Next to Green Park are a lot of grand houses, and one of them, Spencer House, is open to the public to visit.
It’s not that well known, but Spencer House is everything you could want from visiting a grand country mansion — a big building, a grand staircase, richly decorated rooms and enough paintings to fill an art gallery — but right in the middle of London.
Entry is, by what looks, by mansion house standards, to be a fairly modest side entrance, but as the building faces Green Park, and it’s not possible to ride your coach and horses through the park, the entrance was put on the side of the building. Do notice the gas-powered lights by the entrance.
A grand reception room leads into a library, then to the dining room, all full of paintings and furniture explained by the guide. Photography is generally not allowed except in two rooms — which are fortunately pretty grand ones to want to photograph.
Spencer House is open most Sundays from 10am to 4.30pm – and over the Christmas period, it is open on 10th and 17th December, then closed until it reopens on 7th January 2024.
Tours cost £18.50 for most people, except for concessions, Members of the V&A, Royal Academy, or Tate (£15.50), or £9.50 for Art Fund card holders and free and Historic House members.
Tickets should be booked in advance from here.
Getting to Spencer House
If coming from Green Park tube station, the easiest way to Spencer House is to leave by the exit leading into Green Park and walk down the path a bit until you spot an alleyway gap in the fence leading to a passage under the houses. Head down here, and at the other end, turn right, and Spencer House is in front of you at the end of the road.
Otherwise, head to St James’s Street, and you want to look for the side road, St James’s Place and Spencer House is at the end of the road.
Are the photos of the two rooms where you were allowed to use your camera, or supplied by Earl Spencer himself? I visited about 2016 and wasn’t allowed to take photos anywhere anyhow; so I suppose this is a step forward.
£18.50 per person to enter,wow that is very over the top for a family with children,shocking.No wonder our youngsters have so little knowledge of our history.Greed sheer greed.
When you consider that many of us grew up paying to visit London’s museums and galleries, but are now free of charge — if anything, access to culture and history is far better today than when this 50 year old writer first moved to London. So many more venues are available to your children for free today that your parents couldn’t have afforded to take you to when you were a child.