8, Park Square

No. 8 Park Square is a house built between 1788 and 1789 by architect William Hargrave for gentleman William Wilson. The building features red brick in Flemish bond and has a slate roof. It stands three storeys high with an attic and basement, and has five first-floor windows arranged in a 2:1:2 pattern. The central three windows are slightly projected and topped with a pediment that includes a circular attic window in the tympanum.

The entrance is central and has a restored wooden doorcase with rusticated jambs, elaborate fluted columns, and a segmental open pediment. The pediment is adorned with well-preserved woodwork and an ornamental stucco festoon, along with a semicircular fanlight and a fielded-panel door. The windows have plate-glass sashes, stone sills, and lintels, with wedge-shaped lintels on the ground and first floors. The second-floor window lintels are raised, and there is a moulded string course between the floors. The eaves and pediment cornices are decorated with modillion details.

Inside, extensive alterations were underway at the time of review, including a completely replaced staircase. The ground-floor front rooms feature 19th-century cast-iron fire grates set in stone surrounds. A fine round-arched stair window at the rear has a wooden pilastered casing. The first-floor landing includes a wide round arch and five rooms that open off it, with moulded ceiling cornices and panelled window reveals in the front rooms. The landing to the second floor has a similar stair window in a plainer moulded surround, with cast-iron round-arched fire grates in plain stone surrounds and moulded cornices. A service stair at the rear right has 19th-century bulbous balusters and columns on vase newels topped with ball finials.

This house is notable as one of the first on the east side of Park Square, likely built for a member of a family that leased out land to architect/builders for the construction of houses, some of which included warehouses and workshops for cloth merchants and professionals, helping to alleviate congestion in the town centre.