52-55, NEWINGTON GREEN

Details

ISLINGTON

TQ3285SE NEWINGTON GREEN 635-1/40/650 (West side) 20/09/54 Nos.52-55 (Consecutive)

GV I

Terraced houses. Dated 1658 in a panel above the central pilaster; later alterations. Possibly built by Thomas Pidcock. No 55 restored c.1983-4 by the Greater London Council, nos 53-4 c.1987-8 by English Heritage. Red brick laid in English bond, roof of slate to no 52, the rest of tiles. Four and five storeys, two windows each. Unusual plan, each house having a central dog-leg staircase, between chimneybreasts. Ground floor has central round arch to passage to rear, C19 pilasters with bracketed fascia stops, and C20 shop fronts between. First and second floor have flat-arched windows between a giant order of Doric pilasters with entablature; the windows are in frames set almost flush with the wall at these levels, those to nos 53-55 having 6/6 sashes of original design, all or most presumably replacements; there is a round arch over each of the first-floor windows, slightly projecting, with a square panel recessed in the tympanum; no 52 has lost its cornice and has a flat-arched window in the rebuit gable; it also has, in the light-well, a flat-arched, two-light window with ovolo mullion; no 53 is rebuilt from the entablature upwards with flat-arched windows set under a slightly projecting segmental arch, brick coping to gable; no 54 has an additional third floor recently rebuilt with parapet and dormer over; no 55 rebuilt similar to no 53. Rear elevations of brown brick with mostly segmental-arched windows, probably of later date than the front, and much rebuilt. INTERIOR: s. No 52 has a staircase with turned newels to the ground and first floors, and square newels to the second and third, that to the third having a ball finial. Bulbous turned balusters are visible to the third floor but enclosed below, as is the dado panelling between ground and second floors. The first-floor front room is now subdivided, with panelling and a plaster cornice surviving on the side and west walls; in the rear room there is panelling on the north wall only, and a cornice on all but the west wall. The second-floor front room has only a dado to the front wall. No 53 has a staircase with square newels having ball finials and turned pendants, bulbous turned balusters, chamfered rail and closed string. There are closets either side of some fireplaces and some original floorboards. The ground-floor back room has a back door with hooks for door bars, panelling to the lower part of the wall, and a C18 flat-arched moulded architrave with keystone to fireplace; late C18 or early C19 grate in first-floor back room; second-floor front room has flat-arched moulded architrave to fireplace of late C17 date with early-to-mid-C19 grate, and the back room has a strap-hinged plank door connecting to no 52. No 54 has an early C18 staircase with square chamfered newels with slightly domed tops, column-on-vase balusters, many recently remade, and closed string. First-floor front room has panelling to the chimneypiece only. The second-floor front room has dado panelling; the back room has panelled closets and part of a wooden cornice. No 55 has a staircase with square newels having ball finials, bulbous turned balusters, and closed string from the basement through its full height. In the first-floor front room panelling survives in part to the front and side walls; the back room has an C18 or early C19 cast-iron grate; and the walls are partly painted in imitation of panelling. The second-floor back room has a small amount of surviving panelling. The original roof structure of no 55 survives. These houses are extremely rare survivals of pre-Restoration and pre-Great Fire town houses, and are thus one of the most remarkable groups of seventeenth-century buildings in London. (Historians' file, English Heritage, London Division).

Listing NGR: TQ3279685351

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