Good Vibrations

Terraced two-bay three-storey house, built c.1820, as one of pair, with replacement shopfront to ground floor. Triple-span slate roof, hipped to north with stepped brick chimneystack to south party wall and further stack to rear, all having clay pots. Roof hidden behind Roman cement-rendered parapet wall with cast-iron hopper and downpipe breaking through to north end. Painted brick walls laid in Flemish bond. Gauged brick flat-arch window openings with granite sills and replacement single-pane timber sliding sash windows.

Capel Street was laid out in 1680 by Humphrey Jervis as a prestigious residential street and named after Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex. By 1800 the street had become one of the city’s principal commercial thoroughfares with the current plot ratios reflecting the layout of that period. Built as one of a pair this house with its smaller scale and unusual roof plan may have earlier origins. The current appearance of the building does not conform to such a vintage but nonetheless adds to the variation that characterizes this early streetscape.