within sight of the river and within easy walking distance of the Royal Courts of Justice and Somerset House.
The historical resonance of the name is considerable. The original Arundel House was a grand Tudor and Jacobean palace belonging to the Earls of Arundel, one of England's most powerful aristocratic families. The Howard family, Earls of Arundel, assembled at their riverside mansion one of the greatest art collections in seventeenth-century England, including classical sculptures and antiquities that would later form the foundation of what is now known as the Arundel Marbles, many of which are held at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The philosopher Francis Bacon died at Arundel House in 1626, reportedly after conducting an experiment into the preservative properties of snow, making the site one of the more curious footnotes in the history of science. The original palace was demolished in the late seventeenth century and the surrounding streets — Arundel Street, Howard Street, Norfolk Street, and Surrey Street — were laid out on its footprint, their names preserving the memory of the Howard family's many titles.
The present-day Arundel House at these coordinates sits within the WC2R postcode, which places it squarely in the Strand and Aldwych neighbourhood, a zone of dense historical and cultural layering. The building itself has a solid, somewhat austere institutional character, with stonework typical of late Victorian commercial and professional London. Inside, the atmosphere is quiet and businesslike, as befits a building given over largely to professional and administrative use. The street level presents a respectable but unremarkable facade that gives little hint of the extraordinary history the name commemorates.
The surrounding area is extraordinarily rich in points of interest. Somerset House, the great neoclassical complex housing the Courtauld Gallery and its exceptional collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, is immediately adjacent. The Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand are a short walk away, their Gothic Revival grandeur forming one of Victorian London's most theatrical architectural statements. Temple, with its medieval Inns of Court, ancient gardens, and the round church of the Knights Templar, is just to the east. The Thames Embankment with its garden benches, plane trees, and river views lies moments to the south, offering one of the more pleasant urban walks in central London.
Getting to this location is straightforward by public transport. Temple Underground station on the District and Circle lines is the nearest tube stop and deposits visitors almost at the Embankment. Blackfriars station, served by both underground and overground National Rail services, is also within comfortable walking distance. The area is well served by numerous bus routes along the Strand and Aldwych. Cycling infrastructure has improved significantly in recent years with dedicated lanes along the Embankment. Parking is extremely limited and expensive in this part of central London, and driving is not recommended. The area is accessible at all hours and the Embankment gardens are a particularly pleasant destination in warmer months.
One of the more intriguing hidden stories attached to the name concerns the sheer scale of cultural loss represented by the dispersal and demolition of the original Arundel House. Thomas Howard, the fourteenth Earl of Arundel, was known as the Collector Earl, and his ambitions for his London palace rivalled those of any European prince of the era. He employed Inigo Jones as a surveyor and sought to bring the Italian Renaissance to the banks of the Thames. The fact that virtually nothing physical survives of this palace, save the street names pressed into the urban grid, makes Arundel House one of London's most eloquent absences — a place defined as much by what is no longer there as by what stands today.