Long Row (Building Numbers 1/124-132) And Attached Walls Spithead House

LONG ROW AND SPITHEAD HOUSE, THE PARADE

A terrace of 9 dockyard officials' houses, now part offices and part accommodation, with attached garden walls. Built 1715–19, probably by the master shipwright, and now grade II* listed.

The terrace was originally constructed to house the principal dockyard officials, such as the Master Shipwright and Master Attendant. When the Admiral Superintendent—formerly the Navy Board's Commissioner—was displaced by the Post Admiral from Admiralty House, the south end of the terrace, No. 9 (Spithead House), was enlarged and remodelled in 1832 to form his residence. Stuccoed and porches were added around 1833. Later alterations have been made, but the building retains its Early Georgian character and represents one of a fine series of dockyard terraces. It is significant in the national context of terraced-house development, pre-dating such celebrated examples as Queen Square in Bath.

The terrace is built of red brick with stuccoed front and sides, concealing a slate roof with stuccoed brick chimneys. It comprises 3 storeys above a basement. The central and end houses (Nos 1, 5 and 9) project slightly. Most houses have a double-depth plan with front offices and lateral stairs, with a rear service range around a courtyard. The outer houses form mirror-image semi-detached pairs.

Each of the main houses presents 5 symmetrical bays with a central entrance. The basement has segmental-arched windows, some louvred and some with small-pane casements. The ground floor originally had 12-pane sashes in reveals with projecting sills; the second floor has shorter unequally-hung 9-pane sashes. Many ground-floor windows and some others have been replaced by 6-pane sashes. Above runs a parapet with a recess over each window and flat coping. Entrances are approached by stone steps with replacement iron railings. Wooden porches, with paired pilasters supporting deep entablatures with cornices and blocking courses, frame half-glazed double doors with glazing bars and 3-pane overlights, and 6-pane side-windows. The original inner doors are of 6 raised and fielded panels with a 3-pane light at the top.

No. 9 (Spithead House) is distinguished by bracketed architraves to its windows, and an eaves band with cornice instead of a parapet, as well as cornices to chimneys. Its entrance portico on the right return features paired fluted columns, an entablature with blocking course, and a late 20th-century glazed roof. A set-back 3-bay section to the right has 5 windows to the ground floor and 3 above, with the outer first-floor windows set in corbelled canted bays. A lower 2-storey wing extends to the right, with eight first-floor windows (one blind). The left return of No. 1 has a side porch. The rear elevation is largely as originally built, in brick with segmental-arched windows fitted with 18-pane sashes on the ground floor and smaller 12-pane sashes to the second floor. Central round-arched stair windows have keystones. Various later additions have been made to the rear.

The interiors retain some original features. Panelled doors, wall panelling, and panelled window reveals with shutters survive in several rooms. Marble fireplaces, probably of the early to mid-19th century, have pilasters and roundels at the corners. Cornices and moulded architraves with acorn and oak-leaf decorative motifs are present throughout. Dog-leg stairs in panelled stair wells feature closed strings, square newels, column-on-vase balusters, moulded tread ends, and moulded hand-rails. The stair of No. 6 has an acorn pendant to its hand-rail. Nos 1 and 2 have replacement stick balusters and handrails with spiral curtails.

No. 9 (Spithead House) features similar fireplaces and architraves, panelled doors and window reveals with shutters, and decorative cornices, friezes and chandelier roundels to the ceilings. Its entrance vestibule has curved corner niches and an inner double door with an overlight. The stair hall contains a curving open-well stair with an open-string balustrade featuring decorative balusters between panels of latticed ironwork with floral bosses. The moulded hand-rail has a spiral curtail on stick balusters. On the second floor, the balustrade has been heightened with an added band.

The front garden walls are stuccoed and sweep up from first-floor height on the left, forming an enclosed front area with a coped top. Five entrances are set into the wall, facing each pair of houses, with square gate piers and projecting intermediate piers. At the right end, a matching wall curves around the garden of No. 9, dying into No. 19 Store. This curved wall has carriage and pedestrian entrances with rusticated piers, plinths, pyramidal capstones and lanterns. The rear garden walls are approximately 2 metres high, mostly rendered, with some parts rebuilt. Sections include pilasters, ramping, and oversailing triangular coping in the same style as the dockyard wall of 1704–11. The east (rear) wall has been mostly rebuilt, but at No. 7 it retains original pilastered walling with a segmental-arched board door of ovals, similar to that in Admiralty House.

The terrace stands on the site of the old moat and fishponds dating to reconstructions of 1665–66. The garden of No. 9 includes part of the original Commissioner's garden of 1666 and some of the dockyard moat of the same period.