Derby Lodge, Formerly Derby Buildings, Flats Numbers 1-36

Derby Lodge, formerly Derby Buildings, containing flats 1 to 36, is a philanthropic block of flatted accommodation built in 1865. It was designed by the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company, founded by Sydney Waterlow, and constructed by Matthew Allen. The building is of painted stucco cement, treated to resemble banded rustication on the ground floor. The same material is used on the balcony-stair recesses, which are styled as a Tuscan pilastrade, and to create window aedicules. Original cast-iron railings with a distinctive lattice pattern are present on the balconies, along with metal filigree spandrels to the brick pier supporting the balconies. Metal railings also enclose the roof over the recesses. A late 20th-century wall, also treated as banded rustication to match the original, has been added for security.

The building is five storeys high. Numbers 1 to 10 are arranged around a full-height balcony recess, divided into two bays by a brick pier with a stylised capital from which spring filigree spandrels to the lintels. Each recess features a brick range of one window. Numbers 11 to 36 are entered from similar balcony-stair recesses, but the flanking ranges to either side of this section have two windows each, indicating a different plan form. A small round-arched lancet with a screen-like inset appears between each pair of windows in this section. The ground floor windows in the block containing flats 1 to 10 are tripartite. The interiors have not been inspected.

Derby Lodge forms a group with Derby Lodge (formerly Buildings), flats 37 to 102, located to the south in Wicklow Street. It is considered among the earliest surviving examples of the work of Waterlow’s influential and prolific Improved Industrial Dwellings Company.