69-79, NIGHTINGALE LANE SW12

This is a terrace of fifteen houses, numbered 69 to 79 Nightingale Lane, Tooting, London SW12. Built in 1879 by T.E. Colcutt, the terrace is arranged in symmetrical pairs. Each pair is four major bays wide, with three storeys and a basement. The tall, gabled outer bays are advanced to frame the walls and roofs of the inner bays. The houses are constructed of red brick with elaborate terracotta dressings of the Loine Chateau style, stone dressings to the returns and boundary walls, and tile roofs.

Canted bow windows extend to the ground floor of the two inner bays of each pair, featuring triplets of sash windows within cambered heads. The piers of the bows are adorned with pilasters rising to fanciful entablatures, which support fretted parapets at first floor level. The entrances, some now altered, are within round-headed arches springing from half-piers in the outer bays. On the first floor, the inner bays have pairs of windows within cambered heads, topped by a continuous balustrade. The outer bays feature richly-moulded 'Ipswich' oriels, each containing three sash windows within cambered heads; those at the wings are of quadrant section. Pilasters on the oriel piers rise to a cornice band that breaks around the entire pair of houses. Above the cornice band, each oriel supports a balustraded parapet at second floor level. The inner bays are stepped back behind the balustrade and feature tile hanging beneath a moulded coving. Each bay on the second floor is pierced by a double casement.

The steeply pitched roofs rise to ridge tiles and needle spirelets. The outer bays have pairs of sashes within cambered heads, framed by a reticulation of pilaster strips and cornice bands, rising into shouldered gables containing paired moulded plaques, and crowned with moulded pediments. Similar detailing masks the gable ends of the returns to the outer houses, numbers 69 and 79. The central stack of each pair has ribbed flanks cut by a string and a main cornice, rising to oversailing courses. Some of the end stacks are set diagonally.