Axford'S Buildings

Axford's Buildings is a sixteen-house terrace built between 1762 and 1773, designed by Joseph Axford, a stonemason. The terrace adjoins The Paragon and sits on a steeply sloping site at the rear. The buildings are constructed of limestone ashlar with double-pitched slate mansard roofs featuring dormers and moulded stacks to the party walls. They are arranged over three storeys with attics and basements, each house exhibiting a two-window range.

The external features include a continuous coped parapet, a cornice, a first floor sill band, and a ground floor platband. Moulded architraves feature above the upper floor windows, cornices grace the first floor windows flanking the central pedimented windows, and cornices sit over the doors to the right of each house. Originally fitted with six/six-pane sash windows, only basements retain these; the rest have been replaced with mostly plate glass sash windows. Nos. 28 to 32 were demolished in 1942 and have since been restored, with vertical toothing now visible.

At No. 33, "Siddons' House," a late 19th-century hood and coved cornice have been incorporated into the platband and architrave of the six-panel door (which is glazed to the top). A plaque commemorates Sarah Siddons, born in 1755 and died in 1831. No. 35 features plate glass sash windows to the basement and balconettes to the first floor windows. No. 36 has an open pediment supported by narrow engaged columns on pedestals, a roll-edge moulded architrave to the door, and a lead rainwater downpipe to the left. A full-height canted bay extends to the rear. No. 37, the left terminal, has an early 19th-century two-storey wing with a coped parapet, coved cornices over the first and ground floors, steps leading to a six-panel door with an overlight, and reeded architraves with block corners framing small-pane fixed windows on either side. Again, a full-height canted bay is present to the rear.

The interiors of the buildings were not inspected. Stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops are present within the structure.