Numbers 20-32 And Attached Railings

Numbers 20-32 and attached railings form a terrace of 13 houses that make up the western side of Fitzroy Square, built around 1832-35. The houses are constructed of stucco, with a rusticated ground floor. They are four storeys high, with basement levels, and each house typically has three windows. The central seven windows project, with further windows at each end of the terrace. The ground floor openings are round-arched and linked by impost bands. Doorways feature pilaster-jambs and cornice heads; fanlights are present above the doors, some with a radial pattern, and the doors are panelled. Sash windows are set in shallow, plain stucco recesses on the upper floors, which have square-headed recessed sashes. A continuous cast-iron balcony is present to the first-floor windows. A moulded sill band runs across the second floor. The main cornice has a plain frieze below the attic storey, along with a blocking course. The central bays have four Ionic engaged columns placed in antis, rising through the first and second floors. Bays on either side have pilasters also rising through the first and second floors, with recessed tripartite sash windows; the ground floor windows in these bays are segmental-arched. Number 32 has a three-window return (blind) to Grafton Way. The interiors have not been inspected. Attached cast-iron railings with tasselled spearhead finials run along the area frontages. Cast-iron foot scrapers remain, and most have mosaic top steps. Number 21 was the home of Robert Gascoyne Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury and Prime Minister, commemorated by a GLC plaque. Number 29 was the home of George Bernard Shaw, and from 1907-11 Virginia Woolf had rooms here, marked by commemorative plaques. The terrace complements the Adam-style buildings in the square, though with a notably different design.