Victoria Terrace

Victoria Terrace (Numbers 1-20)

A large-scale, grandly-designed late-Georgian terrace, emphatically urban in conception. The building comprises ten townhouses arranged in a symmetrical composition, each of three storeys with basements, cellars and attics. The structure is built 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.

Architectural Composition

Numbers 2 to 9 are 3-bay houses, while Numbers 1 and 10 each 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. The 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 central 4 bays. A plat band runs between the lower and middle storeys.

Fenestration and Doors

The lower storey features round-headed windows with small-pane sashes under tripartite lintels. The middle storey has 12-pane hornless sashes with panelled aprons, and the upper storey has 9-pane hornless sashes. In Numbers 3, 4 and 7, sash windows have been reinstated in place of inserted French doors. Entrances are reached up stone steps (those to Number 1 are replaced) and are mostly flanked by square panelled terminal piers at the bottom. Fielded-panel doors have round-headed radial-glazed overlights. Basement windows are visible in some houses; Numbers 2 and 6 each have openings with louvres, while Numbers 5, 9 and 10 have blocked windows.

Number 1 Detail

Number 1 is 2-bay to the front, with the left-hand bay rounded. This rounded bay has triple 8-pane hornless sashes in the lower storey with a moulded impost band carried over the windows and apron. The middle storey has a similar but plainer square-headed window, and the upper storey a square-headed triple 6-pane sash window. The left-hand return elevation is 3 bays with similar details. Basement windows have railed lightwells except for the right-hand bay where the window is blocked.

Number 10 Detail

Number 10 has 2 bays to the front, the right-hand bay inscribed with 'Victoria Terrace' into the first-floor band. The entrance is in the 3-bay return elevation, featuring a central pointed entrance with stone steps up to a recessed replacement half-glazed door. The return elevation has square-headed windows with 12-pane and 9-pane hornless sashes, though the left-hand bay is blind. Basement windows are blocked.

Rear Elevation and Apartments

The rear is pebble-dashed and effectively 4-storey as the ground sits at basement level. The 4 central bays are recessed. A balcony runs across the first floor providing access to the upper-level apartments Numbers 12-20, reached by stone steps at either end. The 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 and small-pane sash windows. Number 19 also has an inserted window to the right in the upper storey.

At the right end, the projecting gable end of Number 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 Number 20 is in the return elevation with a half-glazed door and inserted window to its left.

Interior

The entrance opens to a round vestibule with curved half-glazed panel doors to the stair hall. The right-hand drawing room has panelled doors and reveals with panelled shutters.