Description

TQ 3081 SE
60/24

PORTUGAL STREET
Nos 6 and 7 (including No 5 St Clement's Lane)

GV
II
Item includes No 5 St Clement's Lane.

Offices.1903 by Horace Field for George Bell & Co (publishers; nos 5 and 6) and for The Church Times (No 7); altered 1979 and 1990/1.

Red brick in English bond with pink brick chainage and bands, ashlar dressings; roof of plain tiles with slates at base. Four storeys with attic, receiving office formerly three storeys.

In Wrenaissance style having angle pilasters of banded brick and ashlar; rainwater pipes with decorative dated and initialled hoppers; heavy cornice with egg and dart moulding and modillions; tall corniced chimneys. Windows are 18-pane sashes on ground floor, 12-pane sashes above, those on ground floor segmental-arched, otherwise with gauged flat brick arches; those on first and second floor having apron panels and keystones, tripartite on first floor; hipped-roofed dormers. Doors are mostly double with panelled lower sections and small-pane glazing above. Angled entrance bay, at junction of Portugal Street and St Clements Lane, has door below fanlight with feathered leading in voussoired ashlar architrave with flanking ionic pilasters supporting entablature with cable band, cartouche and modillion cornice. Window above in ashlar architrave with bracketed cornice.

Portugal Street elevation: 3,3,1 bays. Double office front to six left-hand bays, each tripartite, framed by wooden pilasters of two orders, with small-pane glazing and bowed central window, that to No 7 (on left) flanked by doors; wooden fascia; flanking ashlar columns and pilasters supporting bracketed entablature, No 6 with modillion cornice. Raised verge between Nos 6 and 7 with dormers arranged 2,2,1: Roof-hipped. Left return: 3,1,7 bays, the three left bays formerly the receiving office, with narrower outer bays, and linked by recessed bay to right-hand section. This is arranged - 2,2,3 bays having central pedimented, three-bay break, and the centre emphasised by ground floor windows in Gibbs-style surround with oculus above, large stair windows to first and third floors and oeuil de boeuf between with swagged hood. Pediment has dated and initialled cartouche with swags. Roof has 'central tile-hung belvedere with cornice and iron balustrade to roof.

St Clements Lane elevation: 5,3,5 bays defined by giant pilasters. Left section has central emphasis provided by entrance in corniced ashlar architrave and large round-arched stair-window above set in coved rusticated niche with imposts, keystone and cornice; large stair-window over; keyed oeuil de boeuf to third floor; and segmental pediment above. Raised-and-fielded panelled door to bay five in architrave lettered 'Town Trade' and linked to window above. Six right-hand bays have double office fronts, bowed, tripartite, with small-pane glazing, and that on right (No 5) with entrance up double-flight stone stair with decorative iron balustrade.

Interior: No 6: circular entrance lobby, altered with black and marble floors, niches, and vaulted side lobby; vaulted stair up to first floor landing which has arcaded walls, cornice and fruit swags over entrance to two principal rooms, the library being of high quality with eared architraves, fluted composite-capitalled attached columns, deep modillioned cornice, decorative fireplace and fitted bookcases.

Listing NGR: TQ3078681201

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27082977

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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