Sampson House

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Sampson House is a commercial office building in Hopton Street, Southwark, London. It is sited just west of the Tate Modern, by the railway lines running onto Blackfriars Bridge and fills a block between the Thames and Southwark Street.

Sampson House is a rare example of a Brutalist commercial office building, with powerful massing, extensive use of exposed concrete with minimal glazing at street level and strong horizontal mirror glazing in austere dark metal cladding in the upper levels. It was built in 1976-9 as a processing centre for Lloyds Bank and was designed by Fitzroy Robinson & Partners (now Aukett Fitzroy Robinson) which was also architect for the construction (and refurbishment in 2004-6) of 50 Queen Anne's Gate in Westminster.

Minerva plc announced in August 2005 that, in a linked transaction, it had completed the sale of Sampson House for £150.5 million and Ludgate House for £78.5 million to a private investor. The announcement also stated that "Sampson House comprises 386,288sq.ft. of office space let to IBM UK Limited. The lease expires in December 2025 but, includes a mutual break clause in June 2018. The current rent is £8 million p.a. and will rise to £9.5 million p.a. in December this year".

The nearest Underground station is Southwark on the Jubilee Line.

[edit] References

Architect (London), The South Bank: Sampson House - Lloyds Bank's new operations centre; Architects: Fitzroy Robinson & Partners vol. 125, no. 6, 1979 June, p. 14-18

Building, Finance factories - two large computer centres in the heart of London: 1. Lloyds Bank Operations Centre Sampson House, on the south side of Blackfriars Bridge; Architects: Fitzroy Robinson & Partners; 2. National Westminster Bank Services Centre, Alie Street, E1; Architects: Elsom Pack & Roberts Partnership vol. 236, no. 7090 (22), 1979 Jun 1, p. 24-26.