No 7 including railings and gate

Cadw's description

Location

Situated mid way along The Parade, a pair with No 8.

History

One of a pair of large later C19 villas with No. 8. No 7 was Handel House described as 'recently erected' in 1885, and then occupied by C. Videon Harding, musician. The Parade was laid out in 1782 and lined with trees in 1800. There are references to new houses in the 1830s and 1840s, the 1834 map shows a detached building roughly on the site of Nos 6-7 and a view of 1874 shows villas.

Exterior

Terraced, paired house, painted stucco, slate roof with fretwork eaves board and bargeboards, yellow brick end stacks, left stack shared. Three-storey, 2-window range, plate-glass sashes. Upper floor has stepped triplet of round-headed windows to left, the centre light taller and wider, and a single, yet wider round-headed sash to right. Arched hoodmoulds. To left on first and ground floors, 2-storied canted bay window with moulded cornice; to right on first floor flat-headed sash, and on ground floor, round-headed doorway. Four steps up to C20 door (5-panelled in 1981) with plain fanlight. Hoodmoulds extended as strings on each floor, but on ground floor only as far as bay window. Balconies with fine later C19 cast-iron balustrades on first floor, extending either side of bay window.
Front garden dwarf walls of stone with ashlar coping, cast-iron railings to intersecting oval pattern by Thomas Jones, Priory Foundry (similar to those before Nos 8-9 The Esplanade and Union Street Chapel) and matching gate.

Reason for designation

Included as a large semi-detached later C19 house with good detail including ironwork, part of the development of The Parade as a fashionable residential area.