92-96, Twickenham Road

Terrace of three stock brick houses in Twickenham Road, Isleworth, dating from the late 1830s, with minor later additions.

The three two-storey houses are unified by a single shallow pitched slate roof with brick chimneystacks. Built in stock brick laid in Flemish bond, they are composed of No. 92 as a double-fronted property and Nos. 94 and 96 as single-fronted houses. No. 96 has a further bay recessed from the main façade to the south, which contains a side door.

Each house features a simple door recessed into the façade to create a porch, reached by a short flight of stone steps. The original doors survive, along with five-pane fanlights. The doorways are elegantly detailed with console brackets supporting a moulded entablature; the doorway to No. 92 additionally has a pair of columns with fluted capitals in antis. A broad platband painted white divides the ground and first floors.

The windows display varied survival. Those in all but one ground floor window of No. 96 and one on the side elevation have been replaced, as have the upper storey windows of Nos. 92 and 94 in the late twentieth century. Other windows, which are casements, were replaced at some point in the nineteenth or early twentieth century. Early nineteenth-century valences survive on the windows of Nos. 94 and 96. A wider window has been inserted to the ground floor of No. 96, probably in the nineteenth century. The brickwork is largely intact, and the properties feature gauged flat brick arches to the windows. To the rear, later nineteenth or twentieth-century extensions have been added to all houses. Nos. 92 and 96 have had French windows inserted into what was the rear external wall, though Georgian sash windows survive elsewhere on these elevations, including a horizontal sliding sash on No. 96.

Interior features show very good survival in the two houses that were inspected. No. 96 retains its staircase, doors, three fireplaces and overall plan form. The fireplaces have simple wooden surrounds and mantelshelves carried on brackets. The dog-leg staircase has plain stick balusters, handrail and slender turned newel posts.

No. 92 displays a similar level of survival, though its features are slightly grander, befitting a larger property. Three fireplaces survive in the upstairs bedrooms, including one of marble and one with a timber surround featuring classical paterae and fluted pilasters. The staircase terminates in a curved wooden handrail, with the first floor newel post in a turned design. Several iron balusters survive, though wooden stick balusters predominate. The hall contains two timber pilasters with fluted capitals matching those of the external doorway.

Isleworth was formerly a village of long habitation which in the eighteenth century was home to many market gardens producing fruit and vegetables for London. This period saw residential development of the village, and several Georgian buildings remain on Twickenham Road, including the late eighteenth-century Bush House and early nineteenth-century Nos. 99-107 and 173. An adjoining terrace carries a plaque reading 'Silverhall Place 1839', and Nos. 92-96 Twickenham Road very likely dates from this date or just before. Stylistically it is typical of the final phases of Georgian domestic housing, with shallow pitched roof, broad stringcourse and gauged flat brick arches to the windows, several retaining small valences.

The terrace is a good example of middle-class housing of the period, built with nods to classically-inspired designs popular in more upmarket developments. The carefully gauged flat brick arches, doorways with moulded entablatures (including one with two columns with fluted capitals), window valences and platband are distinguishing features. The very good survival of interior features—simple staircases, architraves, doors and several fireplaces—along with the subtle elements of external ornamentation make it comparable to other listed terraces of the late Georgian period.