Almeida Theatre

The Almeida Theatre, originally the Islington Literary and Scientific Institute, was built around 1837 by architects Robert Lewis Roumieu and Alexander Dick Gough, with construction by W.S. Dove. It has served various purposes over the years, including a music hall from 1874, a Salvation Army citadel from 1890, a warehouse from 1956, and a theatre from 1980. The building features stucco scored to resemble ashlar and has Welsh slate roofs where visible.

It is two storeys high with a basement and has a symmetrical five-bay facade facing Almeida Street, where the middle three bays project slightly. Designed in a stripped Classical style, the capitals have simple rectilinear mouldings, and the pediments are made of unmoulded blocks. There are steps leading up to the original entrances located in single-storey wings on either side of the main front, which feature flat-arched porches with antae, an entablature, and a block pediment above the blocking course. The original panelled doors remain in place. Additional doors are located in the second and fourth bays, while the other openings contain 4/4 sash windows. Each opening is flanked by pilasters with stepped capitals, and the projecting centrepiece is flanked by giant antae that rise through two storeys.

On the first floor, the design is consistent, but the middle three windows are stepped back, creating a distyle arrangement of antae. The entablature and blocking course feature a central pediment. Inside, the auditorium was reversed in direction in the 1890s from its original lecture hall layout. It now includes a gallery supported by cast-iron columns at the northern end, with the balcony designed in a five-sided octagonal shape, its front face decorated with anaglypta.