Wogan/Western House, still emptying of BBC staff, stands on the site of the old Portland Hotel, established around 1820. For a short period in the 1870s it was renamed Nelsons Hotel, after its proprietors.
The hotel closed in 1933, and Alliance Properties decided to redevelop. They settled on a steel-frame with external panelled pilasters, intended as ground floor shops, and open workrooms and showrooms above. It was ready in 1936, and occupied mostly by garment traders, with a short-lived ground-floor motor showroom. The west side was reconstructed in 1949–51 following bomb damage. Thereafter the British Council was briefly resident, followed in 1953–87 by the BBC’s Engineering Designs Department, and since 2006 by Radio 2 and Radio 6 Music.
The first floor is home to the BBC's Information Rights team, still signing off emails from that address on Monday.
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