2a, 2b, 2c, 2d, and 3 Cavendish Villas, and 3a Broad Walk

A row of three villas or boarding houses, dating from the mid-19th century. They have been subsequently subdivided into smaller housing and apartments. They may have been designed by Sir Joseph Paxton. The buildings are constructed from ashlar millstone grit, with ashlar dressings and Welsh slate roofs, topped with stone stacks.

The villas are two storeys with attics and basements. Features include a plinth, a sill band to each floor and moulded eaves. The row consists of three double-fronted houses, creating a nine-window range, with slightly projecting end pavilions, each featuring a pedimented second floor. Each house has a central doorway with a glazed door and overlight in a plain ashlar surround, accessed by a short flight of steps. Above the doorway is a single two-over-two sash window, and either side a two-storey canted bay window with two-over-two sashes and plain sashes, all beneath lead hipped roofs. Each outer bay includes a single round-headed casement window on the second floor, with five irregular dormers situated between them. The right-hand elevation has two-over-two sashes to the ground and first floors, and three-over-three sashes to the second floor.

The interior has not been inspected.

The Broad Walk is a group of Victorian villas and a walkway originally laid out by Paxton around 1850, overlooking the Pavilion Gardens. While most of the surrounding houses were built as speculative developments, some are believed to have been designed in detail by Edward Milner, Paxton’s former pupil, in 1871, and built by Saunders and Woolcott for the Seventh Duke.