1-9 The Esplanade (Terrace) With Steps And Handrails

A terrace of nine houses, now largely offices, was built between 1853 and 1865 by Martin Greener. The terrace, with its steps and handrails, is constructed of garden wall bond brick with red mortar, with painted ashlar dressings and a Welsh slate roof. The chimneys are ashlar-coped brick with tall octagonal castellated yellow pots; some inserted roof lights are also present. The houses are arranged with a pattern of 5, 5, 3, 3, 5, 3, 5, 4, 5 windows, with the houses at numbers 1 and 9 projecting, and number 9 having a set-back entrance bay. The basements are rusticated. Bull-nosed steps have moulded tread ends, supported by wrought-iron handrails on cast-iron balusters with ornate bases and newels. The front doors are 4-panel affairs with margined overlights, set between pilasters, beneath a heavily-corniced entablature with patera which breaks forward over the pilasters. The windows are margined sashes, with lugged architraves and bracketed stone sills; ground-floor windows have aprons to the basements, and first-floor windows have a frieze and cornice. A deep top entablature has a cornice on paired brackets, with longer brackets on the giant pilasters. Number 1, on the right-hand side, has a full-height canted bay with two round-headed attic lights. Area railings, previously mentioned in a prior description, have been removed.