1 To 6 And Attached Railings 19 And Attached Railings

A crescent of seven houses (including number 19), started in 1787 and completed around 1800 to designs by Thomas Paty and/or his son William Paty, and built as an ensemble with the adjacent Berkeley Square.

The houses are constructed in brick with tuck-pointing, limestone dressings, party-wall stacks and a slate mansard roof. Each three-storey house, with attic and basement, has a double-depth plan.

The Crescent is built in mid-Georgian style with flat end returns. On the left-hand return sits number 19 Berkeley Square. The houses have right-hand semi-circular-arched doorways with bracketed pediments, fanlights and six-panel doors. Number 1 has a doorway in the angled right return, with attached Doric columns and oval panels to the entablature. The ground-floor windows are six over six pane sashes with cambered heads and five stepped voussoirs. The first floor has tall four over four pane sashes with scrolled wrought-iron basket balconies to numbers 3-6, and three over three pane second-floor sashes. Number 6 has a single ground-floor window with seven stepped voussoirs to an eight over eight pane sash. Each house has single dormers to the front and rear, and a semicircular-arched stair window to the rear. To the front each house has vaulted cellars. Number 19 Berkeley Square faces Berkeley Square with a five-bay ashlar front, rusticated on the ground floor and with giant end pilasters and a central pedimented doorway with railings to the basement area. The rear elevations are irregular with some original sash windows remaining, others replaced using existing openings, or newly inserted.

Number 3 contains original late 18th-century interior features, including an entrance hall with a semicircular arch with moulded archivolt and an open-well dogleg stair with stick balusters. The glass in the arched stair window is set in a recessed panelled frame (late 18th century), and is a late-20th-century replacement of good quality decorative stained glass. Number 3 has marble and further stone fireplaces on ground and first floors, with a stone one in the basement (the former kitchen and pantry), flanked by plain built-in cupboards. To the rear in the basement is a built-in stone sink. The interiors of other properties were not inspected, although they are expected to retain a similar range of detailing.

The houses have attached wrought-iron railings and gates to the front basement area and railings to the central garden area. The Crescent has a good quality raised flagged pavement with steps at each end in front. There are communal wells to the rear.

Thomas Paty (c. 1713–1789) was a Bristol architect. His son William Paty (1758–1800) became his partner and assistant, and carried on the family business from 1789. The Patys were a well-known Bristol family of masons, carvers and architects active throughout the 18th century, responsible for many developments in Georgian Bristol. Berkeley Crescent was planned as an ensemble with Berkeley Square.