Nos. 250-252 Eastgate

Nos. 250-252 Eastgate

A pair of semi-detached villas built in 1826, with minor alterations from the twentieth century.

The buildings are constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond, over-painted at basement level, with stucco details and Welsh slate roofs. Each villa is arranged with a piano nobile layout, featuring polite reception rooms on the ground and first floors, and a kitchen and service range in the semi-basement. The pair presents a symmetrical facade to the north, each dwelling topped by two storeys and a basement, with no. 250 having an attic space at the rear. The shared hipped roof has oversailing bracketed eaves and a central stack, supplemented by additional end stacks on each villa.

The north-facing facade features pilasters positioned midway and at each end. Both houses have a central projecting porch bay containing Greek Doric porches with fluted columns and pilasters, embellished with triglyph and guttae detailing to the hood. The porches are raised above the semi-basement entrance and approached by curving stone steps to either side with delicate iron balustrades finishing in curtail stops. A decorative iron panel partially encloses the front of the porch, and lanterns hang from pendants in the porch ceiling. Stone steps beneath lead down to the partly glazed timber doors serving the semi-basement. The principal entrance doors are timber-framed, panelled, and partly glazed, with a square fanlight containing glazing bars above and what may be original door furniture.

Each villa has pairs of hornless sash windows with glazing bars at every floor. The semi-basement windows have ten-over-ten small lights, the ground floor has six-over-nine lights, and the first floor has six-over-six lights. All ground and first-floor windows are furnished with carved stucco lintels featuring keystones. A continuous stucco band runs at first-floor level across the facade.

The rear elevations show inconsistent treatment, particularly at no. 252, where there appears to have been remodelling, possibly following removal or truncation of a rear range recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map. Some rear windows are twentieth-century insertions; however, to the right of no. 252 is a pair of French doors with a six-over-six sash window above. No. 250 has a two-storey gabled element with attic space containing sympathetically designed twentieth-century sash windows and a rear door with glazing bars. Beneath the hipped roof to the left is a pair of twentieth-century French doors at ground-floor level with a sash window above. The west elevation of no. 250 contains pairs of windows at basement and ground-floor levels, with a single window at first-floor level. A repaired wall encloses the rear garden.

Internally, the partly glazed timber-panelled principal doors open into halls with exposed wide floorboards. Each villa's plan mirrors the other, comprising two interconnected polite rooms on one side of the hall (no. 250 retains a contemporary timber sliding dividing door between these rooms) and two further rooms with the principal stair positioned between them on the other side. A third room, possibly a former service entrance from the rear, lies to the rear of the hall. Ground-floor rooms in both houses have been converted to kitchens during the twentieth century, and fireplaces and other fixtures have been introduced, though no. 250 preserves deep cornices in the polite rooms and early-19th-century vertical sliding shutters to the facade windows.

The early-19th-century main stairs in both houses are arranged in a dog-leg configuration with hardwood handrails, elegant stick balusters terminating in curtail stops at the base, and open strings. The basement of no. 252 was not inspected during the survey; however, in no. 250 this space has been converted into a self-contained flat and utility area, retaining an early-19th-century fireplace.

First-floor room partitions generally remain intact in both houses, although bathroom facilities have required some remodelling. An attic level has been added to the rear of no. 250. No. 252 is largely devoid of historic fixtures and fittings at first-floor level, though no. 250 retains fireplaces and some cupboards.