The Pitt Estate in Dean Street: Nos. 80b, 81 and 82 Dean Street

Nos. 80b, 81 and 82 Dean Street

Demolished

For the first occupants see the table on page 252. Later occupants of No. 80B were Daniel Layard, physician, 1748–50, and Theodore Luders, Russian envoy, 1759–62. (fn. 1)

Nos. 80B, 81 and 82 Dean Street were mediumsized terrace houses of conventional plan, Nos. 80B and 81 being paired to share chimneystacks. Each house contained a basement, three storeys with large closet-wings, and mansard garrets. The fronts, three windows wide, were extremely plain and built of varied stock bricks with red dressings. It seems probable that some interest was originally provided by wooden doorcases but, if so, these had been replaced by plain round-arched doorways in the stuccoed ground storey, where the windows throughout had segmental heads. At No. 81 the brick arches of the windows in the two upper storeys were also segmental, whereas in the flanking fronts they were straight. Segmental arches were, however, used for the generally blind windows in the fourwindows-wide return front of No. 80B. In the easternmost, blind first-floor window on this front was the stone tablet lettered Richmonds Buildings. 1732, now reset in the present building.

The interior of each house was finished with deal panelling of a good standard, the best rooms having ogee-moulded framing. The box-cornices in the front room and passage-hall were ornamented with dentils and, at No. 82 only, a carved leaf decoration on the cymatium. Doric pilasters dressed the opening to the staircase compartment. The stair was of dog-legged form, with wellcarved console step-ends to the cut strings, Doric column-newels, and simply turned balusters spaced two to every tread. From the halflanding above the first floor the stair had moulded closed strings and balusters of a simpler pattern. In the second-floor rooms the panelling was plain and unmoulded, with a narrow cornice of simple profile.