The Camden Head Public House

ISLINGTON

TQ3183NE CAMDEN WALK 635-1/59/136 (North East side) 01/10/90 No.2 The Camden Head public house

GV II

Public house. Dated 1899 in carved panels on the external stacks to Camden Walk and Islington Green; partial restoration by Roderick Gradidge for Maxwell Joseph, 1969. Red brick with stone dressings, roof of Welsh slate. Four storeys; the pub has two elaborate fronts of almost equal importance: four windows to Camden Walk, three to Islington Green. The ground-floor frontage stands forward of the rest of the building: four bays to Camden Walk and two-and-a-half to Islington Green with one angled entrance bay at the corner. Corinthian columns flanking flat-arched windows, some of which are bowed, with round-arched glazing bars and engraved and faceted glass, some replaced in exact replica in 1969; decorative wrought-iron work to entry to former saloon bar. The upper windows have unusual heads of intersecting segments and circles, and cornices to first and second floors; two small gables at the junction of the two main fronts with ball finials in place of acroteria with carved roundels and the initials 'CD' (?). Corbelled external stacks run from the first floor between the second and third bays to Camden Walk and between the first and second bays to Islington Green; larger shaped gables to the ends of either front; mansard roof with decorative wrought-iron work to the corner. The ground floor of the pub has lost its original divisions into public and saloon bar and its present form is due to the restoration of 1969. It consists of a single space with an island bar, part or most of which is original. Sections of the original partitions with good engraved and faceted glass were reused to form alcoves; tilework to the former Saloon Bar entrance with decorative transfer-printed tiles below the dado rail and to the frieze; original fireplace in the north-east wall; upstairs, in the present dining room, two late C19 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; more such glass on the first-floor landing. (Information from Roderick Gradidge).

Listing NGR: TQ3168183565