Taylor Maxwell House And Attached Front Balustrade

Taylor Maxwell House is a house, now an office, dating from 1839 and designed by RS Pope. Constructed of limestone ashlar, with rendered side and rear elevations, it sits on a site with lateral and ridge stacks and a slate hipped roof. The building follows a double-depth plan and is executed in a Neoclassical style.

The building has three storeys and a basement, presenting a five-window facade. The symmetrical front features projecting one-window wings. These wings have ground-floor Greek Doric columns and are set back between banded pilaster strips extending to an entablature. Above this are wide pilaster strips, a heavy bracketed cornice, outer pediments with tall parapets and wreaths in the tympana, and a parapet with raised central sections. The central section is banded on the ground floor with a distyle-in-antis Doric entrance, the doorway is set back and includes a 20th-century door. A shallow bays on the right side have banded jambs. First-floor windows are recessed with Corinthian pilasters, with the outer second-floor windows having a plain mullion and the middle ones featuring battered raised surrounds. A cantilevered stone balcony with cast-iron balustrade extends across the centre of the first floor. The windows are predominantly 6/6-pane sashes, with mullion and transom casements to the outer first-floor windows. The left return is divided into two sections separated by a gap. Outer windows on the ground floor have banded jambs, with plain pilasters above the cornice. A central two-storey panel above the ground floor incorporates waterleaf moulding and anthemia in the corners. The rear elevation is a five-window range, featuring a central ground-floor bay articulated by fluted pilasters, a semicircular-arched second-floor stair window with a stone balcony, and both are pierced with rectangular holes incorporating diagonal cast-iron railings. A tall left-hand oriel is supported by iron stanchions and has a tripartite window.

The interior features a lobby leading to a rear central stair hall with an open dogleg stone stair; the stair has moulded cast-iron balusters, a large fluted newel with a ball finial. A lateral dogleg service stair is located on the left, with an uncut string, stick balusters, and column newels. Panelled reveals and six-panel doors are present throughout.

Externally, a central raised terrace across the front has attached battered balusters and dies with plain urn finials at either end of a central stair flight.

The house is a well-detailed example that makes good use of its corner site and is part of a significant group of buildings including Promenade House, Engineer's House and Trafalgar House, extending northwest from Litfield House, Litfield Place.