15, Clare Street

No. 15 Clare Street is an office building of 1889, designed by EH Edwards. It is constructed of limestone ashlar with terracotta details, a tile-hung third floor, brick and ashlar banded stacks, and a slate roof. The building is situated on a corner site and has a double-depth plan. It is built in the Queen Anne style.

The building is four storeys high, with an attic and basement, and has a three-window range. A corner entrance is located beneath a two-storey oriel bow, with three windows to the right return. An open loggia is present on the third floor. The ground floor is rendered and features an egg-and-dart cornice. The first and second floors have sill bands and strings, paired pilasters with swagged capitals to each floor, and red terracotta panels with festoon and ribbons to the first-floor aprons. The cornice incorporates a balustrade of strapwork panels and dies with urns. The third floor includes the mentioned open loggia of elliptical arches, accessing both Clare Street and St Stephen's Avenue. A dormer with an Ipswich window and a cyma gable, topped by a broken pediment, is found on the right-hand return.

The main entrance has half pilasters to an entablature, incised voussoirs to a semicircular-arched doorway with a wrought-iron grille and double doors, featuring four raised panels below four upper panels with lozenges. A similar left-hand doorway has shallow squat pilasters with scrolled shoulders beneath a thick lintel and steep pediment, and similar doors. The ground-floor windows are semicircular-arched, with an egg-and-dart label. The oriel has a swagged bowed base. Second- and third-floor windows are in recessed canted bays, with Ipswich windows and stained glass above the transoms. A three-light mullion and transom corner bow is incorporated, along with a flush bowed mullion and transom window above the left-hand doorway. The third-floor windows have casements, with a canted bay to the left-hand side. The right-hand dormer gable features a small window with glazing bars. Paired dormers are located to the right return, separated by a banded stack, alongside similar stacks to the end gables and Clare Street front. Basement windows have segmental arches, tripartite in the middle, with wrought-iron grilles.

The interior was largely remodelled in the late 20th century. The building’s design is based on Norman Shaw's town house designs, with inventive details added by Edwards.