Numbers 31 And 33 And Attached Railings To Rear

A pair of attached houses, dating to circa 1840, and likely designed by George Gay. The houses are constructed of limestone ashlar with rendered sides, and their roof is not visible. They are arranged on a double-depth plan and exemplify the Italianate style. The houses are two storeys high with a basement and attic, featuring a four-window facade. The symmetrical front has projecting wings with ground-floor bays and a wide central recess, with entrances located in the returns. Features include a moulded plinth, banded rustication on the ground floor up to a dentil entablature that runs along the tops of the bays. There are paired first-floor pilasters, leading to a console cornice, and an attic storey with a moulded coping. Doric porches are located at each end, with tall plinths and entablatures with curved corners, leading to two-leaf doors with moulded panels and rectangular overlights. The bays contain tripartite windows with thin pilaster mullions to plate-glass sashes. Balustrades front the tripartite first-floor windows, with semicircular heads, larger in the centre, and console cornices, above sashes with curved glazing bars. Twentieth-century French windows are present on the ground floor, and architraves frame 6/6-pane sashes on the first floor. The basement level extends across the front, below a tented verandah supported by cast-iron supports and brackets forming semicircular and a central elliptical arch. Attic windows have moulded jambs to 3/3-pane sashes, and the basement has 6/6-pane sashes. Tall stair windows at the rear have 6-4-pane sashes, some including stained-glass margin panes. The interior of the houses has not been inspected. Subsidiary features include spear-headed iron railings at the rear, leading to steps down to the basement entrance below the porch. Numbers 17-33 share a common plan, interior layout, and many exterior details with other houses built by Gay in Tyndall's Park and Cotham.