Islwyn

Islwyn is a highly accomplished Edwardian terrace built in 1909 in English baroque style. It comprises eight houses occupying numbers 1-15 Arenig Street (odd numbers), with the listing including forecourt walls and railings, and associated yard walls and outbuildings to the rear. The hoppers are dated.

The terrace is a refined two-and-a-half storey structure of brick construction. The facades and sides feature good quality red brickwork with buff sandstone dressings. The rear elevation retains its original roughcast treatment. A continuous hipped slate roof with feathered, oversailing eaves having wooden dentilated treatment covers the terrace. There are five chimneys with sandstone cappings; those to the far right (numbers 1 and 2) are rendered.

The composition is symmetrical and conceived as an overall arrangement of 18 bays. Four paired bays—at bays 1, 5 & 7, 9 & 11, and 15—are advanced. The centre pairs are distinguished by large segmental pedimented gables with rolled leaded roofs, whilst the outer pairs have hipped slated roofs. Each advanced pair has projecting sandstone ashlar quoins. The outer advanced pairs each contain two elegant sash windows to ground and first floors (18 panes at ground level, 12 panes at first floor) with flat arches featuring fine brick voussoirs and geometric stone keys. The central advanced pairs have similar first-floor windows and paired 4-panel doors with rectangular overlights at ground floor. The recessed end bays (1 & 5) have similar first-floor windows with corresponding entrances. The remaining ground-floor bays (3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13) feature canted bay windows with 18-pane central sashes and 12-pane flanking sashes, accompanied by shaped and moulded parapets to flat roofs, keystones, and voussoirs. The attic floor contains eight large flat-roofed dormers, each with a 16-pane casement.

The rear elevation is roughcast and features segmentally-arched 12-pane sashes, with 22 such windows at first-floor level, and eight slate-hung dormers matching those of the front. Each unit has a ground-floor rear entrance providing access to a small brick-walled yard with boarded entrance. At the rear of each yard stands a wash-house and coal store block; one such block is shared between two units. The terrace retains its original low brick forecourt walls to the front, surmounted by iron railings and gates in Art Nouveau style.

The interior was not inspected at the time of survey.