6 to 16, Prestbury Road

This is a terrace of six shops with residential flats above, built in the 1830s. Numbers 6 and 18 were constructed between 1833 and 1834, and numbers 8 to 16 were built between 1839 and 1840. Later 19th-century and 20th-century additions and alterations have affected the ground-floor shop fronts. The buildings are stucco over brick, with slate roofs and brick and stucco end and party-wall stacks.

The terrace presents three storeys to the left, and two storeys elsewhere, with a total of 17+1 first-floor windows (three windows to each house, with the rightmost curved on plan). The right end of the terrace curves. The second building from the left and the right end project forward. A band emphasizes the first floor. A crowning entablature is present except on the right and left ends, with low parapets and copings consistently applied. Most windows are 6/6 sashes set in plain reveals; those on the right feature sills.

The shop fronts vary: the late 19th-century frontage to the left includes a central entrance with a part-glazed door, a fanlight decorated with carved spandrels, and pilastered architraves flanking two-light, round-arched windows with fluted, half-columnar mullions and foliate capitals. Two further shopfronts date to the 1970s. Number 12 has pilastered ends and a recessed, part-glazed entrance with an off-centre window featuring fluted half-columnar mullions. Number 16 retains its original shop front, following the building’s curve, with fluted mullions, an end pilaster with acanthus corbels, a frieze and cornice, and an off-centre glazed entrance with ornate panelling.

The left return of number 6 features a three-storey bow facing Portland Street, mirroring the arcaded shop front and a two-bay extension to the left.

The interior of number 6 (as pictured in photographs from 1991) showcases an embellished frieze and cornice with an anthemion motif to the coving and a grape frieze to the ceiling, as well as a central rose.

Historically, the terrace, originally known as Leamington Place, was occupied as a chemist's shop by 1839. These six shops were the only commercial premises permitted on the Pittville Estate.