No. 3 And Attached Railings

This is a terrace house, built around 1790-1793, with alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was designed by John Palmer and forms part of an incomplete development originally intended as one of the four diagonal approaches to St James's Square. Numbers 7-11 of Great Bedford Street were destroyed by bombing in 1942.

The front of the house is faced with limestone ashlar. It has a double-pile, parapeted mansard roof with a coped party wall and two ashlar stacks to the left. A staircase is located at the rear. The house is three storeys high with an attic and basement, and has a three-window front. The first floor has three two-over-two sash windows with wrought iron balconettes. The second floor has three six-over-six sashes. The ground floor has two two-over-two sashes to the left, and a six-panel door with reeded, fielded and recessed panels within a pedimented Doric doorcase, bearing an incised numeral 3, likely dating from the 19th century, to the right. A single pennant slab forms the crossover, with a pair of 19th-century cast iron footscrapers. The basement has two six-over-six sashes protected by wrought iron window guards. A 20th-century door and overlight are set within an ashlar infilling under the crossover. The attic has a double dormer with plate glass, horned sashes and a section of moulded architrave. The exterior features a band course above the ground floor, a frieze, a moulded eaves cornice and a coped parapet. The rear elevation is partially visible, with some earlier six-over-six and 19th-century sashes. The interior has not been inspected. Attached wrought iron railings with shaped and urn tops on limestone bases are present. The building’s land was leased from Sir Peter Rivers Gay, and records related to the property’s sale in 1856, Harcourt Masters’ maps of 1794 and 1808, and a City Engineer’s Survey of Air Raid Damage from 1942, are available as reference sources.