Survey Data
Reg No
50920227
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Social
Original Use
House
In Use As
Hotel
Date
1800 - 1840
Coordinates
315724, 233061
Date Recorded
11/09/2015
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Terraced three-bay four-storey over basement former townhouse, built c. 1820, now in use as a hotel with full-height recent extension to rear. Pitched roof, hidden behind brick parapet with granite coping, rebuilt shouldered brick chimneystack with replacement clay pots to north party wall, parapet gutters with uPVC downpipe to north-end. Red brick walls laid in Flemish bond with granite plinth course over rendered walls to basement. Square-headed window openings with brick voussoirs, masonry sills and raised rendered reveals. Replacement timber sliding sashes with horns; largely six-over-six, nine-over-six to first floor, three-over-three to third floor. Generally having secondary glazing to interior. Round-headed door opening with brick voussoirs, rendered reveals, engaged Ionic columns supporting festooned frieze and cornice having cobwebbed fanlight with fluted surround and replacement timber door approached by bullnosed granite step. Granite entrance platform flanked by cast-iron railings with decorative corner posts over masonry plinth, continuing to north to enclose basement area. Recent steps to basement level. Street-fronted on west side of Harcourt Street. Recent stone-clad boundary wall to rear plot on Camden Place.
Appraisal
Built as a unified terrace comprising Nos. 24-31 (50920221-8), the group is characterised by the unusually narrow three-bays of the principal facades, and forms part of a relatively intact street of late-Georgian and early-Victorian townhouses. Though altered for use as a hotel, the building positively contributes to the wider streetscape, which is dominated by uniform rooflines, vertical massing and restrained detailing. Harcourt Street was opened 1777 by John Hatch, barrister and Seneschal of the Manor of St. Sepulchre. Development was sporadic until the late 1790s when Messrs Hatch, Wade and Whitten obtained approval from the Wide Street Commissioners for the further development of the street.