21, Boutport Street

House, now offices. Early 19th century.

The building is constructed of solid rendered walls with slated roofs. The main building has two hipped spans at right-angles to the street. Two old red brick chimneys sit on the left side wall. The plan is two rooms wide and two rooms deep, with main and service stairs in the centre and a lower rear service wing to the right. The ground-floor plan is unusual, with what appears to be offices, possibly for a doctor, at the front. An off-centre entrance passage leads to a large room to the right, with two narrow rooms to the left; the front room has doorways to the passage, rear room and side street. A passage from the main stair hall leads to the back door, with a plain rear room to the right, perhaps the former kitchen.

The building is two storeys with a garret, presenting a four-window range to the street. A round-arched doorway replaces the second ground-storey window from the left. The door is six-panelled with the two bottom panels flush, with matching reveals, a fanlight with radial bars and an anthemion at its base, and panelled flanking pilasters supporting a triangular pediment. Three worn stone steps have enriched shoescrapes at each side. Windows feature six-paned sashes, except that lower ground-storey sashes now lack glazing bars. The whole front is flanked by giant pilasters supporting the top cornice and parapet.

The left side wall, facing Vicarage Street, has a plain doorway (now a window) to the right of the front section and an original window to the left, with two windows above them in the upper storey; all windows have six-paned sashes except the lower ground-storey sash which now lacks glazing bars. A tall round-arched stair window is centrally positioned with small-paned sashes with radial bars in the head. There is no window in the rear section.

The rear wall has a six-panelled back door with two bottom panels flush and a six-paned fanlight with margin-panes. To the right is a canted bay window with a three-light French window, each light with three panes and margin-panes, and matching one-pane transom lights. A ground-storey window to the left has eight-paned sashes. Two upper-storey windows with six-paned sashes flank a smaller one with four-paned sashes. The rear wing has three ground-storey windows all with sashes of six over nine panes and horns, a late 20th-century half-glazed door to the right, and an upper storey with two windows with box-framed six-paned sashes flanking a blind centre window.

Interior

The interior is very well preserved except that only two chimneypieces have survived. The entrance passage has three small groin-vaulted ceilings and two round arches with panelled soffits springing from panelled pilasters. The large stairhall has enriched modillioned cornices on both floors. The wooden geometrical stair features thin square balusters and shaped tread-ends, with the balustrade voluted at the bottom. The back stair, which rises to the garret, is a wooden open-well with moulded nosings to the treads, thin square balusters and handrail ramped up over column-newels.

Except for the supposed former kitchen, principal rooms have six-panelled doors, moulded skirtings, panelled shutters and moulded or enriched cornices. The right-hand front ground-floor room has a painted stone chimneypiece with paired flanking pilasters, enriched cornice and ceiling-band. The small front room to the left has only a moulded cornice, while the room of similar size behind it has a heavily enriched cornice together with a window set high up so that it cannot easily be looked through. The rear left ground-storey room has enriched cornice and ceiling band moulded with vines.

The upper-floor landing has at each end a lobby to the front and back rooms, entered through round arches springing from pilasters; the soffits of arches and sides of pilasters are decorated with key pattern and the lobbies have modillioned cornices. At the front, two rooms are now combined, that to the right L-shaped, that to the left shallower with a small room behind it. The rear left-hand room has enriched cornice. The right-hand garret has a fireplace with moulded architrave and basket grate. The roof timbers are original with through-purlins. The service wing was not inspected.