Robert Lewis Roumieu

Roumieu's best-known building. The two distinctive high gables make 33–35 Eastcheap instantly recognisable as "one of the maddest displays in London of Victorian Gothic" Robert Lewis Roumieu (1814 – 1877) otherwise R.L. Roumieu, was a 19th-century English architect whose designs include Milner Square in Islington and an idiosyncratic vinegar warehouse at 33–35 Eastcheap in the City of London. A pupil of Benjamin Dean Wyatt, he worked in partnership with Alexander Dick Gough between 1836 and 1848.

Life and career Roumieu was of Huguenot descent and his middle name is occasionally spelled "Louis". The Roumieu family originated from Languedoc, and the name has been listed among those of Huguenot refugees who settled in Great Britain and Ireland during the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1714). Roumieu's father John was a solicitor,

Roumieu was articled to the architect Benjamin Dean Wyatt in 1831. In 1836 he went into partnership with another pupil of Wyatt, Alexander Dick Gough. Together they completed some notable projects in what are now the London Boroughs of Camden and Islington, including Milner Square and the Islington Literary and Philosophical Institute (now the Almeida Theatre), a stuccoed classical work of 1837. The partnership was dissolved in 1848.

For 22 years Roumieu's address was 10 Lancaster Place, Strand, London (1845–77). Stamp and Amery praise the originality with which "the high gables broke through the standard cornice line and the confident canopies gave tremendous vigour to the façade. Describing it as "the City's masterpiece of polychromatic Gothic self-advertisement", Pevsner notes itsRed brick with blue brick bands...dressed in Tisbury stone with Devonshire marble columns, all organized into a frenzy of sharp gables, a shaft resting on top of a gable, others starting on corbels. Strictly symmetrical...twin three-bay outer sections narrow as they rise, exposing a recessed centre with a dormer in the steep roof." The roofline is accentuated with iron foliage finials. Above the two lights of the central Gothic window Roumieu placed an animal carving in a medallion, depicting a wild boar peeping out from long grass. This alludes to the celebrated Boar's Head tavern in Eastcheap which features in Shakespeare's Henry IV plays as the scene of drunken revelry between Young Prince Hal and Falstaff.

List of other works

Roumieu's other work included: Islington Literary and Scientific Institution (1837, with AD Gough). Now the Almeida Theatre. Group of Italianate villas at Tollington Park, Islington (with AD Gough). St Michael's Church, Bingfield Street,Islington (1863–4). St. Mark's Church (1864–6) and Parsonage, Royal Tunbridge Wells. French Protestant Hospital (French Hospital), Victoria Park, Hackney (1866). Described in John Timbs' Curiosities of London as "in the pure French domestic style of the early sixteenth century". Hillside, Brookshill, Harrow Weald (1868). Commissioned by Thomas Francis Blackwell, of the Crosse and Blackwell company, for his daughter-in-law and her children. The main house was reduced to ruins by fire in the 1950s, although Roumieu's coach and stables survive. Restoration and additions to "Franks", Kent and of Kensworth Church, Hertfordshire. Manor Park Estate, Streatham, London. Prudential Assurance office, Ludgate Hill, City of London. Chambers in 10 Old Broad Street, City of London. Victoria Wharf, Upper Thames Street, City of London. Woodall's Carriage Factory, Orchard Street, London. Additions to Itchel Manor House, Itchel, Hampshire and to Whitbourne Hall, near Worcester. "The Lymes", Stanmore, Middlesex. "The Cedars," Harrow Weald, Middlesex. Additions to "The Priory" (Sir James Knight Bruce), Roehampton, and "The Priory," Wimbledon Several warehouses for the vinegar-makers Crosse & Blackwell, and stables for the same firm in Crown Street, Soho, London (Crown Street was later absorbed into the new Charing Cross Road).

Roumieu was also surveyor to the Gas, Light and Coke Company's Estate at Beckton, the French Hospital Estate, St Luke's, and several other estates in and near London.

Family

Reginald St Aubyn Roumieu Roumieu's son, Reginald St Aubyn Roumieu (1854–1921) had an architectural practice with Alfred Aitchison at his father's premises of 10 Lancaster Place, near the Strand. Roumieu and Aitchison completed R.L. Roumieu's Crosse & Blackwell warehouse designs for Charing Cross Road, following his demise in 1877, and then undertook further commissions for the firm in the same area. presented to him by its directors on 13 January 1921. It was sold in 2007 by the auction firm Bonhams in Edinburgh for £2,500. for £8000 averaging £104 per acre".