Numbers 2-8 (Consecutive) And Attached Garden Railings, Gates And Gate Posts

Numbers 2-8 Tower Place form a terrace of seven early 19th-century houses with attached garden railings, gates, and gate posts. The houses are built of red-grey brick in a Flemish bond pattern, with timber doorcases and a hipped slate roof featuring wrought-iron corner scrolls and brick stacks. Painted cast-iron railings, gates, and gate posts are also part of the original design.

The front elevation is a two-storey, seven-window design. Each house has a doorcase featuring slender fluted columns, some with capitals decorated with applied mouldings, beaded panelled friezes, and flat cornice hoods. Most doors are of six raised and fielded panels recessed beneath an overlight in incised panelled reveals; number 2 has a replacement glazed door. To the left of each door, except for number 8, is a shallow two-storey bay window. Most of these have 16-pane sashes with painted stone sills and beaded panelled friezes on both floors. Number 4 has replacement 8-pane sashes, and number 8 has a renewed 12-pane sash with a renewed sill and a flat arch of gauged brick on the first floor. Rainwater goods with fluted bowl heads and fleur-de-lys clamps drain eaves guttering on paired modillions.

The left return has a two-storey, two-window front with a two-storey extension bay to the left, raised above a retaining wall and steps on the north-east side of the South Esplanade. This extension is canted at the corner and features three 8-pane casement windows on both floors. Original windows are 16-pane sashes on both floors; those on the ground floor are in shallow bows, and all have renewed sills. First-floor windows have flat arches of gauged brick. Basement openings are barred.

Internally, number 5 has a moulded border to the entrance hall ceiling, and a round arch on pilasters to the stairhall. Number 7 retains original room and cupboard doors and architraves with paterae in most rooms. The front room on the ground floor has a chimney piece with a reeded surround, floral paterae, and a cornice shelf. The staircase balustrade is of stick balusters with a turned newel and a flat moulded handrail. A first-floor front room retains its original chimney piece.

Garden railings on low brick walls with stone coping, and garden gates and gate posts originally existed at all the houses except number 5; only those to number 2 are complete. The remaining railings, gate railings, gate posts, and standards are turned; the standards have urn finials, and the gate posts have ball finials.