Wynfrid House

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Wynfrid House
Contributed by Survey of London on Aug. 26, 2016

This guest house was built in 1968-70 to the east of and as an adjunct to the German Roman Catholic Church of St Boniface. It was conceived by Father Felix Leushacke as a hostel open to short-term residence by any and all, but particularly young visitors and tourists from Germany sympathetic to the Catholic mission. He acknowledged that there was not at the time anything like a ‘deutsche Kolonie’ in London. It was financed by the German Bishops’ Conference and the West German Foreign Office in Bonn through its London embassy. Plaskett Marshall & Partners were responsible for design, Ashby & Horner Ltd were the builders. First thoughts in 1956 envisaged accommodation for 400 above common spaces. To provide an open courtyard next to the church and away from the street an L plan was adopted. This was seen as suited to girls’ and boys’ wings. Deferred until the church was finished, the project was revived in 1964, but it had to pass muster in two countries and there were more revisions. Gender separation was abandoned after an attempt to impose separate staircases and lifts, what had been projected as a licensed club room became simply a hall, and capacity was reduced to 100. Plans were settled in 1967 and seen through under Leushacke, who remained in charge up to 1986. Originally four storeys and a basement, the building’s concrete floors are starkly expressed between brick-panel facing and small windows to the outer elevations, the inner or courtyard sides have far more fenestration. An abstract patterned stained-glass window in the front elevation lights a staircase. The front range was raised a storey around 1998.¹