Page Street, The Ice Club Westminster

Before the 1928 Thames flood brought about a flurry of new roadworks and modernisation, Page Street ran between Regency Street <towards Victoria> and Grosvenor Road at the river embankment <now Millbank>. Marsham Street and Johnson Street intersected with Page Street. In 1927 the rows of decaying tenements, stables and cottages along Page Street were certainly at odds with ambitious plans to open The Ice Club, London's first ice skating rink to open since World War 1.  With an entrance on Johnson Street (now John Islip Street), and only minutes from the Page Street cottages, The Ice Club was opened as a private members club on January 14th 1927 and was an instant hit. It hosted glamorous society events, people entertained in the dining room and the members bar and it prompted a new craze in skating that had not been seen in England before. The opening night was reported around the world. The Ottawa Citizen Feb 12th 1927 reported that The Ice Club was beseiged on the opening night when hundreds of people were turned away and some used ladders to view the skating over the crowds. The line of motor cars stretched along Millbank to St Stephens and dozens of people dressed in evening wear got out and walked in the rain leaving their chauffers to drive home. The Ice Club was established by the philanthropist Sir Stephen Courtauld, one of the Courtauld textiles family and brother of Samuel who founded the Courtauld Institute of Art, but it closed in 1939 at the start of the war. The indoor ice rink was 175 feet long by 100 feet wide and was built using the most advanced
technology of the day.
The land was leased from Westminster Council for 99 years. Sadly there is no reminder of this once glamorous past and no part of the building survives. On the site today is the Westminster Hilton DoubleTree hotel and building works for Cleland House, once a government office and now the new Berkeley Homes luxury residential development, Abell & Cleland. Further along John Islip Street it becomes Dean Ryle Street and on the corner of Horseferry Road is the head office of Burberry.