No. 5 And Attached Railings

This is a house, now converted to flats, completed in 1792, with alterations from the 19th and 20th centuries. It was designed by John Palmer and built by John Jenkins. The front of the building is faced with limestone ashlar, the basement with rubble, and the rear with a combination of ashlar and rubble. It has a Welsh slate, double-pile, mansard roof with a coped gable wall and two ashlar stacks topped with early clay pots, with a staircase to the front.

The house is three storeys high, with an attic and basement, and has a two-window front. The first floor has two 19th-century plate glass sash windows with horns, set in plain reveals and stone sills; one has a wrought iron balconette, while the other has a lowered sill. The second floor has two similar windows. The ground floor has one similar window with a wrought iron balconette and a splayed reveal to the left, and a porch to the right with a six-panel door. The door has reeded and raised and fielded panels, with a single glazed upper panel within a pedimented Doric doorcase set on a single pennant step. The porch has a plinth and recessed panels to each side; the left side contains a small 19th-century plate glass sash window. The architrave and cornice of the doorcase extend across and to the sides of the porch, terminating in a blocking course. The basement has a six-over-six sash window in a splayed reveal with a stone sill, a 20th-century door, and a lowered opening in an ashlar infill beneath a crossover; there are also ashlar steps.

A band course runs over the ground floor, topped by a frieze, a moulded eaves cornice, and a coped parapet. There is a lead hopperhead and downpipe on the right side. The rear elevation has a single bay with three 19th-century plate glass sash windows (narrower on the left and right) on each of the ground, first, and second floors. A wrought iron verandah with a lead roof covers the first floor. There are 19th-century windows in the basement, and a mansard roof has been built up to the full third floor, featuring two six-over-six sashes and one plate glass sash window in plain reveals and stone sills. A further mansard above contains double dormers. The interior of the house has not been inspected.

Attached to the building are wrought iron railings with urn tops on painted bases. The house was part of an incomplete development of St James’s Square, built on land leased in 1659, and the lower part of Park Street represents one of the four diagonal approaches to the Square. An underlease was granted to John Jenkins in 1792 for 94 and a half years.