11, Lansdowne Crescent

Detached house in Worcester, dated 1840-68 with later additions and alterations. The building is constructed of painted stucco over brick with a hipped slate roof featuring wide bracketed eaves. It has two storeys and a cellar.

The main facade is four windows wide on the first floor. Stucco detailing includes a plinth, banded rustication to the ground floor with vermiculated quoins and keystones to the ground-floor window heads. A plain band runs below the first-floor windows, which together with their sills are housed in shallow recesses. Rectangular recessed panels sit between the eaves brackets. The building has a pair of stucco stacks to each end with ornate dentilled stone cornices, and a similar stack on the left rear roof slope.

First-floor windows are 2/2 sashes; ground-floor windows are 2/4 sashes extending down to floor level. The hinges for external shutters remain in the reveals. An inset porch to the right return has a semi-circular arch on a pair of detached inset columns with crown capitals, a panelled and moulded soffit, replacement glazed doors with flush-beaded lower panels, a plain fanlight, and a polychromatic ceramic tiled floor.

The stucco detailing extends to the returns. The left return has external first-floor stacks on corbel brackets to left and right, with two small 20th-century windows between, and a small 1/1 sash to the ground floor. The right return has an external stack on a corbel bracket to the left, with 2/2 sashes to the centre and right, each in a shallow recess. A two-storey wing set back to the rear of the right return is detailed as the main facade, with 2/2 windows to the first floor and 2/4 windows to the ground floor. The right return of the wing has two 2/4 ground-floor windows separated by a screen wall pierced by a flat arched open doorway, beyond which are five roll-edged stone steps leading to the rear entrance into Lansdowne Crescent Lane. The rear door is a four-panel door with upper panels glazed and diagonal boarding to the lower panels.

The rear elevation to the main house features 6/6, 8/8, and 10/10 sashes with a flush-beaded four-panel door and plain fanlight. The rear of the wing is red brick with stucco eaves brackets and 2/2 and 1/1 sashes under flat gauged brick arches.

The interior retains some original features including panelled doors and shutters, architraves and skirtings, and plaster cornices.

The wing to the rear right return is shown on the 1886 Ordnance Survey map and is of similar design to No. 12 Lansdowne Crescent. Due to the elevated position of these houses, vehicular access could only be from the east via Lansdowne Crescent Lane, introducing a degree of formality to what would normally be the rear elevation. The 1886 map shows Nos 10 and 14 as exceptions with carriage drives from the west off Lansdowne Crescent.

Nos 1-15 (consecutive) and 17 and 18 Lansdowne Crescent form a good group of listed buildings, comparing well with other developments of this period in Worcester such as Britannia Square, Lark Hill, and Rainbow Hill Terrace.