Terracotta gable and string course.

It is very characteristic of Victorian leafy suburbia.  Many builders seem to have been involved in erecting houses and pairs of houses, many of which would have been to the designs largely dictated by the first purchasers. 

Not surprisingly for the date there is a good deal of terracotta and quite a few tiled porches - though doubtless not so many now as there once were.

This pair may have negotiated a lower price when the plots were not sold as quickly as the developer hoped or may have been built when building prices rose.

In any case, the decoration is limited and terracotta appears only in the segmental arches over the doors and in four roundels at first floor level.

But not the string course.  It was common practice for Victorian builders to use better - hard, pressed, bricks on the front and something cheaper on the sides and back.

This can clearly be seen here.  But the builder has also run the terracotta string course round the corner.  This has the odd effect of emphasising the trickery.