Nelson House Including Railings To Steps

This is a late 18th-century shipbuilder's house, now used as offices, located on Rotherhithe Street in Southwark. The building is constructed of stock brick with stone detailing and is notable for its octagonal glazed cupola, flanked by chimney stacks, which sits behind a rebuilt parapet with a stone coping.

The exterior presents three storeys and a basement, with five bays. A curved stone staircase with wrought-iron railings leads to the front door, which is set within a projecting central stone frontispiece. The frontispiece features a Doric order, a triglyph frieze, and a cornice above a panelled door with a patterned fanlight and flanking side lights. Above the door, at the first floor, is a Venetian window with an architrave and a mask on the key of the central section, framed by an Ionic order and a dentil cornice. A curved pediment with scrolled sides sits above an oculus on the second floor. The sash windows have gauged, flat brick arches and glazing bars; those on the ground and first floors also feature bracketed sills. A stone cornice runs along the second floor. The rusticated basement section beneath the front entrance contains an original recessed door and flanking oval windows. A plain brick elevation to the dock side is embellished with a grand central timber doorcase featuring attached Doric columns, a triglyph frieze with paterae in the metopes, a mutule cornice with a key pattern on the soffit, and rusticated reveals to a panelled door with a tripartite overlight. Similar window details are present on this side.

The interior features a staircase with a cut string, turned balusters (some replaced), and a panelled dado with fluted, Ionic pilasters. An inner door to a ground-floor room on the left has a shouldered architrave, a pulvinated frieze, a modillion cornice, and a broken pediment, also with a modillion cornice. Similar detailing, but without the broken pediment, is found on other doors on the first floor. One panelled room is present on the ground floor. Moulded plaster cornices adorn the principal rooms, and marbled fireplaces with shouldered architraves, some of which have been recently stolen, are also present. The first-floor landing has a Venetian window with fluted, attached Ionic columns and a key pattern on the soffit, with a free-standing Ionic column supporting the ceiling and acting as a newel post.