2-15, THE OAKS (See details for further address information)

Terrace of 16 houses, constructed around 1870, located in Sunderland. The terrace steps down a hillside on a west-facing elevation and forms part of a wider group of Victorian terraces built for the town's expanding middle classes during the industrial boom.

The houses are constructed in garden wall bond brick with painted ashlar dressings and Welsh slate roofs with brick chimneys. Each house comprises two storeys and an attic, with some having basements. The interior layout includes two main reception rooms, three to four first floor bedrooms, and several small attic rooms, with service rooms positioned to the rear.

The front (west) elevation is the principal feature. The terrace is organised in paired houses, each with three first floor windows and a canted bay at ground floor level with the entrance between. Houses with basements feature double-height canted bays. The end houses are larger: number 5 Grey Road has a central entrance, while number 10 Mowbray Road's entrance has been blocked and converted to a window. Both end houses have canted bays flanking the main openings, three to four first floor windows, and two roof dormers.

The entrances are particularly distinguished. All feature Sunderland-type panelled doors that fold back to form panelled reveals to inner doors and fanlights. These are surrounded by imposing door cases with intricately carved pilasters featuring wreaths and foliage decoration, supporting corniced entablatures. The canted bay windows at ground floor level display especially decorative carvings in similar style. The first floor windows are sliding sashes with vertical glazing bars forming sidelights, mostly surrounded by stone architraves with projecting stone sills. Most dormers are round-headed with curved roofs, many retaining traditional lead covering and timber architraves with central keystones surmounted by ball finials, though some are twentieth-century replacements.

The right return on Gray Road features a ground floor entrance with a heavy door case, flanked by a double-height canted bay to the right, with two blind segmental-headed windows to the left and two smaller segmental-headed attic windows above.

The left return on Mowbray Road has its original ground floor entrance blocked and converted to a window, flanked to the left by a canted bay with a blind window to the left. Three first floor windows are present, one blind, with two smaller segmental-headed attic windows opening onto a twentieth-century balcony.

The rear (east) elevation is plain, with projecting rear bays and external chimney stacks. Window openings are mostly square-headed with several twentieth-century replacements. Tall round-headed stair windows are present, their original stained glass mostly replaced; number 5 Grey Road retains a large Venetian stair window. Numbers 10 and 11 retain original coach houses, converted to garages.

Interior original features survive throughout the terrace with varying degrees of preservation. Ground floors include plasterwork with ceiling roses, cornices and hall arches, joinery comprising skirting boards, window surrounds and some shutters, and carved decorations in foliate, fruit and scroll patterns. Four-panelled doors are predominant, and some good stone fireplaces survive. Staircases are open-string dog-leg form with carved foliate balusters and spiral ends. First floors retain some wooden fireplaces, plasterwork and carpentry including original ornate fitted cupboards with carved foliage, scrolls and flowers. The fireplaces largely contain register grates of late Victorian or Edwardian style. Attic storeys are plainer with dormers and simple plaster cornicing, skirting and fireplaces.

Number 15 is the most complete example. In addition to the features described above, it retains a number of friezes including a fine painted example in the dining room featuring double scroll decoration containing the portraits of several male and female figures. Much of the ground floor carpentry, including doors and folding shutters, remains in its original unpainted state, as does the staircase. The ground floor retains fireplaces in both reception rooms of wood and marble with elaborate wooden overmantels incorporating mirrors.

The terrace forms part of a larger group of Victorian terraces constructed to the south of Sunderland town centre during the early to mid-nineteenth century, intended to house the expanding middle classes driven by the town's growing importance as an industrial centre. This development was part of the first phase of expansion between the 1850s and 1870s. Number 15 is the best documented: trade directories record its occupation in 1876 by ship owner Jennison Taylor. It was subsequently purchased by a toy maker named Crosby, who sold the property to Margaret Bigham at the end of the nineteenth century; the Bigham family occupied it throughout the twentieth century. Town directories and census records confirm occupants at all houses in the terrace in 1871, and original deeds at number 12 indicate a conveyance of land dated 1870.