Charles Rowan House and Attached Iron Railings
CHARLES ROWAN HOUSE AND ATTACHED IRON RAILINGS, MARGERY STREET
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1298020
- Date first listed:
- 30-Sept-1994
- List Entry Name:
- Charles Rowan House and Attached Iron Railings
- Statutory Address:
- CHARLES ROWAN HOUSE AND ATTACHED IRON RAILINGS, MARGERY STREET
Location
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Images of England Project
- Date:
- 2004-06-15
- Reference:
- IOE01/12522/25
- Rights:
- © Mr Anthony Rau. Source: Historic England Archive
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1298020
- Date first listed:
- 30-Sept-1994
- List Entry Name:
- Charles Rowan House and Attached Iron Railings
- Statutory Address 1:
- CHARLES ROWAN HOUSE AND ATTACHED IRON RAILINGS, MARGERY STREET
- Statutory Address 2:
- CHARLES ROWAN HOUSE, AMWELL STREET
- Statutory Address 3:
- CHARLES ROWAN HOUSE, MERLIN STREET
- Statutory Address 4:
- CHARLES ROWAN HOUSE, WILMINGTON STREET
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.
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.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- CHARLES ROWAN HOUSE AND ATTACHED IRON RAILINGS, MARGERY STREET
- Statutory Address:
- CHARLES ROWAN HOUSE, AMWELL STREET
- Statutory Address:
- CHARLES ROWAN HOUSE, MERLIN STREET
- Statutory Address:
- CHARLES ROWAN HOUSE, WILMINGTON STREET
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 31189 82659
Details
TQ3182NW
635-1/68/1031
ISLINGTON,
MARGERY STREET (South side),
Charles Rowan House & attached iron railings
GV
II
Includes: Charles Rowan House WILMINGTON STREET Finsbury.
Includes: Charles Rowan House AMWELL STREET Finsbury.
Includes: Charles Rowan House MERLIN STREET Finsbury.
Former flats for married policemen, now council flats, on a steeply sloping site bounded by roads on all four sides. 1928-1930. Gilbert Mackenzie Trench architect and surveyor for the Metropolitan Police Authority.
Red brick laid in Flemish and English bonds with moulded brick dressings to street elevations, and multi-coloured stock bricks to courtyard elevations; roofs obscured; projecting, picturesque red-brick stacks demarcate breaks in the roofline where the blocks step up the hill.
Expressionist style. Four massive facades parallel to four roads: great arches lead into the central courtyard from Merlin and Margery Streets. Five storeys with basement; six bays (each of three-window range to Amwell Street) and (2:3:4:4:3:2 to Wilmington Street); eight bays (2:3:3:2:2:3:3:2 to Margery and Merlin Streets). Powerful, rhythmic street elevations with bays articulated by full-height moulded brick stacks treated as pilasters that create strong skyline. Decorative extradoses and dressings to great arched entrances.Metal casement sashes separated by narrow full-height moulded brick pilasters that become a decorative feature to brick parapets; decorative brickwork above top floor sashes. Stacks and intervening parapets read as battlements. Attached iron railings to exterior elevations.
INTERIOR: Ninety-six two and three-bedroomed flats were originally provided on five floors, with a covered playground in the basement. Minor alterations have occurred.
History: Nos. 22-24 Wilmington Square, formerly on this site, were demolished in order to build the austerely impressive Charles Rowan House Police Flats block. As early as 1904 the Metropolitan Police Authority planned housing for 500 married policemen. Records indicate that this early goal was not reached; a concerted effort at building police accommodation did not occur until the 1950s. Plans for those in Wilmington Square survive in the Public Records Office but they appear to be the only ones. At least three other police flats by Trench are extant: Crawford Street, Marylebone, 1925; Kintyre House, New Park Road, Lambeth, and Cornwall Street, Waterloo, but Charles Rowan House is the least altered and most architecturally assured of the group. Stylistically it is also unusual for this country and exhibits a powerful, Expressionist manner most often associated with continental design of this period.
Source: (Historians File, English Heritage, London Division: 1990; The Squares of Islington: Cosh, M: The Squares of Islington Part I: Finsbury and Clerkenwell: Islington: 1990: 96).
Listing NGR: TQ3118982659
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 369133
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Sources
Books and journals
Cosh, M, The Squares of Islington in Finsbury and Clerkenwell, (1990), 96
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
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Download a full scale map (PDF)End of official list entry
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