3, Robert Street Wc2

No. 3 Robert Street is an end-of-terrace town house built between 1768 and 1774 by Robert Adam, with assistance from his brothers James and William, as part of the innovative Adelphi development. The building is constructed of stock brick with stucco dressings, and has a later 19th-century stucco facing to the ground floor, with a slate roof. It forms the terminal house, originally designed with a formal front towards the river as a projecting wing intended to balance the now-demolished No. 1 Adam Street. This framing of the likewise demolished Adelphi Terrace makes it the sole survivor of a monumental riverside composition.

The three-storey-and-attic elevation to Robert Street incorporates seven windows, with the three windows towards the river treated as part of a “pavilion” front, which has a three-window wide pedimented south front. An off-centre doorway features a Venetian arch with a fanlight over a panelled door and side lights. The upper floors have recessed glazing bar sash windows with flat gauged arches. A moulded stone string course runs over the second floor, continuing from Nos. 1 and 2, topped by a parapet with coping. The three river-end bays on the upper floors are part of the pavilion design of the river front, featuring giant pilasters coupled to the corners, decorated with distinctive anthemion enrichment. These pilasters carry an entablature above which the attic continues the articulation of the giant order with panelled pilaster strips, topped with a pediment and die-acroteria, mirroring the design of No. 7 Adam Street. Anthemion pattern cast iron balconettes are present on the first-floor windows, along with wrought iron area railings.

The interior, though altered in its finishes and with a later staircase inserted, retains features such as Doric column screens to the hall and first-floor landing. The ground-floor and first-floor rooms at the river end have segmental bowed west walls and apsed north walls, with marble fireplaces, shallow elliptical plasterwork ceilings and some original mahogany doors retained in enriched architraves. Robert Adam resided at No. 3 from 1778 to 1785.