Amien House

Terraced two-bay three-storey house over raised basement, built c.1810, now in use as guest house, with three-storey modern extension to rear. Flat roof hidden behind parapet wall with cement coping. Cement rendered walls to front and rear elevations. Square-headed window openings with concrete sills and replacement timber sash windows, replacement uPVC windows to rear. Round-headed door opening with replacement timber panelled door and replacement Doric doorcase with plain overlight. Door opens onto concrete platform and three concrete steps bridging basement area. Platform and basement area enclosed by replacement steel railings on replacement rendered plinth wall. Original cast-iron coal hole cover set in granite slab to front pavement.

This house forms part of a terrace of similarly-scaled former townhouses lining the west side of Amiens Street as laid out as part of the Gardiner Estate in the early eighteenth century. Formerly known as 'The Strand', the coastal route to the north, the street was renamed after Viscount Amiens, first Earl of Aldborough. The thoroughfare was one of the last to be developed at the turn of the nineteenth century, with this terrace representing the northeastern limits of the ubiquitous three-storey Georgian townhouse. Recently refurbished with the use of largely appropriate replacement materials, the building forms part of a terrace that has suffered many interventions over the centuries but nonetheless presents an early aspect to the street while preserving some of the Georgian character that once defined this streetscape.