Description:Giffard House, 51, North Street, Wolverhampton, is a Grade II* listed building. It was originally a town house dating from 1727 – 1729, built for the Giffard's of Chillington Hall, to be used as a Roman Catholic priest's house with a chapel. It is thought to be by Francis Smith of Warwick.
It is now the presbytery of the attached Roman Catholic Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. The extension on the left dating from 1825 – 1828 is by Joseph Ireland who worked almost exclusively for Roman Catholic patrons. On the right is a housekeeper's cottage dating from the 1930s. When Wolverhampton's Ring Road was constructed in the 1960s, it was necessary for the removal of the graveyard in 1967. On the left, Paternoster Row, where the car is parked, still exists (2026), however, the house frontage is now a paved pedestrian area. A Morris Minor is parked by the building.
When the photograph was taken, traffic still used the road and on the right is one of a pair of 'Belisha Beacons' for the uncontrolled pedestrian crossing. They were named after Leslie Hore-Belisha, the Minister of Transport at the time of their introduction in 1934. These designated crossings had white stripes on the road surface and continuously flashing amber globes on top of black and white poles on both sides of the road. They became known as ‘Zebra Crossings’.