40 and 41, Museum Street

40 and 41 Museum Street are two terraced houses with shops, originally three, built between 1855 and 1864 by William Finch Hill. The buildings are constructed of stucco and feature rusticated pilaster strips topped with small segmental pediments that separate the houses and are placed at the corners. They rise to four storeys and each house has two windows. There are two-window returns facing Gilbert Place and Little Russell Street. The design is in a modified French Renaissance style. The shopfront of No. 40 has been altered in the 20th century, while No. 41 is currently boarded up but retains panelled dados and pilasters at the angle, along with fielded panels and roundels. The entrances are located on Gilbert Place and Little Russell Street, featuring round-arched, architraved doorways with fanlights and panelled doors. A continuous dentil cornice runs above, leading to a plain, continuous sill band at the first floor, which has round-arched, architraved, recessed two-pane sash windows. Above these, there are architraved oculi decorated with swags. The second floor has a console bracketed sill band supporting segmental-arched architraved sashes. There is also a console bracketed cornice beneath the third floor architraved sashes, which feature keys. The buildings have a cornice and blocking course. The interiors have not been inspected.