79 And 81, Harley Street W1

TQ 2881 NE CITY OF WESTMINSTER HARLEY STREET, W1 45/55 (West side) 10.9.54 Nos. 79 and 81 G.V. II Terraced town houses. c.1774 Portland Estate development, No. 79 by John White in partnership with the plasterer Thomas Collins (associates of Sir William Chambers) and No. 81 by John Johnson. Stock brick with channelled stucco ground floors; slate roofs. 4 storeys and basements, No. 81 with dormered mansard. 3-window wide fronts. Semicircular arched doorways to left with vermiculated Coade stone surrounds and head keystones; panelled doors, framed sidelights and shallow recessed doorheads under fanlights with Venetian window effect. Recessed sashes, under flat gauged arches to upper floors, those of No. 81 with stucco architraves added with segmental pediments on consoles to 1st floor. 1st floor plat band; parapets with copings, No. 81 with mutule cornice below parapet. Continuous cast iron anthemion pattern 1st floor balconies. Wrought iron area railings with urn finials, No. 81 with scrollwork lampholders. Interiors retain some of the features typical of these 1st rate houses of the 1770s in Harley Street; top lit geometrical stone staircases, but with later iron balustrades; some Ionic columned or pilastered chimneypieces intact and plasterwork, mythological medallions, in No. 81 more markedly in an Adam-Wyatt manner characteristic of Johnson; etc.

Listing NGR: TQ2861481736