Irvine House, Caledonian Estate

Irvine House, Caledonian Estate

Irvine House is a block of flats forming part of the Caledonian Estate in Islington, designed and built between 1904 and 1906 by the Housing of the Working Classes Branch of the London County Council Architect's Department. The architect responsible was probably J.G. Stephenson.

The Caledonian Estate consists of five blocks arranged around a square. Carrick House stands to the west, overlooking Caledonian Road. The four blocks at the back of the site form a square arrangement, with Irvine House to the west and Wallace House to the east being longer than Burns House to the north and Scott House to the south. Apart from the entrance arch in Irvine House, the opposite blocks within the square match each other and are linked by brick arcades of three round arches.

Irvine House is constructed of red brick in English and Flemish bond with dressings of glazed brick, plaster, wrought iron, cast iron and reinforced concrete, and a tiled roof. The building is five storeys high.

The front elevation facing into the square is symmetrical and composed of seven elements. Two balcony ranges have a buttressed screen at ground floor with segmental-arched entrances to ground-floor flats and staircases. The parapet of the screen acts as a balustrade to the first-floor flats. Flats on the first to fourth floors are set back with flat-arched windows and entrances under segmental arches, with one of the three entrances on each balcony now blocked. Access is provided by cantilevered reinforced concrete balconies with cast-iron railings. Iron pipes run up between floors and terminate at the fourth floor in decorative brackets, with wrought-iron former lampholders at this level. The central range follows the balcony arrangement but with a buttressed screen carried up through two storeys and a central segmental-arched carriage entrance with corbelled arcading above. Either side of the central range are ranges of two windows, those to the fourth floor being flat-arched casements, with gables in the form of double curves flanked by parapeted shoulders. The two outer balcony ranges are followed by end ranges of two windows, with flat-arched windows to the first, second and third floors set back under round arches at third-floor level with herringbone brickwork in the tympanum, and flat-arched casements to the fourth floor with a plastered panel between. These end ranges have hipped roofs between parapeted shoulders with ridge stacks.

The west elevation features a central range under eaves with an arched entrance and flat-arched windows to all floors, the fourth floor being casements. Two gabled ranges follow with flat-arched casements to the fourth floor under round arches, then two ranges of six windows under eaves with the fourth floor windows as flat-arched casements. Two outer ranges of three windows complete the elevation, with flat-arched windows to the first to fourth floors, those to the first, second and third floors set under round arches at third-floor level, casements to the fourth floor, and a shaped and shouldered gable.

All windows throughout the building are segmental-arched sash windows except where stated. Late twentieth-century glazing has been installed which echoes the arrangement of the original sashes and casements.