Every month CabbieBlog hopes to show you a little gem of a building which you might have passed without noticing.

Trinity Court is a block of flats that I’ve admired from the days when I would walk along Gray’s Inn Road on my way to work over 50 years ago.

Back then it was fairly new having been built between 1934 and 1935 in the Art Deco style popular at the time.

[B]ut recently an elderly resident of the apartment building told me as I dropped him off that his flat was drafty and poorly maintained.

Looking like a film set from Hercule Poriot, which I’m pretty sure it once was, this fine example stands in front of St. Andrew’s Burial Ground, which is now a public garden, just north of Wren Street.

The building did feature in the 1986 film Mona Lisa. This classic London film has cab driver George, played by the late Bob Hoskins hired to ferry high-class hooker Simone (Cathy Tyson) between her Art Deco flat and clientele.

This building has very pleasing dimensions, rectangular in plan with shorter sides parallel to the road. These elevations project slightly at each side giving a Roman ’I’ footprint to the building.

But it is the central entrance with double doors that attracts location managers. Above the doors features the building’s name with a short flight of steps. Its seven floors have decorative tracery in the windows. They are typical ’Crittall’ metal frames with vertical striations between each window emphasising the verticality of the building.

The entire outside of the building is rendered and painted white, in contrast to the traditional Victorian and more recent brick buildings on that section of Grays Inn Road. The balustrades of the balconies and window frames are painted an attractive light blue colour. The external appearance of the building has been preserved and windows, balconies and balustrades all appear unaltered. To preserve it in its original form I feel that this building should receive listing status.

Photo: Trinity Court, Gray’s Inn Road Mike Quinn (CC BY-SA 2.0)