138 Kensington Church Street

This is a three-bay house built between 1736 and 1737, with significant alterations in the late 18th century, refurbishment around 1820-1830, and further work in the later 19th century, culminating in a refurbishment in 2013. From the late 1970s until his death in 2011, it was the home and studio of the artist Lucian Freud.

The front of the house is constructed of buff-brown brick with red brick dressings, while the rear is rendered and lined to resemble ashlar. The roof is slate and of mansard design. The house has three storeys, a basement, and an attic within the mansard. The front elevation has an entrance to the right and an internal stack to the left.

The ground floor windows and taller first floor windows, which break through the brick plat band, have nine-over-nine pane horned sashes. Smaller upper floor windows have six-over-six pane sashes. All windows are slightly recessed within narrow architraves and are set within flat, gauged, red brick arches. The entrance is approached by steps from street level and is recessed beneath a round-arched opening in red brick, featuring a four-panelled door within a reeded architrave with moulded paterae at the corners and beneath a fanlight. The rear elevation has two window bays, with the upper floors projecting over the ground floor, which has French doors. First and upper floor windows are six-over-six and eight-over-eight pane sashes, some horned, and a tall first floor casement, all beneath slightly cambered arches. The mansard roof features 20th-century horned sashes and casements on both the front and rear elevations. Iron railings sit atop a low parapet wall to the front.

The interior of the ground and first floor rooms includes dado panelling and shallow moulded cornices. Door and window architraves throughout the house are reeded with moulded paterae at the angles; doors include a six-panel door on the first floor. Windows have panelled linings and shutters with stays, catches, and hinges. First floor rooms feature moulded or reeded marble chimneypieces with paterae at the corners, some with cast iron grates. The basement contains barrel-vaulted cellars with slate slab shelves on brick piers.