56, Exmouth Market

ISLINGTON

TQ3182SW EXMOUTH MARKET 635-1/73/386 (South side) No.56

II

Terraced house with shop. c.1820-1830; C19 shopfront with C20 alterations. Multi-coloured stock brick set in Flemish bond, wooden shopfront; roof obscured by parapet, left party-wall brick stack. Shop plan to ground-floor; side-hall entrance plan with staircase to upper domestic floors. Four storeys; 2-window range. Shop with angled shop entrance to right set in deep recess and house entrance, also in recess, further to right. Ground-floor articulated by console-bracketed pilasters. Gauged-brick flat arches to upper 6/6 and 3/3 sashes; full-length sashes to 1st floor, windows decrease in height as they go up. Coping stone to plain parapet. History: Joseph Grimaldi, the most famous London clown, lived here from 1818 until 1828, the year of his retirement. From 1800 he had dominated the stage of nearby Sadler's Wells as the figure of Clown in the English harlequinade. His special historic importance is due to the fact that many of his innovations became distinctive characteristics of the pantomime clown. (The Cambridge Encyclopedia: Cambridge: 1990-: 526).

Listing NGR: TQ3131882494