Promenade House And Attached Basement Area Railings And Walls

Promenade House, now an office, was built around 1840, possibly by Charles Dyer. It is constructed of limestone ashlar, with rendered sides and rear, and has slate hipped and cross-gabled roofs. The building has a double-depth plan and is designed in a Neoclassical style.

The main facade is symmetrical, featuring clasping giant pilasters extending to an entablature and a parapet with a thin cornice. A wide, central three-light bow window rises through to a full attic storey, illuminated by a glazed drum. This bow features giant Corinthian pilasters supporting a dentilled entablature, and further pilasters to the attic. A plinth and first-floor string are also present. The windows have architraves, with console pediments above the outer ground-floor windows.

The symmetrical right-hand return has giant pilasters flanking a central porch, with a frieze between the outer pilasters and a central, gabled attic storey flanked by lateral stacks. The porch has distyle-in-antis Ionic three-quarter columns supporting an entablature, and a panelled parapet with a balustraded centre. The semicircular-arched doorway includes a plate-glass fanlight and a 20th-century door.

The rear elevation mirrors the right side, with the central section set back, an entablature, and a parapet. A wide, three-light canted bay projects across the middle, with a central French window and flanking six-over-nine-pane sash windows. Ground-floor windows have console cornices; the central first-floor window is topped with a pediment, and the attic has a semicircular-arched tripartite window.

The left return is divided into three sections, with the left-hand section projecting and featuring clasping pilasters and a raised central attic storey with blind windows above the lateral stacks.

The interior was largely altered in the late 20th century. A round entrance lobby features niches flanking the door, and a semicircular eared and keyed arch leads to a central stairwell, now containing a lift and a 20th-century staircase. There are good Greek Revival-style ceiling mouldings in the front and left-hand rear rooms, a marble fire surround in the front right-hand room with acanthus capitals, four-panel doors, and panelled shutters.

Attached to the entrance are low, curved walls, alongside cast-iron lattice railings and curved Pennant steps leading from the front doorway.

Promenade House is a fine composition with facades to both sides of the corner. It forms part of a notable group of houses, including Taylor Maxwell House, Engineer's House, and Trafalgar House, extending northwest from Litfield House and Litfield Place.