The Camden Head Public House

The Camden Head is a public house dating to 1899, with a partial restoration in 1969 by Roderick Gradidge for Maxwell Joseph. It is located on Camden Walk and Islington Green in Islington. The building is constructed of red brick with stone dressings, and has a roof of Welsh slate. The pub has four storeys and two prominent frontages, one facing Camden Walk and the other facing Islington Green. The Camden Walk frontage has four windows, while the Islington Green frontage has three and a half, with an angled entrance bay at the corner. Corinthian columns flank flat-arched windows, some of which are bowed, with round-arched glazing bars and engraved and faceted glass, some of which were replaced in 1969 as replicas. Decorative wrought-iron work is present at the entrance to the former saloon bar. The upper windows have unusual intersecting segmental and circular heads, with cornices to the first and second floors. Two small gables are located at the junction of the two main frontages, topped with ball finials replacing acroteria that originally featured carved roundels and the initials 'CD'. Corbelled external stacks rise from the first floor between the second and third bays to Camden Walk, and between the first and second bays to Islington Green. Shaped gables are located at the ends of each frontage, and the building has a mansard roof with decorative wrought-iron work at the corner. The ground floor, which has lost its original division into public and saloon bar areas, now consists of a single space with an island bar, some of which is original. Original partitions with engraved and faceted glass have been reused to create alcoves. Tilework, including decorative transfer-printed tiles below the dado rail and to the frieze, is found in the area of the former saloon bar entrance. An original fireplace is located in the north-east wall. Upstairs, in the present dining room, there are two late 19th-century cast-iron fireplaces, and stained and painted glass panels to the upper sashes in the style of the Aesthetic Movement. These windows were introduced in 1969 from a demolished house in Marlborough Crescent, Bedford Park, West London, with more similar glass on the first-floor landing.