The Nelson Stair
Sir William Chambers; rebuilt after 1940s bomb damage (1723 to 1796) · 1780s, reconstructed 1950s
Inside the South Wing, beyond the Seamen's Hall, a staircase curves upward through a tall oval well, each flight seeming to float without support from the walls. This is the Nelson Stair, one of the finest interiors in the building, and it is named after the admiral who is said to have climbed it when he came to the Navy Board on business. The stone treads are cantilevered, each one resting on the one below and locked into the wall, so that the whole spiral rises like a ribbon. Light falls from a lantern high above.
Chambers designed the stair for the Navy Board, which occupied the South Wing and the river front. Navy officers, clerks and contractors passed up and down here for more than a century, and the sober Doric detailing suits that purpose. Look at the iron balustrade with its simple pattern and at the way the stair widens as it descends, so that the bottom flight is grand and the top is intimate. From the upper landing the view straight down the well is one of the best photographs in the building.
A bomb fell on this part of Somerset House in nineteen forty and destroyed the stair and the rooms around it. What you see is a careful reconstruction of the nineteen fifties, built from Chambers' drawings, and it is only in recent years, with the restoration of the Seamen's Hall and the South Wing, that visitors have been able to see it regularly. It is not always open, since the rooms around it are used for exhibitions and events, so take one of the free guided tours if the stair is on your list.
Did You Know? Admiral Nelson is believed to have climbed these stairs on his visits to the Navy Board, which ran the Royal Navy from these rooms.
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