Survey Data
Reg No
50930266
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Original Use
House
In Use As
Office
Date
1805 - 1815
Coordinates
316424, 233162
Date Recorded
11/11/2015
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached three-bay four-storey over basement former townhouse, built c. 1810, with three-storey return to rear. Now in use as offices. Pitched roof concealed by brick parapet with granite coping. Chimneystacks to party walls, brick to north with replacement clay pots, rendered to south with lipped red clay pots. Parapet gutters. Red brick walling laid in Flemish bond over rendered walling to basement beneath granite plinth course. Square-headed window openings with brick voussoirs, patent reveals and masonry sills. Replacement one-over-one sliding timber sash windows with horns, exposed sash boxes to upper floors, recent timber casements to basement. Decorative cast-iron planters to first floor openings and cast-iron grilles to basement. Round-headed door opening with brick voussoirs, moulded rendered reveals and recessed rendered surround containing portico with fluted frieze and moulded cornice carried on Ionic columns over plinth stops, plain fanlight and raised-and-field timber panelled door with replacement brass furniture. Granite entrance platform with cast-iron boot scraper, approached by five granite steps flanked by iron railings with decorative cast-iron corner posts over granite plinth, enclosing basement to south-side. Coal-hole cover to pavement. Modernised two-storey hipped roofed mews building to west on Laverty Court with rubble stone lower walls, blocked former loading door and integral square-headed vehicular opening.
Appraisal
Likely built as a pair with No. 50 (50930265), this former townhouse forms part of a relatively intact imposing early-nineteenth century streetscape. Although largely homogenous in character and form, the subtle variations between terraces are indicative of the speculative nature of the square’s development. Almost all of the western side was completed between c. 1807-15. Laid out in 1791 by the surveyors J & P Roe, Fitzwilliam Square was the last of the city’s Georgian squares to be completed. Development was staggered, progressing slowly due to the French wars.