Knightsbridge
Egerton Place
Egerton Place is built roughly as a crescent. Number 1 Egerton Place is physically round the corner in Egerton Terrace. So the crescent itself really begins with No. 2.
At first glance, Egerton Place looks like a single architectural unit. In fact, different builders built the two halves. John Grover built Nos. 1-7 to designs by Mervyn Macartney in about 1892. William Willett completed the crescent by building Nos. 8-13 to designs by his own architect, Amos Faulkner, between 1894-7. (There is no longer a number 8. Its front door is now a window matching the door of number 7.) You can see the point at which Grover left off in the middle of the pediment above number 7 and Willett carried on the building of number 9-13. There is a change in stone colour from amber to grey, and the later houses have a first floor balcony with stone balustrades carried on heavy brackets, which was a feature typical of the 1890s.
The houses all have a basement with an area in front, almost to the pavement. There are four main floors above. Up to second floor level the houses are generally stone-faced and have bow windows. Above the houses are mainly brick-faced. There is a cornice above second floor level. The third floor has windows flush with the front elevation. Above the front doors there are individual windows at first, second and third floor level. There is a mansard roof behind a parapet wall with large windows providing a fourth floor.
Nos. 1-7 were built with red and orange two-inch bricks, with stone dressings. A plain stone cornice links all the houses at third-floor level. The door cases are of stone with open segmental or triangular pediments. The houses have canted stone bays.
The curve of numbers 2-7 is smooth. Numbers 9-14 were built as two sides of a triangle, although the appearance of a curve is maintained at ground floor level with the shared porch of 10 and 11 straight across the angle. 12 and 13 share porches.
The entrance doors of numbers 2-7 have a stone architrave with a broken topped pediment, either straight or curved. For numbers 9-13, a porch is formed by the balcony above which is supported on ornate brackets on each side of the door. Faulkner began by closely following Macartney's style but progressively departed from it as he moved round the terrace. The linking cornice was dropped and new features - such as the balustrades - were added.
