Victoria Terrace

Victoria Terrace is a large-scale, grandly-designed late-Georgian terrace that is emphatically urban in conception. It comprises a symmetrical composition of 10 houses of 3 storeys, with basements, cellars and attics. The buildings are constructed of limestone ashlar over a rock-faced basement, with a slate roof behind a moulded cornice and parapet, and transverse stone stacks. The front elevation spans 28 bays.

Nos 2-9 are 3-bay houses, while Nos 1 and 10 have 2 bays to the front. The central 4 bays are brought forward under a pediment, with double-height pilasters over channelled rustication in the lower storey. Middle storey windows have cornices on consoles. To the right and left the elevation is slightly splayed, and bays 2-4 and 25-7 are also brought forward with similar treatment to the 4 central bays. Between the lower and middle storeys is a plat band. Windows in the lower storey are round-headed with small-pane sashes, positioned under tripartite lintels. The middle storey has 12-pane hornless sashes with panelled aprons, and the upper storey has 9-pane hornless sashes. In Nos 3, 4 and 7, sash windows have been reinstated in place of inserted French doors. Entrances are reached up stone steps (replaced to No 1), mostly with square panelled terminal piers at the bottom. Fielded-panel doors have round-headed radial-glazed overlights. Basement windows are visible in some of the houses. Nos 2 and 6 each have openings with louvres. Nos 5, 9 and 10 have blocked windows.

No 1 is 2-bay to the front, of which the left-hand bay is rounded with triple 8-pane hornless sashes in the lower storey with moulded impost band carried over the windows and apron, a similar but plainer square-headed middle storey window, and a square-headed triple 6-pane sash window in the upper storey. The left-hand return elevation is 3 bays with details similar to the front. Basement windows have railed lightwells except the right-hand bay where the window is blocked.

No 10 has 2 bays to the front, of which the right-hand bay has 'Victoria Terrace' inscribed into the first-floor band. The entrance is in the 3-bay return elevation, a central pointed entrance with stone steps up to a recessed, replacement half-glazed door. It has square-headed windows with 12-pane and 9-pane hornless sashes, but the left-hand bay is blind. Basement windows are blocked.

The rear elevation is pebble-dashed and effectively 4-storey as the ground is at basement level. The 4 central bays are recessed. A balcony runs across the first floor, providing access to the upper-level apartments, Nos 12-20, reached by stone steps at either end. Basement and ground storeys have, to each 2-window apartment, 3-light and 4-light steel-framed casement windows and half-glazed steel-framed doors, inserted in 1937. At the upper level each apartment has a half-glazed door under a tall overlight with latticework glazing. Windows are small-pane sashes. No 19 also has an inserted window to the right in the upper storey. At the right end, the projecting gable end of No 1 has a lean-to in the lower storey, two 12-pane hornless sashes in the middle storey, two 9-pane hornless sashes in the upper storey and, in the attic, two 12-pane horizontal-sliding sashes and a 4-pane horned sash window. At the left end the entrance to No 20 is in the return elevation and has a half-glazed door with inserted window to its left.

The interior retains the original open-well stair with moulded square balusters, some of cast iron, a turned newel and moulded tread ends. It is top-lit by a radial-glazed circular lantern, above which is a light shaft below skylights just below the apex of the roof. There is a 2-bay drawing room and a circular room next to it, above a circular vestibule on the ground floor, both with panelled doors, panelled reveals and shutters. The drawing room retains a plaster cornice incorporating anthemion and egg-and-dart friezes, and an ornate central ceiling rose. A closed-string staircase with winders at the top leads to the attic, where there is a landing with plain balustrade. Attic rooms have panelled doors.