The Dark Horse And Attached Railings

The Dark Horse is a house, later converted into a public house, dating from circa 1799, with 20th-century additions. It was likely built to designs by John Pinch the Elder and was leased on March 25, 1799. The front of the building is limestone ashlar, while the rear is a mix of ashlar and rubble. It features a double-pile mansard roof with Roman-style windows to both the front and rear, and a coped party wall with two ashlar stacks to the left. A staircase is located at the rear of the property.

The house has three storeys, an attic, and a basement. The front façade has a three-window arrangement. The first floor has three six/six-pane sash windows in plain reveals; the second floor has three similar sashes, the one to the left of which has horns; and the ground floor has two plate glass, horned sashes in plain reveals with stone sills to the left, and a six-panel door with beaded and fielded panels and a decorative fanlight within a round-headed, plain reveal set in a pedimented Doric porch with two three-quarter columns attached to pilasters. There is one pennant step leading to a concreted crossover. The basement is now obscured as the area has been filled in. A double dormer window has two/two-pane horned sashes. The exterior shows a band course over the ground floor, sill bands to the first and second floors, a frieze, a dentil eaves cornice, and a coped parapet. The rear elevation has six/six-horned sashes, plate glass sashes, a two/two-horned sash to a single dormer window, a small one-and-a-half storey ashlar extension, and a larger extension constructed circa 1987 in coursed squared limestone, featuring a lead hopperhead.

The interior was considerably altered on the ground floor following a conversion circa 1987.

Attached to the property are wrought iron railings and a gate with shaped tops on limestone bases. Northampton Street was built on the former pleasure grounds of No.14 Royal Crescent, which belonged to Charles Hamilton. It was purchased by the Pulteney Estate in 1791 and surveyed by Thomas Baldwin; however, plans by Thomas Chantry in 1795 and John Pinch in 1799 superseded them (this being Pinch’s first major work). By 1800, seventeen houses had been built on Northampton Street, and this building was one of them.