Description

TQ 2880 SE CITY OF WESTMINSTER HILL STREET W1 80/1 (South East side) 24.2.58 No 17 GV I Terraced town house. 1748-49 by Benjamin Timbrell, with rear extension, alterations and interiors by Robert Adam, 1777-79, for Sir Abraham Hume (the 2nd Baronet). Brown brick, slate roof. 4 storeys, basement and dormered mansard. 4 windows wide. The entrance porch to left is a convincing Adamesque addition of c.1906, enclosed and stone faced with lower cornice carried in over doorhead, the frieze with putti-panel and roundels over slender Ionic columned jambs of doorway with archivolt arched fanlight, roundels inspandrels beneath crowning cornice. Ground floor windows semicircular arched, gauged flat arches to upper floors, recessed glazing bar sashes. 1st floor plat band, bracketed main cornice over 2nd floor and crowning cornice and blocking couse. Bowed wrought iron balconettes added to 1st floor c.1906. Wrought iron area railings. The interior retains almost complete Adam scheme, with some neo-Adam alterations by the firm of Hindley and Wilkinson in 1906. Adam provided the rear wing to create 2 grand reception rooms on the ground and 1st floors, replanned the staircase creating the present oblong compartment (the stairs themselves of 1906) and there are Adam designs for the ceilings of the 3 main 1st floor rooms and the staircase, of which the latter, the rear room and the grand room in the wing survive; drawings also for some of the painted door panels in the main drawing room; ground floor grand room in wing has Tuscan column screens; wall decoration consists predominantly of painted arabesques and grotesques to shallow pilasters, friezes "al'antico" etc. Front ground floor room retains features of Timbrell's original interior such as cornice and chimney piece, etc. Adam was working forHume at Hill Street at the same time as he was decorating Hume's country house at Wormleybury. Hindley and Wilkinson are probably responsible for the 1st floor front room ceiling, and they remodelled the hall at the same time as the stairs. There are some 50 drawings for 17 Hill Street in the Soane Museum. The English Interior; Arthur Stratton Country Life; March 17th, 1917

Listing NGR: TQ2862380490

External Links

• Wikidata Q17527039

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Recommended Books

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  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)