3 To 22, Gloucester Crescent

A curved terrace of twenty houses, built around 1840-45 by Henry Bassett. The terrace is constructed of yellow stock brick with stucco dressings, and has slated hipped roofs with enriched slab chimney stacks. Most houses feature projecting eaves supported by shaped brackets. The architectural style is Italianate, with different designs grouped together.

The houses are two or three stories high, with semi-basements. A continuous cornice runs along the terrace at the level of the second-floor sills. All windows are stucco architraved sashes, with ground-floor windows featuring console bracketed cornices. The front doors are panelled, some with glazing and overlights.

Nos. 3 and 4 have stucco porticoes with moulded panels and pilaster soffits featuring bracket capitals. No. 3 is four stories high and has blind boxes to the first-floor windows. No. 4 has a four-story projecting tower with a stucco ground floor and quoins, featuring tripartite sash windows on the ground and first floors. The second floor has two small windows flanked by large brackets supporting a third-floor balcony with a pierced balustrade above a pair of round-arched sashes.

Nos. 5-7 have round-arched entrances recessed within bays framed by stucco pilasters supporting architraved heads. No. 5 has large brackets flanking the second-floor windows, extending across the entrance bay of No. 4.

Nos. 8-11 form a symmetrical group with projecting flanking towers, displaying loggias on the third floor supported by shaped brackets to the eaves. The doorways of Nos. 8 and 11 are recessed within bays with round-arched surrounds. Nos. 9 and 10 are centrally located, with stucco pilaster doorcases supporting cornices; round-arched windows are positioned above the doors.

Nos. 12-15 present another symmetrical group, distinguished by a projecting bracketed cornice above the second-floor windows and a central pediment with an acroterion, flanked by a parapet with balustraded panels. The entrances to Nos. 12 and 15 are recessed and framed by stucco pilasters with round arches, elaborately bracketed to support cornices. Nos. 13 and 14 are centrally located, with stucco pilaster doorcases; No. 14 includes a pediment. Round-arched windows sit above the doorways and at the second floor beneath the pediment.

Nos. 16-19 form a symmetrical group similar in style to Nos. 8-11. No. 20 features a round-arched doorway and a round-arched window above at second-floor level. No. 21 has a square-headed stucco entrance surround with a round-arched window above, accompanied by a tripartite sash window to the right. No. 22 has been partly rebuilt and altered, incorporating a mansard roof on the left-hand bays. The interiors have not been inspected.

Historically, Henry Bassett’s family were surveyors to the Southampton Estate, and the plot was purchased by Bassett from Lord Southampton at an auction of his northern estate in 1840.