19-23, BROCK STREET

A symmetrical terrace of five houses on the north side of Brock Street, built between 1767 and 1770, designed by John Wood the Younger. The buildings have undergone alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The terrace is constructed in limestone ashlar with double pitched slate mansard roofs featuring dormers and moulded stacks set against coped party walls. Each house has a double-depth plan and rises three storeys with attics and basements, presenting a single window front to the street.

The exterior displays a continuous coped parapet and modillion cornice with ground floor platband. The fenestration includes six-by-six pane sash windows, tripartite windows to the second floors, and Venetian windows with lowered sills and radial glazing bars to the first floors. Each house has two windows to the ground floor and pedimented doorcases with engaged Ionic columns.

No. 19, at the left terminal of the terrace, has a balconette to the first floor and a splayed reveal to the ground floor window. Its six-panel door is glazed to the top and sits within a projecting porch fronted by the original doorcase.

No. 20 features a continuous sill band and thick glazing bars to its three six-by-six pane sash windows on the second floor. The first floor contains a splayed reveal to a central nine-by-nine pane sash window with a trellised balconette on scroll supports, set within a Venetian window frame. The five-panel door to the right is glazed to the top, though the volutes of the Ionic columns are broken away.

No. 21 has splayed reveals to its lower floors, a balconette to the first floor, and a five-panel glazed door to the right.

A notable architectural feature occupies the central bay between and partly within Nos. 20 and 21, stepped slightly forward below the cornice. This bay references Hadrian's Arch in Athens as illustrated by Stuart and Revett. The first floor window is set within an elaborate tripartite architrave articulated by paired engaged Ionic columns on large shaped consoles, supporting an entablature with a pediment over the central window. Blind windows to each side retain their original sill heights. A 20th-century balconette sits below, with a further 20th-century balconette to a window on the first floor to the right. The arch below is a semicircular carriage arch that formerly served the Margaret Chapel, which stood behind the houses.

No. 22 has a former Venetian window on the first floor altered to a tripartite window and a five-panel glazed door to the left.

No. 23 has a raised attic roof with horns to the window, splayed reveals to the first floor, and a door to the right. Its five-window right return features six-by-six pane sash windows to the centre and right, with blind windows to the two ranges on the left.

A restored shop frontage from 1907, designed by J. Foster, Builder, extends across the front and right return of the terrace. It features fluted pilasters and consoles to the fascia and curved plate glass shop windows to the right return.

The terrace forms an important part of John Wood the Younger's scheme connecting The Circus and the Royal Crescent. The archway between Nos. 20 and 21 formerly provided access to the Margaret Chapel, an ecclesiastical building that stood behind the houses until its destruction during World War II. A surviving Gothick window testifies to this historical ecclesiastical presence.