Nos 40-46 Brook Street and No 40 South Molton Lane with attached basement area railings

This is a row of four terraced houses at 40–46 Brook Street, built in 1898–1899 by the architectural firm Balfour & Turner for the Grosvenor Estate. The design is carefully detailed and inventive, inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement. The houses are now converted to offices. To the rear stands the former stable and coach-house mews building, known as 40 South Molton Lane, built in 1899 as an addition to the Brook Street houses, also by Balfour and Turner, in a simplified domestic Arts and Crafts style.

40–46 (EVEN) BROOK STREET

The buildings are constructed of red brick laid in English Garden Wall bond, with lavish Portland stone dressings. Most windows retain their original six-over-six horned sash frames. The roofs are tiled, and tall chimneys with canted corners are banded in brick and stone. The rainwater goods are original. The rear elevation and stacks are of stock brick with red-brick dressings. Original glazed doors survive at numbers 44 and 46; number 46 retains its fanlight.

The building occupies a triangular corner site, with house entrances on Brook Street, which runs from west to east, forming an acute angle with South Molton Lane to the east; the corner is marked by a tower. Three of the original houses had a rectangular south-north plan, with the corner house, number 40, having a triangular plan, including the corner tower.

Each house is built over four storeys with attic and basement, with stone bands defining the storeys, and a deep projecting cornice. The frontage to Brook Street has an ordered but asymmetrical appearance. Eleven windows wide, the fenestration does not follow a consistent pattern from one house to the next, arranged under five banded crow-stepped gables—each having two windows—with paired gables to number 40. The ground and first floors are partially enclosed by an asymmetrical stone projection, unified by a recessed panelled frieze running above the ground floor. The structure provides porches to the entrances supported by stylised Doric columns with octagonal shafts on bases, and double-height bay windows to numbers 42–46, with a second-floor balcony surrounded by a wrought-iron balustrade. The bay windows are linked by arches, one framing a first-floor balcony. The polygonal corner tower has stone quoins to the angles, and the stone banding continues into the tower from the frontage, whilst the panelled frieze appears as individual panels between the ground- and first-floor windows. Above the first floor is a deep projecting cornice on sturdy corbels. The parapet has raised corners suggesting merlons. The windows to the ground and second floor of the tower hold casements with leaded lights, now painted. The north-east elevation, to South Molton Lane, has stone-framed windows with two pairs to each floor, and an additional central window to the fourth floor. There are modern bars to the ground-floor windows. There is a side entrance to the south with a six-panelled door, reached by late-20th-century metal steps bridging the area. The 'public' exterior of the building is completed by a further elevation angled to the north beneath a gable, with angled stone quoins framing a recessed face with paired windows. The stock-brick rear elevation of the building has red brick surrounding the window openings and forming quoins to the rear stacks. The basement and ground floor project, leaving a narrow passage between the rear of the building and 40 South Molton Lane.

The building is surrounded by a basement area, lined with white-glazed bricks—brown to the building itself—and accessed by stairs from the pavement. The area is screened by iron railings with ball finials, between wrought-iron panels. On the south elevation, in front of the gate to the area of number 46, a painted sign indicates that the basement was used as a wartime shelter.

Interior

The conversion of the four separate houses to a single office space has resulted in the plan of the building being altered, with numerous openings made in the party walls between the houses, and reconfiguration of space. However, the form of the historic building remains legible, with three of the four original open-well stairs remaining—the stairwell of number 42 now contains a lift shaft. Some good rooms survive, and there are other noteworthy features scattered through the building; five-panelled doors, architraves, moulded cornices and skirtings survive well throughout, though there are also replacements.

The part of the building formerly comprising number 40 is the most intact, and on the ground floor, the decorative scheme is largely complete. The entrance lobby has a plasterwork roundel to the ceiling, together with a moulded cornice, dado and skirting. There is a small chimneypiece with a plain moulded timber surround, marble cheeks and hearth, and a cast-iron register grate with Gothic detailing. This leads to the octagonal stair hall, with its chequered marble floor and plasterwork ceiling. The stair here has unpainted balusters, lacking the differentiated starter-newel; the plainer post is thought to be a modern replacement. Beneath the stair is a cupboard with its original doors. The chimneypiece has husk drops to the jambs and a corbelled mantelshelf; above is an overmantel mirror in a neoclassical surround. The grate is decorated with a scrolled pediment. Doors leading to the principal rooms have overdoors with scrolled pediments over swags. The room to the north, with canted corners, has rococo plasterwork to the ceiling, but has lost its fireplace. The corner room, within the tower, has ceiling plasterwork in a rococo pattern with scrolling acanthus; the eared wall mouldings may be modern; the elaborate chimneypiece has an eared surround, and a pulvinated frieze with a central swag, beneath a moulded shelf. To the west of the entrance the front room has neoclassical plasterwork to the ceiling, and a neoclassical chimneypiece with palmette and anthemion to the frieze. An œil-de-bœuf window in the north wall lights the stair. On the first floor the octagonal stair landing retains plasterwork mouldings to the ceiling. The tower room on this floor has a rich decorative scheme with plasterwork mouldings to the ceiling and walls, and an elaborate overdoor with a central urn; the chimneypiece in this room has acanthus corbels and a frieze with floral roundels. A blocked archway, with narrow Ionic pilasters, formerly led into the adjacent triangular room, with its balcony. The principal stair in this part of the building reaches only to the second floor, beyond which the upper floors are accessed by a plain secondary stair to the north-east.

The stairs of numbers 44 and 46 both have unpainted newels and handrails; the balusters are turned, the newel-posts have a flattened bun finial, and the starter-newels are panelled; from the second floor the stair is simplified, with stick balusters and narrower newel-posts with ball finials. The entrance hall, rear passage, stair hall and stairwell of number 46 retains original recessed panelling, and a moulded cornice. The rear ground-floor rooms, formerly belonging to numbers 44 and 46, have a vaulted ceiling with central glazed skylights of painted glass. On the first floor, the large central front room, formerly belonging to number 42, retains plasterwork to the ceiling and a bolection-moulded chimneypiece. On the second floor, the south-west room formerly belonging to number 46, retains a substantial panelled wooden firesurround. The central room, formerly belonging to number 42, has a compartmented ceiling, but has lost its fireplace; the room above has a similar ceiling.

The two upper floors have few historic features throughout the building, and are of lesser interest internally. The basement is also thoroughly modernised, though the original stairs remain; the north-western room (the current plant room), retains a kitchen fireplace, and to the west there is a strongroom with a Ratner 'patent thief resisting door'; there are also original doors to the surrounding basement areas. Apart from these features, the internal basement is also of lesser interest.

40 SOUTH MOLTON LANE

This subsidiary building is constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond with glazed brown brick to the ground floor. The roof is tiled and the windows are timber mullioned windows with casements, some retaining historic glass, though some have replacement frames. There are two tall brick stacks with splayed caps.

The building stands immediately to the north of 40–46 Brook Street, on a west-east alignment, with its entrance elevation facing Davies Mews, and its canted north-eastern elevation making the corner with South Molton Lane.

The principal elevation is of three bays, with a wide carriage entrance to the west, and a central stable entrance, each with a timber bressumer, and replacement folding doors below multi-paned transom lights. The sides of the central entrance have channels cut for a roller grille; the curved bricks to the sides of the western entrance have been cut. To the east is a doorway with a segmental head, holding its original four-panelled door. Sheltering the openings is a shallow tiled canopy. To the first floor, there is a central four-light casement, with two-light casements to the outer bays; all the windows have transom lights. The attic has three dormer windows. The roof angles to cover the gabled side elevation, with an additional narrow bay turning a further 120 degrees. There is a segmental-arched doorway to the north, containing a three-panelled door; the windows on this elevation—one beside the door, two at the first floor, and one to the attic—have segmental heads. The narrow bay has a single first-floor window. The blind rear elevation is faced in white-glazed brick.

The south-east corner of the building, linking 40–46 Brook Street and 40 South Molton Lane, is a single-storey block, also in red brick, but with stone dressings, with a canted bay to the north-east. Two stone-framed windows are linked by moulded stone string-courses, and there is a moulded stone capping to the parapet. A deep flying buttress descends from the rear elevation of 40–46 Brook Street, to rest on the parapet of the linking block. There is a basement area here, lined with glazed bricks as at 40–46 Brook Street. The area is screened by iron railings with elongated vase-shaped finials.

Inspection of the ground-floor interior spaces was restricted. The walls of the large former stable area are lined with glazed bricks—brown below the dado and cream-coloured above—with some areas having later tiles. The majority of the area is floored with narrow bricks laid diagonally to feed drainage channels; the front is floored with tiles laid in a herringbone pattern, thought to be later. There is a suspended ceiling. The area may formerly have been divided to provide a tack-room to the east, accessed directly from the street; a stack rises in the south-east corner, though no evidence of a former fireplace was seen. A former doorway between the stable and the coach-house is blocked, being tiled over on the stable side; on the coach-house side the segmental-headed opening remains. The walls of the coach-house area retain their complete glazed brick scheme. To the south-west, and currently largely obscured by the suspended ceiling, is a pitched lantern, bringing light from the gap between the buildings. The floor is stone.

The linking block contains a short stair leading downwards from 40–44 Brook Street, and leads to an enclosed stair with a modern handrail rising against the north-east wall of the stable, to the former lodgings above, with access from the street via the north-east door.

On the first and attic floors, the former lodgings have been converted to office space, and few historic features remain, the space having been reconfigured, and chimneypieces removed. The stair between these floors does remain, with turned balusters and newel-posts with ball finials. Apart from the stair, these areas are of lesser interest.

The basement, which was not inspected, can be accessed from the basement of 40–46 Brook Street. There are two rooms, with walls of exposed brick. In the south-west corner is a steep timber stair, connecting with the area beneath the lantern.