Royal Laundry

The Royal Laundry, located on Westbridge Road, dates from around 1725 to 1750, with alterations made circa 1818 to 1819. This group value building consists of a three-story main house flanked by two two-story cottages. The alterations involved demolishing the original front wall of the main house and setting the new front back considerably, causing the flanking cottages to project forward.

The entire group is now stuccoed. The front elevation of the main house is now three unequal bays wide, a result of 18th-century flues and stacks at the two party walls. These stacks have oversailing courses. A centrally positioned round-arched doorway is framed by fluted pilasters supporting an entablature, and it has a fanlight above. The ground floor windows on either side of the doorway feature fluted surrounds with rosettes at the upper angles. Platbands, which delineate the building's stories, project forward to the fronts of the cottages. A prominent cornice and blocking course are visible. The cottages each have a ground floor shopfront, incorporating a recessed panelled door, panelled stallriser, a display window with basket-arched lights, a fascia, and a blind box supported by consoles. A parapet with coping fronts a mansard roof, which includes a central flat-headed dormer window. On the first floor, a room in the right-hand side of the main house retains early 18th-century panelling.