50-56, PENTON STREET

50-56 Penton Street is a pair of houses built around 1784. They feature yellow brick fronts with stone sills. The houses at Nos. 50-52 have a slate mansard roof, while Nos. 54-56 have a tiled roof. The layout includes a central entrance and staircase, with a single room on each side of the floor; there are later additions to the front. Each house is three bays wide, with 6/6-pane sash windows on either side and a blind central bay that has blocked openings on each floor, except for the first floor of Nos. 54-56. The ground floors are hidden by mid-Victorian shops that extend over the front gardens. Nos. 50-52 has been raised with a mansard roof, likely when the second-floor front was rebuilt. The rear elevations have been altered. Inside, each house retains a wooden open-string staircase with columnar newel posts and square rails; the staircase in No. 54-56 has wooden panelling up to dado height. Some four-panel doors and moulded doorcases are still present on the upper floors, and the ground floor rear of No. 54-56 features a moulded architrave around a blocked window on the east wall. These houses were first leased in 1784 and are part of the initial development phase of Pentonville, a large estate owned by Henry Penton MP.