1-4, Weymouth Street

Nos. 1-4 Weymouth Street are a group of four terraced houses built between 1792 and 1794, stepped downhill from London Road and continuing the right return of Nos. 27A-29 Walcot Buildings. The houses are constructed of limestone ashlar with double-pitched slate roofs and moulded stacks to the party walls. They have double-depth plans. The facades are continuous, but the coped parapets vary in height. Nos. 1 and 2 feature a continuous coved cornice and timber bressumers below a ground floor platband. Nos. 1-3 each have a two-window range with paired six/six pane sash windows to the upper floors and a six-panel door on the left. No. 4 has a single-window range with a trellised balconette to the first floor. The interiors have not been inspected, although No. 2 was divided into three units in 1986. Records from May 1794, relating to the bankruptcy proceedings of J Franklin of 4 Weymouth Street, identify these as “four houses now building intended to be called Weymouth Street.” A lease for No. 2 dates from 1792, and the property was offered for sale in November 1794. No. 4 was once the home of the sculptor John Osborne, who died in 1838 and is known for the ‘Jupiter’ head sculpture in Royal Victoria Park. The simple, neoclassical facades reflect aesthetic preferences of the period and the modest nature of the initial development, which occurred during a time of economic uncertainty.