Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 45. (1997)
AGSTNER, Rudolf: Von Chandos House zum Belgrave Square. Österreichs Botschaft in London 1815–1997
When in 1894 the ambassador submitted the final calculation of all costs involved in acquiring the lease, adapting and furnishing the building, he arrived at 49 990 Lst 7 sh. 8 p., which was slightly less than the sum originally earmarked. VII. 1866-1914: daily life The files of the Austro-Hungarian embassy recall many daily problems confronting Austro-Hungarian diplomats in London. In 1881, it became necessary to restore the paintings of „Emperors Francis I, Ferdinand I and H. M. Francis Joseph I as they have suffered from the negative effects of the London coal dust and are now totally black and no longer recognisable ..." In 1893 Ambassador Deym wondered why his embassy had been equipped with 96 silver dishes, but none for soup. 25 silver soup dishes were immediately ordered from the famous Viennese silversmith and purveyor to the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Ministry, Klinkosch. In 1896, the „London Sanitary Protection Association”, after thorough inspection of the drains and water pipes of the embassy, suggested they be repaired immediately. „As an ever increasing number of buildings and offices are connected to the telephone, the fact that the Embassy did not have a telephone was felt more and more and it became necessary to install a telephone“, as Deym reported in 1900. In the same year, another technological leap took place, as the embassy’s chancery was equipped with its first typewriter; by 1910, already four of these new machines were in use, partly because the ageing emperor in Vienna was not always able to read the hand-written reports of his envoys abroad. The need to paint the front of the building facing Belgrave Square approximately every three years, as well as many of the „official“ rooms of the building resulted in a lot of correspondence between Belgrave Square and the Ballhausplatz. The embassy building was nice to look at, but to live in it was a different story, especially in winter. In 1902, Deym complained that the rooms in the back of the building cannot be heated during freezing weather. My office, my bedroom and my wife’s toilet room are situated in that wing. So far, it has proved impossible to bring the temperature of these rooms above 12,5 centigrade. My predecessor therefore chose to reside, during winter time, in the countryside, and my wife preferred to avoid being in London in winter. In wintertime, I’m living alone and move to an upper floor, not using the rooms in the back wing. This is of course very uncomfortable. When my wife stayed in London, we were thus compelled to rent a house in the countryside. The staircase is heated only by an open fireplace, which is quite insufficient to heat the air in cold weather. Deym therefore urged the installation of a central heating system, which was done in 1903 by Harrods Stores Ltd. - Building, Decorating and Sanitary Engineering Department. In 1903, the new Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, Albert Count Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein, a second cousin of King Edward VII, deemed the embassy building in bad repair. He requested that the architectural consultant of the Foreign Ministry, Pokomy, be sent to London to give his opinion. The latter came to this conclusion: Austria (-Hungary) and her Diplomatic Mission in London 1815-1997 51
