3-5, Smith Square Sw1

Nos. 3 to 5 Smith Square are terraced houses built in 1726 as part of Sir James Smith's development of the square. They are constructed of brown brick with tiled roofs and feature three storeys, basements, and dormered mansards. Each house has three windows across the front, with No. 5 having a long five-window return to Lord North Street. Nos. 3 and 4 have doorways on the left, with wooden doorcases that include carved scroll brackets supporting cornice-hoods; No. 4 has thin pilasters against rustications. No. 5 has its entrance on the Lord North Street return, featuring a doorcase with engaged Ionic columns, a dentil cornice, and a pediment. The windows have recessed glazing bar sashes under flat gauged arches with stuccoed reveals. There is a brick plat band above the ground floor and a similar plat band over the second floor of No. 3, with a parapet and coping. No. 5 has a stone tablet beneath the second-floor right-hand window, inscribed "Smith Square 1726". The properties are flanked by fine wrought iron area railings with scrollwork at the entrances, and a wrought iron lamp bracket curves out over the pavement from the corner standard of the railings with Lord North Street. The interiors, despite some alterations and restorations, retain significant original features such as panelling, passage halls, and dog leg staircases with cut and carved strings that continue to the top floor with closed strings and turned balusters. These houses are part of an exceptionally well-preserved early 18th-century enclave alongside Lord North, Barton, and Cowley Streets.