Avenue House With Boundary Walls

Avenue House is a former town house, now used as offices, dating from around 1800, with some earlier fabric visible in the lower ground floor. The exterior is rendered over a rubble base, with a hipped Welsh slate roof concealed behind a parapet and brick chimney stacks. It is arranged with a double-depth plan.

The building is three storeys high and has four bays, with the right-hand bay possibly added later. The design includes a plinth, rusticated work to the ground floor, end pilasters, band courses, a coved cornice, and coved coping to the parapet. The ground floor features margin-paned French windows with matching toplights in bays 1 and 3, and a six-panel door in bay 2. Bay 4 has a pair of semicircular arched French doors set at a higher level, above a basement window. The first floor is characterised by large 12-pane sash windows almost reaching floor level, set in architraves, with matching French doors in bay 2 and a small 12-pane sash window in bay 4. The second floor has smaller 12-pane sash windows in architraves bays 1, 2, and 3, and a small four-pane sash window in bay 4. A highly ornamented cast-iron verandah/balcony with a bell-hip metal roof extends across bays 1 to 3 on the ground and first floors, and a similar balcony extends from the ground floor bay 4, as well as serving as a forecourt railing. The left-hand return is plain and features two tall eaves stacks; a further stack is located behind the ridge to the right.

The rear elevation is relatively plain, with a semicircular arched 21-pane stair window extending through two floors, from a mezzanine level. There are mostly 12-pane sash windows in architraves, and a small single-storey extension in the northwest corner. A sunken area with early 19th-century cast-iron railings sits in front of the extension. At lower ground floor level is a large tripartite sash window with an 18:18:18-pane configuration and mullion boxes, beneath a moulded stone drip-course with dropped ends, suggesting earlier construction.

The interior retains many original features despite conversion to offices and loss of some fireplaces, including ceiling cornices, fine mahogany six-panel doors and doorcases, and a staircase with a curled hardwood handrail base and cast-iron balustrading.

Boundary walls, 4 to 5 metres high, extend from both corners of the front elevation. These walls are mostly stone, with a brick top on the west side, and sweep upwards to meet the second-floor band course level.