17 Friar Lane

17 Friar Lane is a town house of Grade II* significance, built in 1750 with later 19th-century extensions to the rear. It stands in a terrace facing south-east onto Friar Lane.

The building is constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond with brick and stone dressings, covered by a slate roof. The rectangular plan comprises the original 18th-century house, a rear (north-west) extension added around the turn of the 19th century, and a service extension at the north-east corner built in the second half of the 19th century.

The exterior displays Georgian neoclassical styling with a symmetrical façade of three storeys and five bays beneath a pitched roof with a moulded dentilled eaves cornice and brick chimney stacks at the gable ends. Rusticated giant pilasters flank the ends and frame either side of the slightly projecting central pedimented bay, which is similarly treated to the eaves cornice. The fenestration consists of segmental-headed six-over-six pane sash windows in moulded surrounds with gauged brick arches and moulded stone sills. Moulded stone bands dividing the storeys break forward to form cappings to the keystones of each window.

The central bay features an elaborate wooden Doric doorcase with a modillion and dentilled pediment, an ornamented triglyph frieze and fluted pilasters resting on moulded stone bases. The front door is fielded and panelled. Above it is a Venetian window with fluted pilasters, console brackets to the sill, and entablatures over the side lights enriched with a key pattern in the frieze. The central semicircular light has a moulded surround and double keystone. On the second floor above this is a Diocletian window in a moulded architrave with a double keystone and console brackets to the sill.

At the rear, the single-storey late 18th or early 19th-century extension has a hipped roof behind a plain parapet, lit by three tall six-over-six pane sash windows with slender glazing bars and margin lights under gauged brick arches. A door to the left, replaced in the 20th century, originally led to the garden. To its left stands a two-storey red brick Victorian extension under a shallow pitched roof with decorated brick eaves, its irregular fenestration consisting mostly of two-over-two pane sash windows under gauged brick arches or stone lintels.

The interior has been substantially altered through the building's use as offices, though some original features survive. The entrance hall, made smaller by a 20th-century partition, originally contained reception rooms on either side. These retain panelled window shutters, lugged doorframes, picture rails and finely moulded cornices. An opening flanked by fluted columns supporting an entablature leads to the staircase hall with an open well. The stair itself is a quarter turn design with a panelled soffit, shaped open string course and stick balusters supporting a mahogany handrail terminating in a scroll. The under-stairs cupboard exposes a diamond-laid stone floor, suggesting similar flooring may survive beneath the hall carpet.

The rear reception room retains moulded window frames, panelled shutters and etched glass in the margin lights. It features a delicately moulded cornice, a marble fireplace with corner rosettes and blocked grate, flanked by wide doors with an entablature and plain frieze. The remainder of the house is plain with few surviving historic fixtures, though the service stair, two hob grates and some six-panel doors in moulded surrounds on the first floor are preserved.