Numbers 353-355 (Odd) And Attached Railings

ISLINGTON

TQ3183SW GOSWELL ROAD 635-1/64/415 (South side) Nos.353-355 (Odd) and attached railings

GV II

Offices, formerly institutional building. Dated 1883, probably by Arthur Blomfield's office; G S Williams, builder. Upper floors of front faced in finely-cut rubbed red brick with red sandstone (Mansfield or Dumfries) oriel window and dressings; ground-floor of sandstone with polished marble columns, antae and dressings, tile-hung gabled roof with cresting to ridge and intersecting gabled dormer, exposed brick stacks to left side. Lobby-entrance plan. Gothic Revival style. Three storeys with basement and attic; 5-window range, 1:3:1. Windows diminish in height as they go up. Slightly curved front; gabled 3-bay oriel window projects from centre bay at 1st-storey level and continues up into attic; single sashes to outer bays. Small dated shield reading '1883' flanked by low relief foliate carving to corbel table. 1st floor: pointed archivolted arches to plain casement stone-transomed sashes surmounted by glazed lunette windows. Decorative low-relief carving to surfaces between arch springs of lunette windows in oriel; moulded stone cornice above 1st floor. Several courses of rubbed bricks indicate division between 1st and second floors. 2nd floor moulded stone sill band beneath stylized flat-arched horned 1/1 sashes; oriel bay sashes with archivolts and concave circular motif to lunettes. Heavily moulded stone cornice to 2nd floor. Outer bays of attic with pierced-stone parapets with stone coping. To centre: gabled attic oriel articulated by end piers with small sphere tops; and, in between, stone wall with blind lancet-arched niches continues in line with parapets; above, moulded stone sill band to three 1/1 stylized flat-arched sashes surmounted by a cornice. Low relief Gothic style carving within peak of gable; top surmounted by Gothic style finial and stone coping. Ground-floor with 3 pointed archivolted-arches in deep recess: arches supported by engaged columns to centre and antae to ends, all with crocket capitals; low relief carving in rich Gothic pattern to wall surface between archivolts; centre opening with 5-panelled raised-and-fielded double doors, moulded wood transom, and lunette window with pierced curvilinear wrought-ironwork; flanking sashes with fixed glazing and stone sills over blind segmental-arched basement openings with wrought-iron grilles. Elaborate moulded stone cornice to ground-floor which extends from corbel table of oriel window. (Historians File, English Heritage, London Division: 1988-).

Listing NGR: TQ3148783117