Victoria Terrace

Victoria Terrace

A large-scale, grandly-designed late-Georgian terrace of emphatically urban character. It comprises a symmetrical composition of 10 houses arranged in 3 storeys, with basements, cellars and attics. The buildings are constructed of limestone ashlar over a rock-faced basement, with slate roofs behind moulded cornices and parapets, and transverse stone stacks.

The front elevation spans 28 bays. Houses numbered 2 to 9 are 3-bay units, whilst Nos 1 and 10 are 2-bay units 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 carry cornices supported on consoles. To the right and left the elevation is slightly splayed, with bays 2-4 and 25-27 also brought forward and treated similarly to the central bays. A plat band runs between the lower and middle storeys.

Windows throughout are round-headed with small-pane sashes in the lower storey (in Nos 3, 4 and 7, sash windows have been reinstated in place of previously inserted French doors), under tripartite lintels. The middle storey carries 12-pane hornless sashes with panelled aprons, and the upper storey has 9-pane hornless sashes. Entrances are reached by stone steps (those to No 1 have been replaced) mostly with square panelled terminal piers at the bottom. Fielded-panel doors have round-headed radial-glazed overlights. Basement windows are visible in some houses. Nos 2 and 6 each have openings fitted with louvres. Nos 5, 9 and 10 have blocked windows.

No 1 has a 2-bay front, its left-hand bay rounded, containing triple 8-pane hornless sashes in the lower storey with moulded impost band carried over the windows and an 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 similar details. Basement windows have railed lightwells except the right-hand bay, which is blocked.

No 10 has a 2-bay front with the right-hand bay inscribed with 'Victoria Terrace' into the first-floor band. The entrance is located in the 3-bay return elevation, a central pointed entrance with stone steps up to a recessed replacement half-glazed door. Square-headed windows carry 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 reads as effectively 4-storey as the ground level sits at basement level. The 4 central bays are recessed. A balcony spans the first floor, providing access to the upper-level apartments numbered 12 to 20, reached by stone steps at either end. The basement and ground storeys contain, for 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, with small-pane sash windows. No 19 has an additional 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, with a half-glazed door and inserted window to its left.

Internally, an open-well stair survives from the original house, running from the first floor to the attic with plain balusters and scrolled tread ends. Rooms are fitted with panelled doors. The drawing room has a moulded fireplace surround of 1937 date, and the rear kitchen is lined with glazed tiles of the same period.