20 Dartmouth Row

Late C17 house, altered in the C18 and early C19 date.

MATERIALS: stuccoed with a slate roof, hipped to both the front and rear, but concealed by a parapet to the front, with brick chimneystacks.

PLAN: three storeys and three bays on the east side, three storeys and two bays on the west side. The lower height of the north bay suggests it was constructed at a different time from the rest of the house.

EXTERIOR: the principal east front has a stone parapet and there are three 6-over-6 pane sash windows in near-flush box frames on each floor. The windows of the north bay are at a lower height than the others. The entrance is through a ten-panelled door in the north bay under an early C19 elliptical-arched wooden porch which has a leaded roof with circular and teardrop motifs in the tympanum supported on delicate arched trellis panels. There is an attached stuccoed boundary wall with a stone coping and two square piers, one small with a flat coping, one large with a pyramidal coping, flanking a pedestrian entrance.

The rear or west side has a hipped roof over a wide three-storey south bay which has a cambered headed tri-partite sash window of 12-over-12 panes to the second floor and a multi-pane curved bay with a moulded cornice and base supported on carved brackets to the first floor. The ground floor has a glazed verandah. The north bay, lower and narrower but also of three storeys, has a penticed roof, a 6-over-6 sash window on the second floor and a slightly-projecting two-storey extension with a flat roof and a 6-over-6 pane sash window on the first floor.

INTERIOR: not inspected (2015), but according to the 1930 RCHME Survey the front ground floor room has panelling in two heights with a dado-rail and coved cornice. Between the passage and the hall is a round arch with fluted pilasters on the responds and moulded imposts; the soffit is carved with a bird and scrolled foliage. The rooms on the first floor have plain panelling.