Description

TQ 2880 SE CITY OF WESTMINSTER HILL STREET W1
80/1 (South East side)
24.2.58 No 17
GV I
Terraced town house. 1748-49 by Benjamin Timbrell, with rear extension,
alterations and interiors by Robert Adam, 1777-79, for Sir Abraham Hume (the 2nd
Baronet). Brown brick, slate roof. 4 storeys, basement and dormered mansard. 4
windows wide. The entrance porch to left is a convincing Adamesque addition of
c.1906, enclosed and stone faced with lower cornice carried in over doorhead, the
frieze with putti-panel and roundels over slender Ionic columned jambs of doorway
with archivolt arched fanlight, roundels inspandrels beneath crowning cornice.
Ground floor windows semicircular arched, gauged flat arches to upper floors,
recessed glazing bar sashes. 1st floor plat band, bracketed main cornice over 2nd
floor and crowning cornice and blocking couse. Bowed wrought iron balconettes
added to 1st floor c.1906. Wrought iron area railings. The interior retains
almost complete Adam scheme, with some neo-Adam alterations by the firm of
Hindley and Wilkinson in 1906. Adam provided the rear wing to create 2 grand
reception rooms on the ground and 1st floors, replanned the staircase creating the
present oblong compartment (the stairs themselves of 1906) and there are Adam
designs for the ceilings of the 3 main 1st floor rooms and the staircase, of
which the latter, the rear room and the grand room in the wing survive; drawings
also for some of the painted door panels in the main drawing room; ground floor
grand room in wing has Tuscan column screens; wall decoration consists predominantly
of painted arabesques and grotesques to shallow pilasters, friezes "al'antico" etc.
Front ground floor room retains features of Timbrell's original interior such
as cornice and chimney piece, etc. Adam was working forHume at Hill Street at
the same time as he was decorating Hume's country house at Wormleybury. Hindley
and Wilkinson are probably responsible for the 1st floor front room ceiling,
and they remodelled the hall at the same time as the stairs.
There are some 50 drawings for 17 Hill Street in the Soane Museum.
The English Interior; Arthur Stratton
Country Life; March 17th, 1917

Listing NGR: TQ2862380490

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17527039

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)