Numbers 40-54 And Attached Railings

Terrace of 15 houses forming the south side of Bedford Square. Numbers 40-53 form a symmetrical terrace, with No.54 created by the return of No.53 to Bloomsbury Street. Built by William Scott (brickmaker) and Robert Grews (carpenter), probably designed by Thomas Leverton or Robert Palmer for the Bedford Estate.

The houses are constructed in yellow stock brick, with evidence of tuck pointing on most. A plain stucco band runs at first-floor level. The centre houses, Nos.46 and 47, are fully stuccoed. The roofline features slate mansard roofs with dormers and tall slab chimney-stacks.

Each house is three storeys with attics and basements, and three windows wide. The recessed, round-headed entrances are detailed with Coade stone vermiculated intermittent voussoirs and bands, with mask keystones. The doors have enriched impost bands and cornice-heads, side lights to panelled doors (some two-leaf), and fanlights, mostly with radial patterns. The sash windows have gauged brick flat arches. Nos.40-47 and 53 have cast-iron balconies to first-floor windows. A cornice and parapet run the length, with Nos.40 and 53 having balustraded parapets.

Nos.46 and 47 are particularly distinguished. Their ground floors are rusticated, with five Ionic pilasters rising through the first and second storeys to support a frieze with roundels above each pilaster. A pediment crowns this with delicate swag and roundel enrichment on the tympanum. A continuous enriched band runs at second-floor level behind the pilasters.

The houses contain original stone stairs with cast and wrought-iron balusters of various scroll designs. Rear elevations feature full-height canted or bowed bays. Notable interior features include fine plasterwork and ceilings: No.40 has a ceiling with five restored painted panels; Nos.42, 43, 44, 48, 49, 50, and 51 each have fine plaster ceilings and varied decorative friezes. No.46 contains some curved doors, while No.47 has two fine plaster ceilings and an identical form staircase to No.46, terminating with a series of winders at the head of a straight flight. No.51's courtyard retains original York stone paving. Some houses retain original lead rainwater heads and pipes.

Cast-iron railings with urn or torch flambé finials are attached to the area steps. Most houses have good wrought-iron foot scrapers.

No.53, forming the return to Bloomsbury Street, has a Gibbs surround to its entrance, with a sash to the right and four blind windows on its Bloomsbury Street elevation.

Bedford Square represents a very important and complete example of 18th-century town planning, built as a speculative development. The majority of plots leased by the estate were taken by Grews and Scott. Leverton, a country house architect, may have been involved with only the grander houses—he himself lived at No.13. Palmer, the Bedford Estate surveyor, may be responsible for certain irregularities in the square's design.

No.41 was the residence of Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, the novelist; No.42 of William Butterfield, the architect; and No.49 of Ram Mohun Roy, the Indian scholar and reformer (all marked with LCC or GLC plaques). Nos.50 and 51 bear oval plaques inscribed "St.G.F.1859" and "St.G.B.1823", marking the parish boundary of St Giles in the Fields and St George, Bloomsbury, which runs along the party wall between these houses.