Spy is fortunate enough to have attended many Mansion House dinners over the years. The black-tie banquets are terrific fun: great food, choice wines and current resident and host, Lord Mayor Michael Mainelli, is excellent company. But beneath the gleaming, gold-lined walls of its function rooms, Mansion House hides a secret: it is rapidly crumbling.
A new report published by the City of London Corporation reveals the scale of the problem. Surveyors say “immediate attention” is needed to repair “urgent building fabric issues” with “inoperable” fire escape routes which “present a risk to both life-safety and a potential security vulnerability.” If that wasn’t enough, the 18th century townhouse is blighted by “significant water damage” in the basement and “evidence of water damage” to ceilings; “long cracks to plasterwork” in the lobby and in vaulted ceilings; and flaking paintwork and signs of damp creeping up the walls.
Such is the scale of the problem, one of the more putrid areas has even become known colloquially as the ‘smelly room’, the report suggests. There are yet more problems than just these, but Spy didn’t have time to read the full 60-page report which lists them all.
Mayor Mainelli still has a few months left to serve out his term at Mansion House – but he may want to get out now before it’s too late.
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