10, Portman Street W1

1900/1/10376 PORTMAN STREET W1 04-DEC-06 10

II Terraced house. Mid-late 1760s. Part of the Portman Estate, builder unknown. Altered mid-C19. Brick faced in later stucco.

PLAN: Four storeys above basement, two bays to front. Rear part of house may have been raised by a storey. The building occupies a trapedoizal plot, tapering to the front. Internal plan comprises entrance hall to right with stair to rear; front and rear room.

EXTERIOR: Channelled stucco to ground floor. Mid-C19 moulded stucco architraves to windows; those to first floor with bracketed cornices. Deep moulded cornice to parapet. Sashes later C19 or C20. Front door modern. C19 area railings. Return elevation to front blind, two bays to rear. Roof converted to mansard in 2006.

INTERIOR: Hall with moulded cornice, on party wall only. Well staircase, partly enclosed by partition between ground floor and basement, is trapezoidal in plan, lit by lantern (glass modern). Close-string stair with turned newels, slender turned balusters and mahogany handrail. Some original joinery, including six-panelled doors, architraves, shutters, and a dado to first-floor room. Some simple moulded cornices also survive in second-floor rear room.

HISTORY: The Portman Estate was originally an area of 270 acres stretching from Oxford Street to Regents Canal, land acquired by Sir William Portman in 1532. The area was still open fields in 1749, depicted on John Roque's map of London. By 1799, however, the map by Richard Horwood shows newly-laid out streets around Portman Square, just north of Oxford Street. The houses were built by private and speculative builders on leaseholds, although the Estate dictated the lines of streets and the open spaces. Portman Street dates from the 1760s and followed the laying out of Portman Square in 1764.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: Of special interest as a 1760s terraced house, which retains its original plan, stair and some internal fittings and joinery. It is one of only a few C18 houses on the Portman Estate to the S and W of Portman Square to survive WWII bombing and post-war redevelopment. It forms a cohesive group with nos. 7-9 Portman Street, which although unlisted, are of the same date. These houses have been redeveloped behind their facades.

SOURCES: B Cherry and N Pevsner, The Buildings of England, London 3: North West, p 652.