Numbers 7 And 8 And Attached Railings And Piers

Numbers 7 and 8, with their attached railings and piers, are a pair of semi-detached houses dating from circa 1845. They are located within Montpelier Villas in Brighton.

The houses are constructed of stucco with a slate roof. The plan is notable: each house is wider towards the rear, with the entrance located in the resulting angle, and the front and rear sections each having their own roof. The front of Number 7, facing Montpelier Villas, has a two-window range, while Number 8 has a three-window range to its return. The ground floor is decorated with banded rustication, and the first floor features long and short quoins. A flat-arched entrance is accessed by steps and includes pilasters and consoles, an overlight, and a segmental bay to the basement and ground floor, topped with a shallow dome. The basement windows have original 6/6 sash windows. A bracketed balcony with cast-iron railings and a fringed canopy is positioned over the ground-floor windows. The first-floor windows are flat-arched with blind boxes; the westernmost first-floor window on the return is blank. The rear of the houses features a full-height segmental bay with tripartite windows and margin lights to the first-floor sashes. Cornice consoles support the eaves, which have paterae in the frieze. The roof is hipped with stacks to the front and rear sections.

The interior of the houses has not been inspected.

The cast-iron railings to the entrance steps and front gardens include brackets. Square, stuccoed, corniced piers are located between each pair of houses along Montpelier Villas. The railing has architectural group value due to the uniformity of the 20 houses forming the entire Montpelier Villas, a style which is rare in Brighton. The railings were added to the listing on August 20, 1971.