15 and 16 Bruce Grove (Elm Place) with 15A Bruce Grove

Pair of houses dating from between 1789 and 1798, with later alterations and additions.

These attached houses are constructed of stock brick with brick chimney stacks. Numbers 15 and 16 Bruce Grove face east, with number 15 to the south and number 16 to the north. The central block has hipped M-shaped roofs running north to south, divided by rows of brick chimney stacks. Other sections have flat roofs.

The houses are three storeys with basement. The main block presents a symmetrical frontage four windows wide (two windows to each house), with an eaves cornice and blocking course, and a string-course beneath the first-floor windows. The window openings are dressed with gauged flat brick arches and hold six-over-six sash frames, with three-over-three sash frames on the shorter second-floor openings. Ground-floor windows are set within rounded-arched recesses. The doorways sit in recessed outer entrance bays at the junction with the main block, approached by five or six steps and set within timber porches with Doric columns; these porches appear to be late twentieth or early twenty-first century replacements. The original iron balustrades on the steps have been lost, and the openings now hold later glazed doors. A lower second doorway has been inserted beside the doorway of number 15, with a bracketed hood, providing access to 15A beneath a reduced hood. Beside the doorway of number 16 is a low arched recess. Both sections have large tripartite first-floor windows above the string-course. Between 1980 and 2006, both numbers 15 and 16 were given mansard roofs with dormer windows.

To the south of number 15, the area once occupied by a carriage-house and stable is now number 15A. This has undergone considerable change and was substantially or entirely rebuilt around 1985 with the addition of a rectangular rear block. Number 15A reflects the style of the original buildings, with sash windows beneath gauged flat brick arches, the ground-floor windows set in round-arched recesses. To the north of number 16 is an attached block thought to date from the early 1980s, on the site of the former carriage-house and stable range. This block is also Georgian in style, with a bracketed door hood, sash windows, and string course.

To the rear, the fenestration of the main blocks reflects that on the front elevation. There is a single-storey bow, probably early nineteenth century, spanning the ground floor of number 15. The outer blocks originally had doorways set symmetrically against the main blocks, with timber porches on slender columns; the porches have been removed and the doorways converted to window openings. There is a single window to both ground and first floors, that to number 15 being tripartite, with a string course running beneath the first-floor windows. The rear of 15A has a wing to the south, reflecting the form of the building as it was in the late nineteenth century, with a small yard to the north and a large lower extension to the west.

The subdivision of the houses into flats will inevitably have resulted in alteration and reconfiguration of the interior. Publicly available internal photographs show that historic features do survive in places, including some window shutters, architraves, cornicing and skirting.