Metropolitan Benefit Societies' Almshouses And Attached Railings

The Metropolitan Benefit Societies’ Almshouses, originally known as the Metropolitan Benefit Societies’ Asylum, were constructed in phases between 1836 and 1931, by S.H. Ridley. The complex comprises separate wings arranged around a courtyard open to the street, with the former chapel, now a hall, centrally positioned on the north side. The almshouses are built of grey brick in Flemish bond, with stone dressings, and have slate roofs. The architectural style is Tudor Revival.

The houses are generally two storeys high and double-fronted. Each has a Tudor-arched doorway with a double-chamfered surround and hood mould. Windows are mullioned with casements, typically two per floor, also with double-chamfered surrounds and hood moulds, the latter incorporating carved heads or floral ornament and linked by a moulded cornice. The buildings have a parapet with modern coping, and party walls with multiple stacks at the ridge. Modern flat-roofed extensions are present at the rear of the houses.

East Villa and West Villa, located at the ends of their respective wings, are distinguished by their four bays facing the courtyard and a two-span roof with twin gabled fronts to Ball's Pond Road. Each villa features a two-storey canted bay with four flat-arched lights to the ground floor and four Tudor-arched lights to the first floor, finished with pinnacles, corbels, and crockets.

The former chapel projects forward with a single gabled front. The central entrance is elaborately chamfered and moulded, flanked by small single-light windows. Above this sits a five-light oriel window with moulded corbelling, two ranges of Tudor-arched lights, a cornice decorated with grotesque heads, and a band of lozenge-patterned openwork below the roof. The gable is truncated, incorporating a half-domed niche. Octagonal corner-buttresses terminate in pinnacles. The side elevations of the chapel feature a two-light mullioned window to the ground floor and a cross window to the first.

The site is enclosed by dwarf, stuccoed walls, rebuilt square brick piers, and a cast-iron railing with Tudor-Gothic finials, which runs along the street frontage.