20-35, Henrietta Street

Sixteen terrace houses forming part of a larger terrace on the east side of Henrietta Street, built between 1793 and 1800 by Thomas Baldwin. These are Grade I listed as part of a notable development of the Pulteney Estate east of the river. Henrietta Street was the most substantial of the subsidiary roads to develop and was originally intended to connect Laura Place with a proposed development named Frances Square to the north, which was not proceeded with.

The houses are constructed in limestone ashlar with double pitched slate mansard roofs featuring dormers and moulded stacks to party walls and left return. Each building is three storeys with attics and basements, set on double depth plans. The terrace is unified by a continuous coped parapet, cornice and lintel frieze which steps up from left in groups of three houses. Moulded sill string courses run to the upper floors, and the ground floor has a moulded platband to its lower edge. The most distinctive feature is the continuous arcade of semicircular arched recesses to the ground floor openings, which has an impost cornice and lintel frieze; two courses of banded rustication appear below the ground floor sills.

The terrace was originally finished with radial glazing bars to the semicircular arched ground floor windows and cobweb fanlights with some crown glass, over raised and fielded six-panel doors. Many windows now have horned plate glass replacements, though some original details remain.

Individual houses vary in fenestration and entrance arrangements. No.20 has a three-window range with plate glass sash windows and retains its original door and fanlight. No.22 incorporates a former carriage entrance to Laura Chapel, which opened in 1795 and was demolished around 1920; the semi-elliptical archway has a keystone carved with "LAURA CHAPEL" into its archivolt, with a first-floor window above. Nos 27 and 28 are now unified as the Comfort Inn Hotel, while No.32 is the Henrietta Hotel and No.33 is Henrietta House, a residential home for the elderly. Nos 36 and 37 now form part of the adjacent terrace at 1-7 Great Pulteney Street.

Windows throughout predominantly show six-over-six pane sashes to basements and upper floors, with plate glass replacements to many ground and upper floor openings. Several doors retain tall cobweb fanlights or similar fanlight treatments. Some properties feature early 19th-century balconettes to first-floor windows and late 19th-century cast iron flower guards to ground floor windows. Splayed and painted reveals appear to various ground and first-floor window openings.

The left return to No.20 is plain. Nos 26 and 27 frame the archway to Henrietta Mews, the latter archway being higher and more prominent. A later 19th-century painted board within one archway warns of fines for committing nuisances.

Historically, it is recorded that Luke Fielder owned a number of these houses in varying stages of construction at the time of his bankruptcy on 23 October 1794. An unroofed shell next to Laura Place was auctioned on 17 July 1794.

The interiors were not inspected during listing.