Numbers 48-58 with Steps and Railings Attached

This is a terrace of eleven houses, now offices, built around 1840 on John Street, Sunderland. The buildings are constructed of garden wall bond brick with painted ashlar basement and dressings. They have Welsh slate roofs and brick chimneys. Stone steps, dwarf walls, and cast and wrought-iron railings are attached.

The terrace is arranged as two pairs of houses treated as pavilions, with the others being more uniform. Each house has a basement, two storeys, and three windows. The basement level has channelled rustication. The pavilion end houses feature giant pilasters and paired doors at the centre, while the others have doors on the right side. Steps lead to Sunderland-style panelled doors, which fold back to reveal the inner doors; most have round central panels. Doorcases vary – Sunderland type with fluted Doric columns and a palmette and anthemion frieze, square Tuscan pilasters (at No. 57), and a missing doorcase (at No. 58). Wedge stone lintels and sill strings are present between corner pilasters of the sash windows, some of which have been renewed and others retain original glazing bars. The hipped roof has transverse ridge chimneys, and some added dormers, including a Sunderland-style dormer at No. 49 with slate-hung sides, a canted bay, and a hipped roof. No. 48 has a return elevation to Athenaeum Street, featuring giant pilasters and two windows on each floor, with a canted bay on the left ground floor. The steps to the doors are moulded, with rosettes linking the balustrades and plain wrought iron handrails. The railings are mostly spear-headed, with some replacements.