No. 45 Pont Street

No. 45 Pont Street

This is a red-brick townhouse on the Cadogan Estate, constructed in the late 19th century to the strict material requirements imposed on all new buildings there. The house occupies a generous corner plot facing north onto Pont Street and east onto Cadogan Square, filling the full depth of the site. It comprises three storeys with a mansard attic lit by dormers, a basement with area, and cast-iron area railings.

The exterior employs a classical interpretation of the Queen Anne style, executed in two types of red brick to create tonal contrast between walls and architectural dressings. The roof is Westmorland slate. Windows are timber sliding sashes with horns, typically arranged six-over-six, with flat heads in a Georgian manner. First-floor windows have rubbed-brick architraves with cornices and keystones.

The front elevation is dominated by a three-storey, three-bay frontispiece occupying approximately two-thirds of the width, featuring a central enclosed entrance porch, a first-floor balcony with stone balustrade, and a third-storey pediment. The first-floor French windows have been altered with slightly raised cills and replaced lower sashes. The eastern third of the front is occupied by a wide brick chimneystack. The main east elevation extends six bays wide, with windows grouped in two sets of three by giant brick pilasters. The southern portion of this elevation is treated as a separate building, with three bays and mezzanine levels above ground and first floors. The third storey is treated as a tall attic storey with parapet, above a plain brick cornice.

Internally, the building displays an elaborate neo-Classical decorative scheme, most fully expressed in the principal rooms on the ground and first floors. Interior doors are six-panel carved mahogany with elaborately carved pedimented architraves, and mahogany double doors with panelled cases and carved architraves link the principal rooms on the first floor. The sweeping principal stair, which connects ground and first floors only, features a decorative wrought-iron balustrade and mahogany handrail. The principal rooms retain richly decorative plaster cornices, wall panels, dados and skirtings, some carved. Windows have panelled shutters and ground-floor windows include window seats. Ceilings feature Adamesque plasterwork, and most original chimney pieces survive, including two mirrored over-mantles on the first floor. The former ballroom retains a number of original wall mirrors.

A secondary stair runs the full height of the building south of the principal stair, and a service stair to the far south links the service areas above basement level between ground and third floors. A lift has been inserted to the north. Second-floor rooms have elaborately carved architraves to the hall, carved six-panel doors, carved window architraves, panelled shutters, decorative plaster cornices and original chimney pieces. Third-floor detailing is much simpler, with moulded but uncarved joinery, no plasterwork cornices and more modest chimney pieces. Large original painted timber cupboards survive in some rooms. Basement survivals include a cast-iron range and servants' board.

Spike-headed area railings run around the north and east sides of the building.