Nos. 67 and 68 Dean Street
For the building and first occupants of these
houses (Plate 112a) see the table on page 248.
In 1745 (and probably from 1740) the rates for
No. 67 were paid by the building lessee and
carpenter, described as John Meard, esquire, who
let the house furnished. (ref. 7) Later, from 1764 to
1767, this house was occupied by Anthony
Chamier, the friend of Reynolds and Johnson. In
1819 it was occupied by R. J. Wyatt, sculptor, and
in 1836 (ref. 30) by Charles Fortnum, son of the founder
of the firm of Fortnum and Mason. (ref. 31)
These are single-fronted houses, containing a
basement and four storeys. In each house the
ground floor is planned with an entrance passage
and a dog-legged staircase on one side of the front
and back rooms. The plans are mirrored so that
the houses share chimney-stacks in the party
wall, and have adjoining closet-wings beyond
the back rooms (fig. 61 on page 240).
The uniform fronts are four storeys high, both
houses having three windows evenly spaced in each
upper storey (Plate 112a). The stock-brick
facing, now blackened and mock-pointed, is
dressed with fine red rubbing bricks, used for the
jambs and gauged arches of the segmentalheaded windows, for the moulded bandcourse at
first-floor level and for the cornice of flattened
profile below the attic storey. Each house has a
prominent doorcase, placed at No. 67 to the
south and at No. 68 to the north of the two
ground-floor windows. These doorcases are
basically Roman Doric in style and are, unusually,
of stone (Plate 121b). Each is composed of two
pilasters with wide inside return faces, having
boldly moulded bases, plain shafts, and enriched
capitals, the echinus or ovolo being carved with
egg-and-dart ornament. These pilasters support
an unbroken entablature, its frieze decorated with
triglyphs and metope-flowers. All of the windows, except those of the ground storey, have
double-hung sashes with glazing-bars of late
Georgian character, hung in partly visible frames
recessed some three inches from the building
face, in segmental-arched openings having stone
sills, thinly plastered reveals, and the red brick
dressings already mentioned. The openings are
all of the same width, but their heights are
proportionate to the different storeys. Beyond
the fact that the window reveals are unplastered,
there is nothing to suggest that the attic storey
replaces a mansard garret. It remains to add that
the ground-storey face at No. 67 has long been
stuccoed, and that some disfiguring finishes and
panels have very recently been applied to the steps
and area-railings. These last, like the railings at
No. 68, are of early nineteenth-century pattern,
with tasselled spear-heads.
The northern return front to Meard Street
(fig. 62) is plain but for the three blind windowrecesses of the first and second floors, and for the
stone name-tablet alongside the eastern blind
window of the first floor. This tablet, with a
segmental-headed moulded frame, is inscribed
MEARDS STREET. 1732 (fig. 60 On page 239).
Both houses are well finished inside and, apart
from some small variations in planning, are very
similar.
In No. 67 the entrance passage is lined with
moulded-and-fielded panelling in two heights, set
in ovolo-moulded framing and finished with a
moulded dado-rail and a box-cornice. The
opening between the passage and the wider staircase compartment is dressed with Doric pilasters,
having fluted shafts and enriched capitals. The
staircase walls and the soffits of the lower flights
are finished with panelling similar to that in the
hall, the landings alone having complete boxcornices. The dog-legged staircase has cut strings
from the ground floor to the half-landing above the
first floor, and moulded closed strings to the basement and upper flights. Well carved bracket stepends ornament the cut strings, and the railings
are composed of moulded handrails resting on
Doric column-newels and balusters, two to each
tread, turned as slender Doric plain-shafted
columns above superimposed urn-profile bases.
The flights with the closed strings have simpler
turnings, with Doric columns above squat
baluster bases.
The ground-floor rooms have been altered to
serve as a restaurant, but enough of the original
finishings remain to show that they closely
resembled the first-floor rooms, which have had
little change. The front room, with three
windows to the street, two doorways in the west
wall, and a wide chimney-breast projecting offcentre from the north wall, is lined with excellent
moulded-and-fielded panelling, arranged in two
heights in ovolo-moulded framing, finished with a
deep skirting having a moulded capping, a moulded
dado-rail, and a generous box-cornice having a
dentil course and a leaf-ornamented cymareversa below the cymatium. The six-panelled
doors and the window shutters match the rest of
the panelling, but the doorways are finished with
wide stepped architraves, whereas the window
embrasures, which have flat soffits, are finished
with a staff-bead. The chimneypiece of marble,
now painted, is typical of its time, with wide flat
jambs and lintel, similarly panelled with sunk
mouldings, the lintel being stilted with a quadrant
curve at each end and broken by a fluted keystone.
The face of the chimney-breast has one large panel
over a smaller one of oblong form.
The panelling in the back room is similar to
that in the front except that the skirting is smaller
and unmoulded. The chimney-breast is splayed
across the north-west angle, and there is the same
arrangement of two panels above the chimneypiece, which resembles that in the front room but
has no keystone. The closet is lined with plain
panelling in ovolo-moulded framing, and has, like
the back room, a plain box-cornice. The angle
fireplace in the closet has a simple stone chimneypiece, with flat jambs and a shaped lintel moulded
only at the edges.