187-193 Oxford Road

Terrace of four houses, built during the 1820s and later converted to flats.

MATERIALS: the terrace is of red brick in Flemish bond and a slate roof covering, with a stucco plat band and late-C20 iron railings to the front area.

EXTERIORS: the terrace comprises four townhouses of three storeys plus a basement across three bays onto Oxford Road, under a hipped roof punctuated by ridgeline chimney stacks on the western party wall of each building.

The four houses are of matching design. Basements have a door in the central bay, accessed via steps down from the front area, and a window in the western bay. The doors are recent (late C20 or C21) replacements, while the windows are three-over-three sashes with the exception of that at number 187, which is a uPVC, two-pane sash, installed after 2009.

The door is accessed via a flight of steps from the street with iron handrails. The main entrance is located in the easternmost bay of the raised ground floor and comprises a six-panelled door within a rendered, round-arched recess with a moulded band between the door and a patterned fanlight containing the number of each house. To the west of the front door are two window openings with flat-arched heads and stucco cills. There are three window openings with gauged brickwork heads and stucco cills at the first and second floors, with the central opening on the second floor being blocked, likely as part of the original design. All of the windows at the ground floor and above are sash windows (six-over-six at the ground and first floor, three-over-three at second floor), except at number 187, where they are recently installed (post-2009), uPVC two-pane sashes. A plat band runs across the entire frontage at first-floor cill height.

There are matching, three-storey extensions in brick with pitched roofs to the rear of each building, added during the 1990s. The two lower floors of the rear façade of the main house are rendered. There are single windows at the basement, ground and first floors, and three at second-floor level, some of which are sashes. The rear gardens of all four houses are joined, with numbers 191 and 193 retaining a greater proportion of the historic extent of their gardens than numbers 187 and 189.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the front areas of all four houses are unified and paved, and there is a continuous line of arrowhead railings along the entire front boundary.