Pound Chequer

Pound Chequer

(272) Cottages, seven adjacent, in two ranges converging at the N.W. corner of the chequer, are two-storeyed with attics and have brick walls and tiled roofs; they are of c. 1800. The corner tenement contains a shop and has two rooms on each floor; the others are approximately uniform and have only a living room and a small scullery on the ground floor. A common yard on the S.W. serves all seven dwellings.

(273) Barnard's Cross House, of two storeys with basement and attics, has walls of brickwork with ashlar dressings, and tiled roofs. The E. part of the house was built late in the 17th century; the obliquity of the drawing room suggests that earlier foundations were used. The original staircase appears to have been in the passage between the two N. rooms. During the first half of the 18th century a small extension was built for a new staircase on the W. of the drawing room, and shortly after this more extensive additions were made to the W.; these include a large dining room, a kitchen and other ground-floor service rooms. Originally the service rooms were in the basement. The house is now part of a college hostel.

The N. elevation (Plate 72) retains original sashed windows, a panelled entrance doorway and a wooden bow window in which the lower lights could formerly be closed by vertically-sliding panelled shutters. There are two blocked basement windows. Further W., the 18th-century extension has plain sashed windows and a doorway with a flat hood. The S. front has, on the E., the three-bay drawing room range with tall sashed windows in both storeys, a moulded stone string-course and a wooden eaves cornice with heavy modillions. On the W. is the 18th-century staircase and dining room extension; a perpendicular joint in the brickwork shows that the staircase was completed first.

Inside, the basement rooms have elliptical brick barrel vaults; one vault bears a scratching of 1740. The ground floor drawing room is lined with original bolection-moulded panelling in two heights; the pedimented doorway and the enriched plaster ceiling appear to be of the mid 18th century; the original fireplace surround has gone. The N.E. room has 18th-century panelling with fluted pilasters. The 18th-century staircase (Plate 89) has newel posts in the form of fluted Tuscan columns. Above the first floor part of the original staircase survives; it has close strings and spirally turned balusters. Several first-floor rooms have dados of fielded panelling. The roofs have collared queen-strut trusses supporting two butt-purlins on each side.

(274) House, No. 51 St. Ann's Street, of two storeys with an attic, has brick walls and a tiled roof and dates from the first half of the 18th century. The three-bay S. front is symmetrical, with a central doorway and plain sashed windows.

(275) House, No. 49 St. Ann's Street, of three storeys with brick walls and tiled roofs, was built about the middle of the 18th century. The S. front is of four bays, with sashed windows in each storey and with a pedimented doorway in the E. bay; the third-storey windows have segmental heads; above is a moulded brick cornice and a panelled parapet. On the E. is a slightly lower three-storeyed bay, possibly an addition. Inside, the rooms have 18th-century joinery.