Numbers 58 And 60 And Attached Railings And Garden Gate

Numbers 58 and 60 are semi-detached villas built around 1841, located on the south side of Richmond Avenue in Islington. They are constructed from yellow stock bricks arranged in Flemish bond, with a stucco ground floor and decorative elements. The buildings have a hipped roof with projecting eaves and central brick stacks.

The design follows a side-hall entrance plan featuring a staircase and showcases Greco-Egyptian style details. Each villa has three storeys and a basement, with two windows on each floor plus a recessed link. The ground-floor bays are defined by stylised rounded pilasters topped with paterae, and a horizontal row of paterae runs between the pilasters above the entrance and sash windows.

Steps lead up to a deeply recessed entrance porch at the outer bays, flanked by stone sphinxes and obelisks on a stucco balustrade, although the obelisks are missing from number 60. The doorways feature pilaster jambs supporting a corniced head, with original four-panelled studded doors and rectangular overlights. The windows are 6/6 sashes throughout, with ground-floor sashes including margin lights. Below the ground-floor sashes are recessed stucco panels, while the upper floors have stylised architraves adorned with paterae. The first floor includes a moulded stucco storey band and cast-iron Neoclassical style window guards with a palmette motif. Number 58 has coupled brackets at the eaves.

There is a linked garden gate to number 60, designed in the same style but without the iron guards, along with attached cast-iron area railings. In 1925, writer Arnold Bennett noted the impressive sphinxes and obelisks in front of these houses in his diary.