Kent House, 4 and 4A Howard Street

Summary

A pair of townhouses, built in the early C19.

Reasons for Designation

Kent House, 4 and 4A Howard Street is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as an early-C19 building which contributes to the character of an architecturally varied historic streetscape.

Group value:

* the building is in close proximity to a large number of listed buildings and forms part of a strong historic grouping.

History

Until the C19, most of the land west of Reading town centre was open farmland crossed by two ancient routes passing through the town from London to the West Country. Today, the northern of these two roads is named Oxford Road, while the southern is named Castle Street/Castle Hill/Bath Road. Inns and some isolated dwellings probably existed on these roads before the C18. Fortifications were built throughout the area by Royalist forces garrisoned in the town during the Civil War with some of the earthworks surviving into the early C19.

From the early C18, development slowly began to spread westward along Castle Hill/Bath Road and Oxford Road. John Rocque’s Map of Berkshire (1761) depicts ribbon development along Castle Hill/Bath Road extending as far as the junction with Tilehurst Road, and individual houses within grounds along Oxford Road about as far as the present-day location of Russell Street. More comprehensive development of the area began in the early C19 and progressed gradually over the 100 years. Development spread further along Castle Street/Castle Hill, with some of the earlier buildings depicted on Rocque’s map seemingly replaced. North-south link roads also were laid out across the market gardens that previously existed between Oxford Road and Bath Road. Terraced housing was erected in considerable quantities during the first half of the century to cater for a variety of social groups.

Howard Street was one of the first north-south connector streets laid out on the land between Oxford Road and Castle Street/Castle Hill and was established sometime between 1800 and 1820. The character of the street changed with the demolition of the entire eastern side of the street to allow the creation of the Inner Distribution Road, which the surviving houses on the western side of the street now overlook.

The pair of townhouses at 4 and 4A Howard Street appear to have been constructed soon after Howard Street was laid out in the early C19. They are the largest houses on the street and are externally finished to higher quality than most with formal classical detailing. A distinct joint in the brickwork between the two houses suggests that there was a pause in construction of the pair although the many shared features and careful symmetrical composition indicate this pause in construction was fairly brief.

The buildings appear to have remained in residential use throughout their existence and have been altered little externally. Both buildings have lost their original front boundary treatments and in 2023 have C20 brick and rendered boundary walls. In the late C20, 4A Howard Street was converted into flats and underwent internal remodelling. It has recently undergone an internal and external refurbishment which saw modern uPVC casements at first and second floor replaced with the current timber sashes.

Details

A pair of town houses, built in the early C19.

MATERIALS and PLAN : the buildings are of exposed red brick and stucco with a roof covering of slate. The brickwork differs slightly in colour between the two buildings, although this may be a result of cleaning and repointing of each building at different times. Three storeys plus basement.

EXTERIOR: the building is a symmetrically-composed pair of town houses across two bays on the entrance front. The ground floor of both properties is stuccoed, with that at 4A Howard Street being channelled, and contains a single, round-headed sash window and five-panelled door under a plain rectangular fanlight set within a round-arched recess adjacent to the party wall. The upper floors are of exposed brickwork in Flemish bond, with a stucco plat band at first-floor cill height. Each townhouse contains two six-over-six sash windows on the first floor and two three-over-three sash window on the second floor. All eight windows on the upper floors sit under well-crafted flat arches in gauged brickwork. A stucco, corniced parapet conceals a pair of hipped slate roofs.

The rear (western) elevation is of exposed brickwork and contains a variety of sash and modern casement windows. There is a two-storey, full-width extension at 4A Howard Street.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

38977

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Tyack, G, Bradley, S, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England Berkshire , (1994), pp.438-440

Websites
Reading Borough Council, History of Reading (2012), accessed 9 August 2023 from https://web.archive.org/web/20120425235452/http:/www.reading.gov.uk/residents/history-of-reading/
Ditchfield, PH, Page, W, A History of the County of Berkshire: Volume 3 (1923), pp.336-342, accessed 9 August 2023 from https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/berks/vol3

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