Numbers 4 And 5 And Attached Railings

Numbers 4 and 5 Charterhouse Square are a pair of early 18th-century terraced houses with later 18th-century doorcases. They are constructed of yellow brick with red brick dressings. The houses are four storeys high with a basement, and have a three-window range to number 4 and a three-and-a-half-window range to number 5. They demonstrate group value.

The houses have flat-arched entrances to the inner bays with paired wooden doorcases featuring panelled pilasters, an enriched entablature, garlands above the pilasters, an overlight, and a panelled door of original design to number 4. All windows are flat-arched with heads of gauged red brick and red brick dressings, set almost flush with the wall. There are moulded brick storey bands to the ground, first, and second floors, and a plain brick storey band to the third floor. Chamfered quoins of gauged brick are present on the outer walls of the pair. Number 5 has cast-iron balconies to the first-floor windows and narrow outer windows to all floors, which are blank to the first and third floors. A parapet tops the building. Cast-iron railings with spike finials are present to the area.

Inside number 5, the entrance hall has moulded panelling and a plaster cornice. A notable feature is the ornately carved staircase, featuring a ramped handrail, square newel posts with panelled drops, and carved balusters - elongated vase form to the ground, first, and second floors, and barleysugar balusters above. The staircase has an open string to the ground, first, and second floors, supported by scrolled consoles decorated with acanthus on their undersides. Between the second and third floors, the string is closed and decorated with waterleaf mouldings. The ground-floor front room has been made shallower and retains some of the original modillion cornice. The first-floor front room and the ground-floor front room were decorated in what appears to be the early 20th century with neo-Jacobean panelling and fireplaces of comparatively poor quality. The second-floor front room has original panelling that has been altered, and a cornice. The back rooms to the ground, first, and second floors retain original panelling and cornices, each with a corner fireplace. The ground-floor fireplace is of late 18th or early 19th-century date, with a matching grate. Closets on the ground, first, and second floors are panelled with cornices, featuring an early 19th-century cast-iron grate on the ground floor and a good late 18th- or early 19th-century Gothick cast-iron grate on the first floor. The third floor was not inspected.