44,45, Frenchwood Street

A pair of small town houses built around 1830-35. They are located on the southwest side of Frenchwood Street in Preston and represent the first pair constructed at that end of the street within a group of late Georgian houses intended for the lower-middle class. The houses are constructed of red brick in a 5+1 English garden wall bond, with No.45 painted cream. The rear of No.45 features slate-hanging on the first floor. They have sandstone dressings and a slate roof.

The houses follow a double-depth plan, each with a single-fronted facade, with back extensions and a through lobby centrally located. They are two storeys high with cellars, and consist of one and one bays. Architectural details include a first-floor sill band, a plain frieze, a moulded gutter cornice, and a central doorway between the two houses. The doorways, accessed by three steps to the left and two steps to the right, have round-headed architraves with set-in Tuscan quarter columns, plain lintels, and semicircular fanlights with convex-moulded surrounds. No.44 has a six-panel door, while No.45 has an altered door. The lobby doorway is fitted with a board door and wedge lintel. Windows are located on each floor, with raised sills and wedge lintels. The windows at No.44 are sash windows without glazing bars, while those at No.45 have altered glazing. The cellar windows retain wedge lintels, with a casement with glazing bars at No.44 and a blocked window at No.45, both protected by gratings. A large, linear, multiple-flue common chimney stack rises at the junction of the two houses.

The interior of No.44 includes an entrance hall, a front parlour with an original ornamental cast-iron fireplace (lacking hood and grate), a back kitchen, and a scullery-cum-wash-house in the back extension. A keeping cellar is located under the front room, and a coal cellar is under the doorway. Original cast-iron hob grates were in both main bedrooms on the first floor; these were dismantled during grant work in 1988 and are awaiting restoration. The rear of No.45 features slate-hanging on the first floor, and the rear of No.44 was recently rebuilt. Narrow, individual extensions are under mono-pitched roofs, with a privy attached at the end of No.45. The houses are noted for their group value as part of a formerly complete row of buildings.