Survey Data
Reg No
50930131
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Original Use
House
In Use As
Office
Date
1905 - 1915
Coordinates
316538, 232952
Date Recorded
24/09/2015
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached three-bay four-storey over basement former townhouse, built c. 1825, rebuilt 1911, as a pair with No. 2 (50930130). Two-stage return to rear (east) elevation. Now in use as offices. M-profiled slate roof, hipped to south of west span, concealed by parapet with moulded cornice and granite blocking course. Pair of shouldered brick chimneystacks with octagonal clay pots to north party wall. Parapet gutters, recessed cast-iron downpipe with hopper to north side. Ashlar granite walling, rusticated to ground floor, tooled ashlar limestone to basement with granite plinth course. Red brick walling to rear (east) elevation. Square-headed window openings with moulded granite surrounds and sills; shouldered to third floor, lugged to first floor and having lugged heads and shouldered sills to second floor. Granite voussoirs to ground floor openings and granite surrounds to basement. Continuous decorative cast-iron balconette to first floor windows and cast-iron grille affixed to masonry basement sills. Windows largely late-nineteenth or early-twentieth century one-over-one timber sliding sashes without horns, six-over-six to second floor and basement (some replacement glass) and three-over-three to third floor. Some Wyatt-style windows to rear (east) elevation. Round-headed door opening with granite voussoirs and recessed Doric doorcase comprising engaged pilasters and prostyle fluted Doric columns supporting triglyphed frieze and modillioned cornice surmounted by plain fanlight over six-panelled timber door with beaded-muntin. Granite entrance platform with decorative cast-iron boot scrapers, approached by six bull-nosed granite steps flanked by decorative cast-iron railings, enclosing basement to north. Coal-hole cover to pavement. Modernised two-storey mews building to rear with M-profiled roof. Rear plot on Lads Lane bound by random ashlar limestone wall, gable-fronted to south with red sandstone coping, square-headed door opening with recent timber door and elliptical-headed carriage-arch to north having brick voussoirs, flanked by ashlar limestone piers with timber-sheeted gates.
Appraisal
Developed in conjunction with the eastern and southern sides of Fitzwilliam Square, the eastern side of Fitzwilliam Place was completed by 1836, with the exception of five houses to the south-end. Built in pairs and small groups, the designs emulated the red brick townhouses of Fitzwilliam Square South, however Nos. 2-3 Fitzwilliam Place, which are unusually faced entirely in granite and are embellished with window architraves, are notable departures from type. The Irish Builder records that the pair were 'being practically rebuilt' in 1911 to designs by Orpen & Dickinson. However the doorcase to No. 4 is almost identical to its neighbour at No. 3, perhaps suggesting that the ground floor treatment of nos. 2 and 3 is original. This change in materials breaks the elevational homogeneity of the red brick townhouses which dominate the streetscape.