Hillborough House and area railings

A substantial terraced house of three storeys, rendered in painted roughcast with slate roofs behind a low parapet. The building dates from the mid-19th century and is graded II* on the heritage register.

Exterior

The front elevation is broad and five bays wide, with a raised band running beneath the parapet. The windows are largely renewed 12-pane sashes; the ground floor has two bays to the right of centre and one bay to the left fitted with sashes, while the outer left bay retains double boarded doors from when the building housed a former coach-house. The centre first floor windows replace a canted bay window, visible in old photographs. The top floor has shorter windows: 12-pane sashes to the outer bays, 16-pane sashes to the inner ones, and a broad horizontal 20th-century double window at the centre.

The entrance is a recessed doorway with overlight. The doors are double single-panel with an overlight divided by tiny square piers. A striking Greek Revival stucco porch projects before the entrance, featuring two pairs of baseless Greek Doric columns and a plain entablature (possibly altered) with flat coping. Wrought-iron railings on low stone copings run along the basement area, now infilled.

A parallel rear range in painted stucco contains a curved two-storey bow—similar to those at Hermon's Hill House—which houses the staircase. Each floor has a broad tripartite 20th-century window. The left side may retain a truncated older chimney. The ground and first floors on the left have UPVC windows. The rear range does not extend across the final bay to the right, which represents the former throughway; the rear wall of the front range retains remains of slate hanging.

Interior

The entrance hallway features a late 19th-century coloured tiled floor and panelled six-panel doors to each side. Two fine fluted Ionic columns open into a broad stair hall, which also has six-panel doors to each side.

The front left room is narrow, constrained by the throughway on its opposite side, and retains a Victorian fireplace. The front right room contains a sideboard recess with curved upper angles, timber casing, imposts and moulded key block. It has a fireplace with cast-iron grate and panelled shutters; the cornice was renewed in the late 20th century.

The stair hall features a fine broad staircase with a continuous handrail, scrolled at the foot. Each tread has two square balusters with scrolled tread ends. The back wall is curved and lit by a 20th-century tripartite window on each landing (replacing sashes). Above rises an open stair-well beneath a stuccoed dome with radiating sunk panels and apex glazing to admit light from a roof-light above. A single-panel door provides access to the under-stair area, which has stone flagged floors.

The first floor landing is curved at its right end and opens into a circular lobby to the left. The main landing displays two curved-backed arched niches. The right end has two curved six-panel doors and two narrow niches, with small rooms beyond. To the left, a square-headed opening with paired panelled slim pilasters leads into the circular lobby, which contains two curved panelled doors and one double-door (not curved) opening into the main front room. The lobby has a flat ceiling with circular plain moulding.

The main first floor room has a fine marble fireplace of circa 1840, with panelled piers and anthemion bosses beneath scroll capitals, and a mid-19th-century arched cast-iron grate. Deep skirting boards and a small swirled acanthus ceiling-rose are present.

Off the lobby to the left is a bathroom, created within an altered mid-18th-century narrow room with fielded panelled walls and dentil cornice. A panelled partition divides off a small lobby with an original fireplace wall. A double-door cupboard at the opposite end has shaped upper panels and panelling within.

The attic contains panelled doors off the landing, some re-used fielded-panelled doors, and three large pine collar trusses to the roof. A brass handrail serves the attic stairs. One bedroom retains a marble hearth slab.