Court House (28) And Attached Railings

A pair of terraced houses at numbers 26 and 28, now flats, with attached railings, was built around 1820 to 1850. Later additions and alterations include a porch added in the 1970s. The houses are constructed of stucco over brick with a concealed, double-pile roof. They have wrought-iron railings and balconies. The design follows a double-depth plan with service ranges to the rear, with the house on the left projecting slightly.

The exterior is three storeys high, with a basement, and six windows on the first floor. Stucco detailing includes a ground-floor band topped by four Doric pilasters which extend through the ground and first floors, one at each end and one between the windows on the left. There are two fluted Ionic pilasters at the right end and to the left of the end window, topped by pilasters as before, and featuring a continuous frieze and cornice, and a blocking course. Ground-floor windows have tooled architraves, with a frieze and cornice on the left and floating cornices on the right. Original 6/6 sash windows are present where original, all in plain reveals with sills. Blind boxes remain on the ground-floor windows and on the first-floor windows on the right. The basement has 6/6 cambered-headed sashes in double-chamfered reveals with sills, and doors. An entrance is accessed via a flight of six roll-edged steps to a 1980s door in a lean-to porch on the left, and another entrance has a flight of steps to a four-panel door with sidelights and an overlight with glazing bars, all within a tooled timber architrave with fleurons in the corners.

Internally, original joinery has been retained, including panelled shutters to some rooms, as well as some plasterwork.

The subsidiary features include scrolled lozenge motif railings along the sides of the steps and around the area. Window guards on the first floor on the right have an elongated scroll motif.

Historically, number 26 was the childhood home of Adam Lindsay Gordon, the Poet of Australia. From 1857 to 1860, the property was the home of George and Josephine Butler, the latter of whom was a social justice campaigner.