136, 138 AND 140, HIGH STREET

This building comprises three houses, now shops on the ground floor and offices above, located on Guildford High Street. It was built in 1883, with 20th-century shop fronts installed at ground floor level. The construction utilizes red/orange brick, terracotta, and painted stone dressings, with plain tiled roofs largely hidden by parapets and a gable. The building is four storeys high, featuring rendered plat bands that mark the levels of the first, second, third floors, and the parapet. Stone-coped kneelers are present at the ends of the parapet, and the central gable is decorated with a diamond-shaped panel. Decorative stacks rise from the ends and the centre, topped with corbelled star-shaped features. The building has three bays, with the outer bays being canted from the first floor to the parapet and crowned with turret roofs topped by iron finials. Rainwater heads and down pipes are prominently placed flanking the outer bays. Each canted bay features one six-pane, glazing-bar sash window on each face on the third floor, beneath a cornice moulding and with an apron panel below. Segmental-headed plate sash windows are found on each face on the second floor, also below similar apron panels. The first floor of each bay has segmental-headed plate sash windows with moulded sills forming part of the cornice above the ground floor. The central bay, between the projecting outer bays, includes a square sash window on the third floor within a rendered, quoined surround, sitting over a terracotta apron panel decorated with flowers. The second floor has a segmental-headed plate sash window with zig-zag decoration on the lintel and a terracotta panel below. The first-floor window is a plate sash window beneath a segmental hood mould and within an architrave surround. The ground floor has 20th-century shop fronts, with three round-headed arched lights to the left, two to the right, and round-headed doors in the centre and to the right. This imposing building is included on the listing for its group value.