33 and 34 Surrey Street

MATERIALS: stock brick laid in Flemish bond, No 34 painted; slate roofs.

PLAN: two-room deep with closet wings, altered on upper floors by insertion of transverse connecting corridors. The basements connect to transverse brick vaults, dated by analysis of the brick to c1664-1700. The vaults at one time connected to the Roman Bath (at No. 5 Strand Lane). Evidence of the blocked doorway survives. One of the vaults contains a copper in the north-east corner. A late-C19 extension to the rear of No. 33, extending over the southern part of the vaults, is not included in the listing.

EXTERIOR: three storeys high above a basement with dormered mansard roofs behind a parapet and a central chimney stack. The front elevations are three bays wide with stepped entrances on the left-hand side. The doorcases have pilasters and consoles carrying entablatures with dentil cornices and fluted friezes; No. 34 having a round arch. The doors are recessed in panelled reveals; No. 33 with a rectangular fanlight, No. 34 with a semi-circular fanlight. Both buildings have recessed sash windows under flat gauged-brick arches. The upper-floor sashes of No. 34 retain their glazing bars. The first floors have a brick platband and the parapet has stone copings. The houses are fronted by cast-iron area railings with flaming urn finials.

INTERIOR: the houses are now linked with each other and the buildings on either side to form a continuance of Kings College. No. 33 retains its open-well stair with open strings, ramped handrail and turned balusters. The stair continues into the basement, with stick balusters and turned newel post, although it has been capped at attic level. The stair of No. 34 has been replaced. The hall of No. 34 has a pilastered arch and a bracketed cornice; No. 33 has plainer mouldings and retains wooden panelling beneath the stair. Other cornices survive in some of the rooms of both houses.

MAPPING NOTE: the subterranean vaults which are part of this listed building are not mapped.