37, 38 AND 39, MUSEUM STREET

Three terraced houses with shops, built between 1855 and 1864 by William Finch Hill. They are constructed of stucco and represent a modified French Renaissance style. The houses are four storeys high, with three windows each, except for number 39, which has a two-window return to Gilbert Place. Numbers 37 and 38 have 19th-century shopfronts, while number 39 has a 20th-century shopfront that retains pilasters with fielded panels and roundels at the corners. Rusticated pilaster strips extend from the first to the third floor, separating each house and at the corner, and are topped with small segmental pediments. The windows are 2-pane sashes. First-floor windows are round-arched, architraved, and recessed, with architraved oculi enriched with swags above. Second-floor windows have console bracketed sill bands and segmental-arched sashes. A console bracketed cornice sits beneath the third-floor architraved sashes, which have keys. A coved cornice tops the building. The interiors have not been inspected. The group value of these houses lies in their cohesive design and contribution to the streetscape.