Chester Terrace

CHESTER TERRACE

To the south of Cumberland Place runs another remarkable line of mansions taking its name from the royal earldom of Chester. From the original leases in possession of the Commissioners of Crown Lands it appears that James Burton, father of Decimus Burton, was lessee and architect. The frontage is continuous for a length of 1000 feet, with five projecting Corinthian porticoes, the central and end ones being octastyle of three standing columns and the two intermediate hexastyle with three quarter columns. These columns stand a little above ground-level and carry an entablature between the first and second floors, the cornice being continued to the main wall treatment between the porticoes. The first-floor level is marked by a balcony with ornamental cast-iron balustrading which is carried behind the three columns but is intercepted by the two groups of attached columns. The ground-floor doors and windows all have arched openings. The secondfloor windows have plain square heads. The attic storeys above the porticoes have their wall treatment divided by pilasters, but the general symmetry has been interrupted by an extra storey being added to several of the houses, and the balustraded parapet has also been affected. At each end of the main building are advanced return-wings connected to the frontage by triumphal arches. These have three semi-circular headed openings, the centre, which includes the roadway, being considerably higher than those at either side for foot passengers. They are framed towards the front by four threequarter columns, the ones nearest the main building being also the last column of the end porticoes. The main entablature is carried across the archway with a panelled attic corresponding in height to the second floor. On the reverse side the columns are replaced by fluted Corinthian pilasters and the main entablature finishes above the archway, and does not continue round those houses in the terrace which are screened from the front by the advanced wings. To the west, that is facing the Park, these wings, which each comprise two houses, repeat the hexastyle portico treatment with the outer columns duplicated, while on the north and south faces the columns are replaced by four pilasters. The houses behind the wings are simpler in character than those in the main terrace and at the south end where the ground falls somewhat an extra storey is contrived below the main entablature, and the south elevation, which can just be seen in Plate 101a101a, is treated with groups of blank window recesses and a pediment. The attractive house, shown in the foreground of Plate 101b, is numbered 3 in the terrace, and may possibly incorporate another building approached from the Mews.

This was the first of the great terraces to be occupied, and the first resident was John Strange Winstanley who was in occupation of No. 14 by 1827. In the following year Thomas Wood was at No. 5, John Brown at No. 26, and William Fox at No. 30. By 1829 seven houses were occupied, by 1830 fifteen and in 1831 only thirteen. By 1832 the number had risen to twenty-eight, but the houses were not fully occupied till 1835.

The occupiers up till 1840 were—