Survey Data

Reg No

50930117


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Artistic


Original Use

House


In Use As

Embassy


Date

1815 - 1820


Coordinates

316593, 233048


Date Recorded

24/09/2015


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Attached two-bay four-storey over basement former townhouse, built 1817, as a pair with adjoining building to south (50930118). Two-storey over basement return to rear (east). Now in use as an embassy. Pitched roof to west span, irregular M-profiled hipped roof to east, concealed by brick parapet with granite coping. Rendered chimneystacks to south party wall with lipped yellow clay pots. Parapet gutters. Tuck pointed buff brick walling laid in Flemish bond over tooled ashlar limestone walling to basement beneath granite plinth course. Square-headed window openings with brick voussoirs, patent reveals and granite sills, with granite surrounds to basement opening. Cast-iron planters to first floor sills and grille to basement opening. Largely six-over-six timber sliding sash windows with ogee horns, three-over-three to third floor and eight-over-eight to basement without horns. Round-headed door opening with brick voussoirs, moulded reveals and recessed rendered surround containing prostyle portico with fluted frieze and moulded cornice carried on Ionic columns over plinth stops, petal iron fanlight and raised-and-field timber panelled door with replacement brass furniture. Granite entrance platform with cast-iron boot scraper, approached by seven granite steps flanked by iron railings with decorative cast-iron corner posts on granite plinth, enclosing basement to south-side. Steel steps to basement well. Coal-hole cover to pavement. Recent brick boundary wall to east on Lad Lane, flanked by brick piers laid to English garden wall bond with shared vehicular steel gate to south.

Appraisal

Built by the carpenter and builder Richard Knight as a pair with No. 7 (50930118), the buff brick façade breaks the red brick which dominates much of the Square. 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 until after the Napoleonic Wars, with the vast majority of houses on the eastern side of the square completed between 1816-22. Although largely homogeneous in character and form, the subtle variations between terraces are indicative of the speculative nature of the Square’s development.