9 and 10, Leat Street

A pair of terraced houses located on the north side of the entrance to Heathcoat Square, likely built in the 1860s or 1870s, exhibiting a style similar to houses on St Paul Street from the late 1850s. Number 9 is constructed of pinkish-yellow brick, with a painted rounded corner, while Number 10 is rendered with incised masonry markings. The rear wall of Number 10, facing Heathcoat Square, is covered in roughcast. Both properties have slated roofs, with Number 9’s being hipped at the back. Number 9 features pinkish-yellow brick chimneys with projecting courses at the top forming an entablature, topped with four cylindrical spiked pots, and an additional chimney to the rear, heightened in later red brick and also with spiked pots.

The front of Number 9 has a three-window frontage facing the entrance to Heathcoat Square and a single window fronting Leat Street. Both the corner facing Heathcoat Square and the one at the other end, adjoining the square, are rounded and recessed. Number 10 is two windows wide, with a slightly off-centre doorway. Number 9 includes an early wooden shop front on the corner, featuring flanking pilasters supporting an entablature, a display window on either side of the corner shop, the left-hand window with three glazing bars. The shop has double doors with upper sections containing two panes of glass. The house door was replaced in the late 20th century, but deep reveals and soffits retain wooden boards with incised Greek decoration, and there's a three-paned fanlight above the door. To the left of the door, and above the upper storey, are windows with eight-paned sashes; a window above the door has six panes. Number 10 has a three-panelled door, with the upper two panels now glazed, and a six-paned sash window to the right. Triple sash windows are found to the left, and on the upper storey of both houses and the Leat Street front of Number 9; the middle sashes have six panes, the outer ones two. The fronts of both houses are finished with deeply-projecting moulded eaves cornices. The rear wall of Number 10 has small-paned casement windows and a two-light dormer with moulded barge-boards, each light containing two panes.

The interiors of the properties have not been inspected. These houses were built by Heathcoat and Number 9, along with Number 2 Church Street, were deliberately designed to provide a new entrance to Heathcoat Square. An alteration to the Heathcoat estate atlas of 1844 indicates that a house was demolished to facilitate this purpose, shifting the original square entrance somewhat further north in Leat Street. The small-paned wooden sash windows and casements, as well as the door surround at Number 9, are significant features of their design.