Belsize House And Attached Garden Walls And Railings

A large house, now divided into flats, dating to around 1860 and built in the Italianate style. The building is constructed of brick with ashlar facing on the front and east elevation facing Brunswick Road. It has a hipped slate roof with boxed eaves and ashlar chimney stacks.

The house is set back behind a front area and rises three storeys over a full basement. The exterior design is notably symmetrical in its classical detailing. On the front and east elevations a raised band runs at first-floor level with a moulded string at the first-floor sill level and another moulded band at the second-floor sill level. All sides feature a crowning ashlar frieze band with pairs of shaped brackets supporting the eaves. The corners of the building have raised and chamfered quoins.

The front elevation displays asymmetrical bays. To the right on the ground floor stands a projecting single-storey entrance porch reached by a long flight of stone steps. The porch opening is flanked by antae and crowned by an entablature with paterae on the frieze, extending to the sides. To the left of the porch is a canted bay window serving the basement and ground floor, topped with a crowning cornice and containing sashes to both floors in each face.

On the first floor to the right is a sash window in an architrave frame beneath a floating open segmental pediment supported on consoles. Further right is a tripartite window with sashes framed by pilasters, topped by floating cornices supported on consoles above the side sashes and an open segmental pediment above the wide central sash. The second floor, which is low in height, contains a single sash to the right and a tri-partite sash to the left in openings with eared architrave frames.

The east elevation facing Brunswick Road has plain irregular openings to the basement. On the ground floor are five sashes in irregularly spaced openings, all with architrave frames and moulded sills supported on shaped brackets. The first-floor sashes are spaced at intervals matching the ground floor, with the central window containing two lights with sashes, all set in architrave frames with floating cornices supported on consoles. The second floor has short sashes spaced at the same intervals as the floor below in openings with eared architrave frames.

The rear garden front is of brick and features an ashlar canted bay window to the basement and ground floor with a crowning entablature and blocking course. The ground floor contains a pair of French doors with a fanlight and a narrow sash in each canted side; to the left of the bay is a single sash. The first floor has two sashes, all in openings with flat arched heads of five raised-and-stepped stone voussoirs and projecting stone sills. The second floor carries two casements with glazing bars.

Throughout all elevations, the sashes on the ground and first floors feature a single horizontal glazing bar in each sash frame, while sashes on the second floor on the front and sides have central vertical glazing bars.

The street front includes subsidiary features: the basement area fence to the left has an ashlar plinth below a decorative wrought-iron railing set between tall square ashlar piers. To the right is a third pier flanking the entrance steps. All piers have moulded bases and caps.

The interior was not inspected at the time of listing.