Numbers 1-23 (Consecutive) And Attached Railings

Numbers 1-23 (consecutive) and attached railings form a terrace of 23 houses located on Granville Square, Islington. The houses were constructed between 1841 and 1843 as part of a square planned in 1828 by John Booth and his son, also John, who were surveyors for the Lloyd Baker Estate. The buildings were rebuilt around 1980 and subsequently converted into flats. They are built of yellow stock brick in a Flemish bond, with banded stucco to the ground floor and stucco dressings. The roofs are obscured. The design follows a side-hall entrance plan, with three storeys and a basement. Each house has two windows.

The composition is symmetrical, with houses grouped in sets of six, and the central and end houses projecting forward. Steps lead up to the entrances; number 1 has an entrance in the left-hand return wall facing Granville Street. The doorways feature panelled pilaster jambs supporting a corniced head, a patterned rectangular overlight, and 20th-century panelled doors. The windows are 6/6 sashes, with margin lights to the ground floor. Upper-floor windows have architraves, and the first floor has full-length sashes with cornices and individual balconies with cast-iron railings. A plain stucco band runs beneath the cornice and blocking course; number 6 has a shaped panel to the blocking course. Attached cast-iron railings have tasselled spearhead finials.

Granville Square was the last part of the Lloyd Baker Estate to be built. It was originally a rubbish tip used by builders from nearby streets and was initially called Sharp Square, in honour of Thomas Lloyd Baker’s wife, niece of William Granville Sharp of Fulham. A church, originally dedicated to St Philip, was built in the centre of the square between 1831 and 1833 by Edward Buckton Lamb, but it was demolished in 1938. Granville Square is unique among the streets of the Lloyd Baker Estate for its conventional terrace design, being notably constrained within a limited space between Wharton and Lloyd Baker Streets.