Numbers 54 And 56 (Even) And Attached Railings And Garden Gate

Numbers 54 and 56 are semi-detached villas built around 1841, located on the south side of Richmond Avenue in Islington. They are constructed from yellow stock bricks arranged in Flemish bond, with a stucco ground floor and decorative dressings. The villas have a hipped roof featuring coupled brackets at the projecting eaves and central brick stacks. The design follows a side-hall entrance plan with a staircase and exhibits Greco-Egyptian style details.

The buildings rise three storeys with a basement and each has two windows, connected by a recessed link. The ground-floor bays are defined by stylised rounded pilasters topped with paterae, and a horizontal row of paterae runs between the pilasters above the entrance and sash windows. Steps lead up to a deeply recessed entrance porch at the outer bays, which is flanked by stone sphinxes and obelisks on a stucco balustrade; however, the sphinxes and obelisks are missing from number 56. The doorway features pilaster jambs supporting a corniced head, with an original four-panelled studded door (number 56 has 20th-century glazing in the upper door panels) and a rectangular overlight.

Number 54 has 6/6 sash windows, with ground-floor sashes that include margin lights, while number 56 has 2/2 sashes. Below the ground-floor sashes are recessed stucco panels, and the upper floors are adorned with stylised architraves decorated with paterae. The first floor includes a moulded stucco storey band and cast-iron Neoclassical style window guards featuring a palmette motif. There is a linked garden gate to number 54 in the same style, although the iron guards have been removed, and attached cast-iron area railings are present at number 54. In 1925, writer Arnold Bennett noted in his diary the remarkable sphinxes and Cleopatra needles in front of the porticoes of these houses.