7, Castle Street

This is a substantial house, now offices, dating to 1723-1728 and built for the Duke of Chandos. It was designed by Benjamin Holloway or Fort and Shepherd, who were the Duke's London surveyors. The building is constructed of Flemish-bond Bridgwater brick with distinctive red headers and yellow stretchers. The left side features painted rusticated stone quoins, moulded architraves, cills, brackets and doorcase. The roof is not visible, and there are brick stacks. It has a double-depth plan with a rear left wing.

The house is three storeys high with a basement and has a symmetrical five-window range. It occupies the left end of a terrace which steps downhill from King Square. A substantial cornice sweeps up over the quoins on the left, topped by a plain brick parapet capped with stone coping, which is likely a later reconstruction. The window architraves are carved from rectangular blocks set into the brickwork, with consoles supporting moulded cills. Windows are primarily sash windows, with 6/6-pane sashes on the second floor and plate-glass lower sashes on the other floors. The C20 front door has a restored bolection-moulded architrave with brackets.

The left return wall displays a diamond pattern of red header bricks at the centre, flanked by blocked-up window openings on both sides of each floor. Below these are two wide segmental brick arches leading to the basement. The rear wing is not visible.

The interior of the left ground-floor room has a diagonal corner chimney breast to the rear and a simple early 18th-century cornice, thick skirting board, and a late 18th-century semi-elliptical arched recess to the rear. The room to the right is decorated in a late 18th-century style, with a reeded cornice, low skirting board, and a large semi-elliptical arched recess to the rear. The staircase, situated between the rooms on the right, was originally late 18th-century in style, with fretted ends and a swept mahogany handrail. It is now boarded and painted; the staircase is open-well to the first floor and dogleg above. A semicircular-arched doorway with a moulded archivolt provides access to the rear wing.

The terraces of houses in Castle Street form an important group, notable for their scale and ambition outside of London’s West End.