Nos. 93-95 Hagley Road, Edgbaston

Nos. 93-95 Hagley Road, Edgbaston

A pair of semi-detached houses of early or mid-19th century date in a classical style, with later 20th century extensions to the rear.

The houses are built of red brick with painted stone dressings and a hipped slate roof of shallow pitch. Each house contains three storeys and a basement, with a two-storey extension to the rear built on the site of former coach houses. The pair are mirror images, grouped beneath a continuous cornice with blocking course and a wide panel of brickwork at the centre, forming part of a loosely grouped street frontage along the north side of Hagley Road on the Calthorpe Estate.

The southern entrance front of each house has three bays with a central door, which features a Tuscan flat-roofed portico with bold acanthus foliage to the frieze and prominent astragal to the columns. Both houses retain original fanlights with interwoven glazing bars. The lateral windows at ground and first floor levels are of sixteen lights, with twelve-pane sashes to the centre of the first floor and six-pane sashes to the centre of the second floor, flanked by eight-pane windows. All windows have painted stone heads with central rosettes to the panelled lintel, with brackets at either side supporting a stone shelf. A brick wall attached to the eastern coach house extension and extending south to the road forms part of the boundary.

The flank walls are largely blank, with a small window to the left side and two to the right.

The rear northern front has a similar arrangement with three bays to each house and a narrower central bay, all with cambered heads to the openings. At ground floor level, the two outer bays are masked by late 20th century extensions of plum-coloured brick in stretcher bond. The north faces of these extensions have two bays with flat heads and dentiled brick cornices below the parapets.

Internally, both houses feature similar joinery of good quality. The open string staircases have square balusters, wreathed curtails and moulded tread ends with acorn drops, which continue as a frieze around the landings. Carved surrounds to doors and windows occur in the front part of the buildings, including trellis and reed patterns and splayed and panelled surrounds to the front doors. Original window shutters remain largely in place. Similar fanlights crown the passage doors dividing the front from the rear of each house. Plasterwork includes elaborate ceiling roses to the staircase halls and cornicing which continues under the flights of stairs, with similar plasterwork in some reception rooms. Some rooms in No. 95 have new cornicing. The partition wall between the houses was removed at ground floor level at some point in the 20th century to create one large space, but has since been replaced. Original fire surrounds have mostly been lost, though a cast-iron fire surround of late 19th century date and a 'Minster' fire surround of 20th century date remain in No. 93.

The mid-20th century two-storey annexes built on the site of former coach houses to the rear of both houses are not considered to be of special architectural or historic interest.