Nos 80 And 81 And Attached Forecourt Railings

Nos. 80 and 81 are large town houses, now used as commercial premises, built around 1807 for William Mudge, a furniture merchant. The front is made of local freestone ashlar, while the rest is faced with brick. The building has a natural slate roof with projecting eaves and a stuccoed end stack on the left. It features a double-depth plan with a central entrance hall and two large reception rooms at the front. The structure is three storeys high with a basement and has a symmetrical five-window arrangement on the front.

There are two central round-arched doorways with panelled reveals, six-panel doors, and fanlights. A wide Doric porch with fluted columns and a moulded entablature, featuring guttae on the sides and mutules on the cornice, enhances the entrance. The first floor has a sill string and a tall central round-headed niche with a square panel above. The building has a moulded eaves cornice and shallow segmental arches over the sash windows, which have glazing bars. The second floor retains original hornless sashes, while the first floor has horned copies, and the ground floor features false sashes with pivoting top lights.

The right-hand return has a three-window front with blind openings, except for a 12-pane sash on the ground-floor left and four small later windows on the right at the ground and first floors. Inside, No. 82 contains many original features, including two elaborate plaster panelled ceilings with moulded ribs and carved pendants, panelled shutters, and panelled doors between scribed pilasters with moulded hoods. There is a plaster vaulted vestibule with acanthus central roses and moulded pilasters leading to a round-arched doorway with fluted columns that opens into a stair hall. The stair hall features an open-well open-string staircase with a mahogany handrail that scrolls over the newel.

The forecourt is enclosed by wrought-iron railings with scrolled spear-head finials, which stand over a plinth and return at either end.