48-52, Frenchwood Street

A row of five small town houses located in Frenchwood Street, Preston, built around 1835 and subsequently altered. The houses are constructed of red brick in a Flemish bond pattern, though No. 49 has a roughcast and white painted exterior, No. 51 is painted red, and Nos. 48 and 52 have been rebuilt. They feature sandstone dressings and a slate roof, with concrete tiles replacing slate at No. 49. Each house follows a double-depth plan with a single front and rear extensions (Nos. 48 are separate; the rest are coupled). Through-lobbies connect Nos. 48 and 49, and Nos. 50 and 51 (the latter originally served No. 52 via a rear passage). The houses are two storeys high, with cellars, and each has two bays. Nos. 50 to 52 are stepped up in height. Architectural details include a first-floor sill band, a plain frieze, and a moulded gutter cornice that steps up between Nos. 49 and 50. Doorways at Nos. 48 and 49 are located at each end of their paired houses, while doorways at Nos. 49 and 50 are coupled together, and the doorway of No. 52 is coupled with No. 51. The three earliest houses have round-headed architraves with set-in Tuscan quarter columns, plain lintels, and semicircular fanlights set within convex moulded surrounds. Nos. 50 and 51 have square-headed doorways with coupled moulded architraves, cornices resting on consoles with guttae, and rectangular overlights. All doorways have five-panel doors, except for No. 48, which has an altered door. The ground floor of each house has one window, and the first floor has two. Windows at Nos. 51 and 52 are sash windows without glazing bars, though otherwise the windows have been altered. All windows have raised sills and wedge lintels, except at Nos. 48 and 49. Cellar windows at Nos. 48 and 49 have been altered, while the others are sash windows with glazing bars, protected by gratings. Large linear common chimney stacks are situated at the junctions between the houses. The interiors and rear of the building have not been inspected. Deeds relating to No. 50 show a conveyance of the building plot from Edward Stanley and William Tomlinson to Isaac Wilcockson and Lawrence Dobson; Wilcockson was the proprietor of the Preston Chronicle newspaper, and Dobson was his father. The houses represent a formerly complete set of late 18th century lower-middle-class town houses in the street.