Numbers 1-19 And Attached Railings, Doughty Street

Terrace of 19 houses on the west side of Doughty Street, comprising three building phases: Nos 15-19 built around 1792, Nos 2-14 built circa 1799-1800, and No. 1 built in the early 19th century. The terrace was completed by 1820 and was constructed by builders J Wigg, G Slaton, and J Wilson.

The houses are built in yellow stock brick with a plain stucco band at first floor sill level. Most show evidence of tuck pointing.

No. 1 is a double-fronted building of four storeys with basements. The ground floor has stucco finish with rusticated quoins. The façade features three windows to Doughty Street, a splayed single-window corner treatment, and a single-window return to Roger Street, plus a single storey seven-window extension. A chimney-stack rises from ground floor level through the parapet on the left-hand angle of the splay. The main feature is a projecting rusticated portico with a 20th-century round-arched doorway having a radial fanlight and panelled door. The ground floor corner window is round-arched; other ground floor windows have architraves and keystones. First floor windows to Doughty Street are two-pane square-headed sashes in segmental-arched shallow recesses. Second and third floor windows have gauged brick flat arches to recessed two-pane sashes. A parapet tops the building. A cast-iron plaque on the return is inscribed "St P x P 1821". A plain stucco sill band marks the third floor. The interior was not inspected.

Nos 2 to 5 are four storeys with basements, each with three windows. Nos 3 and 4 have been converted into a single house. These buildings feature a narrow third floor sill cornice and projecting round-arched rusticated porticoes with cornices and later 19th-century doorways. The doors are half glazed with patterned designs, and the overlights are patterned. The doorway of No. 4 has been replaced by a window. Windows have gauged brick flat arches to recessed two-pane sashes. Parapets crown the buildings. Nos 4 and 5 retain original lead rainwater heads. No. 5 is noted to have a stick baluster stair, though interiors were not inspected.

Nos 6 to 19 are three storeys with attics and basements, each with three windows and slated mansard roofs with dormers. No. 10 has probably been refronted. Round-arched doorways feature panelled or recessed pilaster-jambs, with Nos 9, 14, and 15 having attached columns. The doorways have cornice-heads and most have patterned fanlights with panelled doors. Windows have gauged brick flat arches to recessed, mostly two-pane sashes. Nos 8 and 17 have cast-iron balconies to first floor windows. Stucco cornices and blocking courses are present on most houses, except Nos 17 and 18. Most houses retain original lead rainwater heads and pipes. Nos 10, 11, 12, and 14 are noted to have stick baluster stairs. No. 14 has particular interior features of note, including a dividing wall between dining and breakfast rooms on the ground floor (bowed within the dining room with a central buffet alcove), wheat-ear mouldings to the dining-room cornice, and a cellar retaining wine bins with slate horizontals and York stone verticals. Some chimneypieces survive in this house, of standard early 19th-century reeding and roundel type.

Attached cast-iron railings with urn finials to the areas form subsidiary features.

No. 14 was the home of Sydney Smith, clergyman, author and wit, commemorated by an London County Council plaque.