Appraisal

No. 1, Monmouth Street, return elevation on Neal Street

The two-bay return-elevation to No. 1, Monmouth Street is located at the corner of the Monmouth Street and Neal Street, with frontages to each street and with a short frontage between the two.

No. 1, Monmouth Street comprises a four-storey, red brick-faced property with red-brick arches to the two window-openings at each floor level and painted stone dressings, with a further storey at fourth floor level contained within a richly modelled Dutch gable above the strongly-expressed, projecting cornice, on each street-frontage, and a prominent chimney-stack above the short, corner-frontage.

The property carries the date 1893. The ground floor has imaginative new shopfronts comprising door and window surrounds of green glazed-brick neatly fitted between the original red brick pilasters supporting the upper floors. The original panelled, entrance-door leading to the chambers on the upper floors survives at the right hand end of the frontage at ground floor level. The use of the glazed brickwork shows how a recent intervention can be made successfully in the spirit of the original building, but with marked individuality of its own.

The red brickwork and white-painted joinery of the casement and sash-windows of the upper elevations are well maintained and should continue to be so. The property enjoys a complementary role in scale and character with no. 3 Monmouth Street, immediately adjacent. The deep fascia above the shop window carries applied lettering above a modern, retractable black-canvas projecting canopy.

An unlisted property of considerable architectural and townscape value contributing positively to the character, appearance and significance of the Seven Dials Conservation Area.