Drinking Fountain is a Grade II listed building in the Islington local planning authority area, England. Drinking fountain. 3 related planning applications.
Drinking Fountain
- WRENN ID
- endless-turret-mallow
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Islington
- Constituency
- Islington South and Finsbury MP: Emily Thornberry (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Type
- Drinking fountain
- Address
- Drinking Fountain, Finsbury Square
- OS grid reference
- TQ 328 819
- Coordinates
- 51.52056, -0.08602
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The drinking fountain, built in 1899, was designed by J. Whitehead and Sons for Thomas and Walter Smith. It is made of marble and granite on a stone plinth and is in the Mannerist style. The fountain has a square plan with basins on each side and features piers that support an elaborately decorated pyramidal roof with open circular skylights. The entire structure is adorned with fine and intricate marble carvings. The piers above the basin stage consist of grouped straight and canted pilasters in granite, with arches in between that display open strapwork. J. Whitehead and Sons were prominent commercial masons of the time, and the fountain was dedicated by the Smith brothers in memory of their mother, Martha Smith, who lived from 1826 to 1898.
Local climate
Drinking Fountain sits in one of the driest parts of the UK, with an average of 690 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 95% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 98% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 35 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 57% of listed buildings. Of these, 16 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- Related listed building consents — 3 applications
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
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