The Valley

This is a row of cottages, likely dating to around 1880, potentially designed by R. Norman-Shaw. The construction incorporates red-brown brick above a rubble stone plinth on the right where the ground slopes downwards, with a band of glazed black brick marking the top of the plinth. The first floor is tile-hung on the right and timber-framed with white-washed render infill in the centre. The roofs are plain-tiled, half-hipped, with diagonal brick eaves cornices on the left and scalloped-edge bargeboards on the right. The layout is symmetrical with projecting end cross wings.

The cottages are two storeys high and feature diagonal brick dentils above the ground floor of the end wings. The first floor is jettied across the centre, supported by a moulded bressumer. A four-square corbelled stack is located centrally, with additional stacks at the front re-entrant angles and at the rear. The end wings have half-hipped roofs. A mullioned and transomed five-light window is present on the first floor of each wing, the left wing’s window beneath a cambered head. Lead 4-light windows are found on the ground floor of each wing. Half-dormer windows with mullioned and leaded five lights are positioned on either side of the centre on the first floor, alongside small leaded casements in the re-entrant angles. A mullioned and transomed canted bay window is on the ground floor to the right of centre, while a square bay window is to the left. Both bay windows have moulded transoms and lintels. Segmentally-arched heads are above the doors in the re-entrant angles (Nos 2 and 3); the door to the right is half-glazed over lower panels, whilst the door to the left is panelled with diagonal boarding. Gabled, set-back bays are at each end, also with arched-head doors (Nos 1 and 4). While R. Norman Shaw built several houses along Portsmouth Road, architectural historian A. Saint suggests that The Valley was more likely the work of one of his pupils.