Metropolitan Benefit Societies' Almshouses and Attached Railings

METROPOLITAN BENEFIT SOCIETIES' ALMSHOUSES AND ATTACHED RAILINGS, BALL'S POND ROAD

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Overview

Heritage Category:
Listed Building
Grade:
II
List Entry Number:
1281174
Date first listed:
29-Sept-1972
List Entry Name:
Metropolitan Benefit Societies' Almshouses and Attached Railings
Statutory Address:
METROPOLITAN BENEFIT SOCIETIES' ALMSHOUSES AND ATTACHED RAILINGS, BALL'S POND ROAD
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Date:
2005-11-12
Reference:
IOE01/14801/18
Rights:
© Mr Adam Watson. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:
Listed Building
Grade:
II
List Entry Number:
1281174
Date first listed:
29-Sept-1972
Date of most recent amendment:
30-Sept-1994
List Entry Name:
Metropolitan Benefit Societies' Almshouses and Attached Railings
Statutory Address 1:
METROPOLITAN BENEFIT SOCIETIES' ALMSHOUSES AND ATTACHED RAILINGS, BALL'S POND ROAD

The scope of legal protection for listed buildings

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

The scope of legal protection for listed buildings

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:
METROPOLITAN BENEFIT SOCIETIES' ALMSHOUSES AND ATTACHED RAILINGS, BALL'S POND ROAD

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:
Greater London Authority
District:
Islington (London Borough)
Parish:
Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:
TQ 33163 84869

Details

ISLINGTON

TQ3384NW BALL'S POND ROAD 635-1/49/55 (North side) 29/09/72 Metropolitan Benefit Societies' Almshouses and attached railings (Formerly Listed as: BALL'S POND ROAD Nos.1-12 Metropolitan Benefit Societies Almhouses East Villa, West Villa & Chapel) (Formerly Listed as: BALL'S POND ROAD Gateway and railings of Almhouses)

II

Almshouses, originally known as the Metropolitan Benefit Societies' Asylum. 1836 (chapel and north wing), c.1865 (west wing), 1866 (east wing), and 1931 (rebuilding of chapel). By S.H.Ridley. Grey brick set in Flemish bond with stone dressings, roofs of slate. The accommodation in separate wings on three sides of a courtyard open to the street with the former chapel, now a hall, on the axis of the north wing; in a Tudor style. There are two houses on either side of the chapel and four in each of the side wings, plus East and West Villa at the end of their respective wings, which are separately handled. The houses are typically two storeys high and double-fronted. Each has a porch, entered through a Tudor-arched double-chamfered doorway with hoodmould; flat-arched, double-chamfered two-light mullioned windows with casements to either side. Two windows to first floor, of the same design but with hoodmoulds having stops of carved heads or floral ornament, the hoodmoulds linked by a moulded cornice; parapet with modern coping. Party walls rise above a single gabled roof and carry multiple stacks at the ridge. Modern flat-roofed extensions at the rear of each house. West Villa and East Villa differ in that they have four bays to the courtyard and a two-span roof with twin gabled fronts to Ball's Pond Road, each with a two-storey canted bay below it; the bay has four flat-arched lights to the ground floor with cavetto mullions and four Tudor-arched lights to the first floor, and pinnacles to the gables with corbels and crockets. (The plans of West Villa and East Villa have been altered so that they no longer occupy four bays to the courtyard.) The former chapel projects forward from the north wing, presenting a single gabled front. Central Tudor-arched entrance, elaborately chamfered and moulded, flanked by two small single-light windows, with a five-light oriel window above which has moulded corbelling, two ranges of Tudor-arched lights, a cornice with grotesque heads which continues round the rest of the chapel, and a band of lozenge-patterned openwork below its roof. The gable is truncated and carries a half-domed niche. Octagonal corner-buttresses ending in pinnacles. Side elevations have a two-light mullioned window each to the ground floor, and a cross window to the first floor. Dwarf, coped and stuccoed walls, square brick coped gate piers, recently rebuilt, and cast-iron railing with Tudor-Gothic finials to street. (Historians' file, English Heritage London Division).

Listing NGR: TQ3316384869

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:
368542
Legacy System:
LBS

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.

Ordnance survey map of Metropolitan Benefit Societies' Almshouses and Attached Railings

Map

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 19-Jun-2026 at 14:35:42.

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© Crown copyright [and database rights] 2026. OS AC0000815036. Use of this mapping is subject to Terms and Conditions.

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

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