Stag Place, S.W.1 - Privilege (Peter Watkins 1967)

8/2/2014

5 Comments

From the balcony of a flat in Roebuck House, Steven looks out over London and down onto Stag Place:

We see five of the other buildings that form this precinct. Most prominent is Portland House:

To the left, below, is Glen House:

To the right, below, is Eland House:

To the right of Eland House is Watney House:

The arrangement of these buildings can be seen on this plan:

This plan is from a 1964 issue of Concrete Quarterly, the journal of the Cement and Concrete Association (available online here). Here are two more illustrations from this journal:

Concrete Quarterly lists the architects for each building:
Roebuck House and Carrier House (not visible in Privilege): W.H Rogers, H.D. Krall, R.S. Fleming and W.H.G. Keal;
Portland House, Eland House and Glen House: Howard, Fairbairn and partners;
Watney House and The Stag public house (not visible in Privilege): Trehearne and Norman, Preston and partners;
Esso House (not visible in Privilege): T.P. Bennett and Son.

The precinct was completely redeveloped in the 2000s, and Stag Place has been renamed Cardinal Place. Of the eight buildings, only two survive:

Portland House photographed by Robin Sones

Portland House photographed by Alexander P. Kapp

Roebuck House has been refurbished and renamed The View:

These photographs are from the current owner's website, which has a section on the building's history, here, listing several cinema personalities who lived at Roebuck House. The site also mentions that the building featured in the opening credits of the TV series The Prisoner (1967):

Depending on which particular Google Street View you happen upon, The Stag pub is either still there at 15 Bressenden Place or has already been demolished:

Six years before Privilege the opening sequence of Victim showed the Stag Place precinct under construction:

5 Comments

Rob John

29/9/2020 10:23:29 pm

Im looking to track down info regarding a cafe that used to exist in Stag Place. I think it was called the Stag Cafe. Any info greatly received.

Mark Atkinson

12/7/2024 07:59:11 am

Hi Rob, no info as such, just a memory. I do remember the Stag cafe. It was set back from the actual square itself and was a really friendly place, selling excellent egg and cress mayo baps! I used to frequent the cafe as I worked in Portland House for Eurotunnel in the late 80s. A few of us would also nip across the road at lunchtime for a few swift pints in the Stag pub, which has now sadly been demolished I think.
Sorry I don't have any real info about the cafe.
All the best,
Mark

Marc Maitland

1/8/2024 03:33:57 pm

The cafe in Stag Place: you might be referring to QUEENS? This was a cafe about half way down Stag Place on the left as leaving Palace Street. I attended Westminster City School (55 Palace Street) from 1976 to 1984, and that cafe was something of an overflow for our School's staffroom at the time! I can recall a steady flow of masters coming back after morning break with those styro-foam coffee cups so redolent of the times. The name of the cafe was quite ironic since many of those masters who frequented it were - more or less so - gay!

Terry Moore

3/2/2025 01:11:52 pm

Thank you for your most interesting 'blog' .I am currently writing my memoire 'The Final CV'and it has been most useful. In the late 1970's my offices were in three of the shop units of Glen House. Our recruitment company was Career Care Group now Hays PLC and included Montrose Technical Staff in 2 units and the other unit was the accounts office for the whole of our group .I had a very expensive car parking space under the square next to that of the , then , world's richest arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi who could watch HM the Queen walking her corgis in her garden from his Roebuck House 'Penthouse' .Khashoggi (then the brother in law of the heinous Mohamed Fayed ) had 6 adjacent parking places necessary to accomodate his vast Rolls Royce Phantom VI limousine (like the HM Queen's!) and had a small town car parked across the back of it ,that was as long as the other was wide .I am writing about them both at the moment which is how I found your site .In adjacent Palace Street were the Offices of my close friend Ian Greer ,the parliamentary Lobbyist of 'Cash for Questions' who was destroyed by Fyed as was Princess Diana (also a friend) .Fayed's association with Khashoggi ( who was thought even more heinous ,if possible,than he ) was the reason that Fayed was not granted a British Passport and considered particularly unsuitable as the owner of the 'British Institution'-Harrods.For some reason they were both'obsessed' by the British Royal Family.So Stag Place has a 'Place' in British political History !
The architectural aspect of your 'blog' also greatly interests me -as I was the Founder of what became the largest Specialist Architectural Agency in UK.
Thank you so much - Terry

D D Reeves

13/3/2025 12:11:03 pm

Theres a photo on facebook just appeared of the old esso filling station https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15EXfnWTBH/

Stag Place, S.W.1 - Privilege (Peter Watkins 1967)

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