No. 1 Including Steps

A house built in the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries with twentieth-century alterations. It was formerly listed as a terrace of three properties (Lansdown Terrace Nos 1-3) but has been subdivided into flats and is now re-occupied as a single house.

Exterior

The building is four storeys tall with a basement. The front elevation is faced in limestone ashlar, the basement in rubble, and the rear in a mixture of ashlar and rubble. It has a double-pile parapeted roof running to both front and rear, with a staircase tower at the rear.

The four-window front elevation displays a mix of eighteenth and nineteenth-century character. The first floor has four sashes of nineteenth-century date with four-over-four glazing, set in cyma-moulded architraves with lowered stone sills decorated with nineteenth-century balconettes and blind boxes. The second floor contains two six-over-six sashes in splayed reveals with the splays run out to the corners, with stone sills. The third floor has two nineteenth-century six-over-six horned sashes in similar reveals.

The ground floor has three six-over-six sashes in splayed reveals with stone sills and nineteenth-century balconettes to the right, with sills possibly lowered and later restored to their original position. To the left stands a six-panel door with fielded panels and a three-pane overlight within a deep panelled reveal. The doorcase is framed by Doric pilasters and carries a full entablature featuring a pulvinated frieze.

The basement is lit by three six-over-six sashes with thick glazing bars in splayed reveals, with a six-panel door (upper two panels glazed) in a chamfered reveal.

In front of the house is an attached terrace paved in pennant stone, supported on two vaults and bounded by a solid stone balustrade with moulded coping topped by stone urns. The terrace is approached by a flight of steps to the front and further steps over the area to the front door. Twentieth-century railings now replace what were likely originally stone railings to the area.

Decorative detailing includes a shallow band course over the ground floor, formerly bracketed eaves cornice at the eaves, moulded cornices over the second and third floors, and a coped parapet. Three mazed panels of proportions similar to the windows appear on both the second and third floors.

The right side elevation has a six-over-six sash to the basement with thick glazing bars and hexagonal glazing below; sashes are said by the owners to have extended across further windows that were removed and built into the garage at No. 15 Lansdown Place East. Six-over-six sashes appear to the ground, second and third floors, with a Crittall window to the first floor.

The rear elevation features a stair turret with intersecting glazing bars to a round-headed window with fat glazing bars to the first half-landing. Six-over-six sashes with fat glazing bars appear to the first and second floors, with a six-over-six sash to the third floor. A twentieth-century concrete blockwork extension extends from the ground floor, and a twentieth-century fire escape rises from the first floor.

Interior

The interior retains considerable early nineteenth-century decoration and joinery, though later alterations and subdivisions have modified many spaces.

The ground floor front right room features an early nineteenth-century marble fireplace, heavy timber modillion cornice, dado panelling, and very fat ovolo architraves. A six-panel ovolo door and a pair of six-panel double doors serve the room. The three sashes have thin glazing bars and split shutters with a total of three panels. A nineteenth-century chimneybreast cupboard is present.

The ground floor rear room contains no fireplace; the cornice has been removed and replaced with a cove. A half-glazed door with margin glazing formerly opened to the garden, and fat ovolo glazing bars are evident. An ovolo architrave frames the former chimneybreast cupboard.

An oak well staircase with three turned balusters to each tread, painted balusters, and an oak handrail ascends from this space. Dado panelling runs throughout, with a deep coved run cornice to both the inner and outer walls and a timber arch. An egg and dart cornice appears in the basement front left room. A blocked range arch is visible on the ground floor front; extensive Victorian beaded boarding dado is present, and a hexagonal lower sash (probably reused) is fitted.

The staircase continues to the basement with plainer balusters. At the first half-landing, intersecting glazing bars frame enriched moulded shutters and an architrave with a face at the apex.

The first floor rear right room is now subdivided. It retains plaster panels, a coved cornice (said to have contained paintings in the panels, now painted over in the 1950s), and plasterwork to the soffit of the window reveal. An enriched acanthus stone fire surround is present.

The first floor was subdivided in the 1950s. One room contains a nineteenth-century enriched marble fireplace; the cornice has been removed. Early nineteenth-century reeded architraves with rounded corners are fitted to windows, with no architrave to the door. Nineteenth-century mouldings trim the door, and an adjoining section of the room to the left carries two matching architraves without cornice.

The staircase continues with two turned balusters to each tread; softwood balusters are fitted above the first floor.

The second floor front right room features a small stone fireplace surround with a little reeded shelf and run cornice, with six-panel ovolo doors. The front left room has a reeded fireplace with a similar cornice to the adjacent room, ovolo shutters, and a door.

The second floor rear right room has a fireplace and cornice matching the front left room, with fat ovolo glazing bars reused from downstairs. The top floor has an ovolo fireplace (probably reused from the ground floor front right) and fat ovolo glazing bars to the rear right matching those downstairs. The front left fireplace matches the front right, and the rear left has fat ovolo glazing bars as found elsewhere.