Marina Rd.

BRITISH HIGH COMMISSIONER’S RESIDENCE.
6 MARINA,
LAGOS

Prompted by the UK Trade Commissioner in Lagos, a senior Ministry of Works team visited Nigeria in August 1957 to consider possible sites for high commission offices and a residence in Lagos.

Lionel Brett, a rising establishment architect, Royal Fine Art Commissioner and grandson of a former Secretary of the Office of Works, was commissioned for the design of the new high commissioner’s residence.

Brett proposed, as he recalled in his autobiography, “that every item in my long creamy-white house, from the teaspoons to the carpets, should be the best that British designers could produce; Edward Bawden should design the Royal Arms, black mosaic on white, over the entrance, Reg Butler make the courtyard bronze, Jo Pattrick master-mind the interior.”

The residence was built by an Italian firm, G Cappa Ltd, that bid £71,000, £19,000 lower than the next lowest tenderer, Taylor Woodrow.

The building was occupied in January 1961.

The house had only a short life as the residence of the British high commissioner. The high commissioner moved in June 1976 to an enlarged 3 Queens Drive (later called Oyinkan Abayomi Drive).

The house became a Mess for the Brigade of Guards (Nigerian Army), barracked nearby. It is still in use as a venue for events.

It has since been reconstructed and has lost most of its original elegance.

Slide 1: Front Entrance, 1960
Slide 2: Model of Lionel Brett’s design for the new residence, 1958, with Lagos Lagoon in foreground.
Slide 3: Schematic plans of new residence: ground floor on the left, first floor on right.
Slide 4: Looking down to entrance hall from first floor access balcony, 1960.
Slide 5: Looking down on dining room from bridge, with pool beyond, 1960.
Slide 6: View of Lagoon, beyond breakfast/dining terrace, 1960.
Slide 7: Dining room from entrance, looking towards terrace and Lagoon, 1960.
Slide 8: Lagoon frontage, from west, 1960.
Slide 9: Front entrance 2010.
Slide 10: Front entrance 2024.