2, John Street

This is a grand house, built circa 1840 in the centre of Ryde, designed in an Italian palazzo style. The three-storey building is faced with stone coursed to imitate bricks, with rendered dressings and decorative details. Vermiculated pilasters are prominent on the front facade, with heavier detailing on the ground floor. A heavy dentil cornice runs along the top. There are sill courses to the windows on each floor, and a stepped plinth with a rusticated band.

The front has three windows. The second floor features recessed sash windows with original glazing bars, set in architrave surrounds with guttae detailing below the sill cornice. The first floor, or piano nobile, has full-height round-headed recessed windows with modern casements in the lower halves, flanked by Doric pilasters with architrave mouldings. This surround is doubled, with a blind strip between. Each window has a blind balustrade with its base projecting from the sill course. The two ground floor windows are similar to those on the first floor, but with a flat entablature and guttae detailing. Cast iron Anthemion window boxes are present.

The centre of the ground floor is occupied by a heavy, enclosed stucco porch, which detracts from the palazzo effect. It features engaged Doric columns to the front and half pilasters to the wall, along with a frieze, cornice, and a balustrade above, with ball finials on the corner piers. The porch has recessed double doors with moulded panels, a semi-circular fanlight, and is flanked by Doric pilasters with a moulded arch above.

The main front is flanked by recessed blind bays, with windows to the side. The eastern bay is rendered, while the western bay is of coursed rubble, with the cornice and sill bands carried over from the main front. Rusticated pilasters are on the southern angles, and brick quoins are on the northern side.

Numbers 2 to 7 (inclusive) form a group.