12, Kenilworth Street

A house dating from around 1840, situated on Kenilworth Street in Royal Leamington Spa.

The building is constructed from pinkish-brown brick laid in Flemish bond, with a roof of cement tiles. The stack and northern and western elevations are rendered in cement render. The house is of two storeys with a double depth plan and a further wing to the rear providing service rooms.

The exterior presents a modestly scaled, classically inspired façade. There are two first floor windows, all of which are twentieth-century replacements set in plain reveals with sills and flat channelled arches; the ground floor window has a raised keystone. The entrance is positioned to the left, with two steps leading up to a twentieth-century board door featuring a plain rectangular overlight, all set within a pilastered timber surround with a frieze and hood. The tall rendered gable end stack is crowned with a cornice. The roof is an apex roof, with a pitched roof extending over the rear wing.

The interior retains much of its original character. The ground floor entrance hall contains the stair and features an arched opening to the rear, beyond which lies the kitchen in the rear wing. The dog-leg stair has turned newel posts and plain stick balusters. Two principal ground floor rooms are situated above a brick cellar containing a former hearth. The first floor includes a bathroom in the rear wing off a half-landing, with three further rooms. The majority of doors are original with four panels. Original skirtings and fluted door casings remain in many locations; all fire surrounds have been removed, though chimney breasts survive in all principal rooms.

Kenilworth Street was laid out on a planned grid pattern around 1822 to 1826 by John Kempson, who was also working in Birmingham during this period. This house was constructed around 1840, shortly after the street's creation. The Ordnance Survey map series from 1889 to 1939 shows a small building attached to the house on its north side and further extensions to the rear, apparently outbuildings. These remained substantially unchanged until the mid-twentieth century, when the adjacent Irwin Memorial Hall was extended, after which they appear to have been removed to facilitate this expansion. Trade directories indicate that in 1914, number 12 was the premises of A R Horswill, listed as both a coal merchant and furniture remover, suggesting the house served as his residence with the rear outbuildings used for his commercial interests. This pattern of combined residential and commercial use was common throughout Kenilworth Street during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Despite some twentieth-century alterations, the building remains largely intact. Its plan form and interior are substantially unaltered, with the original stair and most internal joinery preserved. The house represents a good example of a smaller townhouse associated with commercial and industrial use from the period immediately before 1840. The classically inspired façade includes good details in its pilastered timber door surround and overlight, and in the window openings with their channelled flat arches and keystone. The house has group value with the adjacent Irwin Memorial Hall as part of the planned development of Royal Leamington Spa in the early nineteenth century.