82, NEW CAVENDISH STREET W1 (See details for further address information)

This is a substantial group of large, terraced townhouses built between 1770 and 1776 by Robert and James Adam, with No. 18 completed by John Hobcroft. They were constructed as a speculative development on the Portland Estate. The houses are primarily of stock brick with channelled stucco to the ground floors, though Nos. 20 and 18 are entirely stuccoed. They have concealed slate roofs. The facades are generally uniform, featuring generously proportioned, stylistically plain elevations, with No. 22 slightly projecting. The buildings rise four storeys (the top floor acting as an attic) over basements, and each has a four-window front.

No. 16 has an architraved doorway with a pediment on consoles, set in front of a shallow, two-storey canted bay likely added during early 19th-century alterations. No. 18 features a Roman Doric column doorway with a triglyph frieze and mutule cornice, double-panelled doors with guilloche mouldings within panelled reveals, accompanied by a fluted doorhead that extends as an impost moulding to the fanlight arch. Number 20 has a shallow porch in the second bay from the left, distinguished by fluted columns and wall pilasters of the Tower of the Winds order, a festooned urn frieze and cornice, a double-panelled door, a fluted doorhead, and a plain fanlight. The entrance to No. 22 similarly incorporates elements of the Tower of the Winds order, along with a swag and rounded-head frieze to the entablature, a panelled door in a pilaster surround, a fluted doorhead, Vitruvian scroll imposts and a patterned fanlight. The entrance to No. 82 New Cavendish Street also uses a fluted pilaster Tower of the Winds order doorway with a rosette-studded frieze above the entablature.

Upper floors have recessed sash windows, with flat, gauged arches above. No. 18 has shallow architraves to ground and first-floor windows, with cornices on consoles to the first-floor windows. A stucco plat band and sill band mark the first floor, with a cornice above the second floor and an attic cornice with a blocking course. No. 16 has a full-height shallow canted bay and bow to its return. Anthemion-pattern cast iron balconettes are present on the first floor of No. 20. No. 18 retains flambé urn finialed area railings, while the others have simple spiked railings.

The interiors are notable for their fine Adam design, including top-lit stone geometrical staircases with wrought iron balustrades, delicate plasterwork friezes, ceilings and wall medallions, inset painted panels to ceilings, and statuary marble chimneypieces. Number 16 has undergone neo-Adam refurbishment before the First World War on the first floor, with a renewal of the main staircase in an Adam style by Lord Gerald Wellesley between 1928 and 1930. No. 26 was formerly the residence of Charles, 3rd Earl of Stanhope.