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Post to the west Islington and Highbury Corner
Abbots Close?
Almorah Road
Housing on an old triangular church site. A mannered group with
two tall monopitch-roofed wings linked by a low community centre.
Alwyne Villas
4a
old summerhouse 1526 and Prior Bolton’s
rebus – shows was the garden area of Canonbury House
Alwyne Place
The later
houses have lush naturalistic foliage decoration
to doorcases and window guards.
16 One older house, three
bays, early c18.
Alwyne Road
Especially
grand Italianate examples where the gardens back on to the New River.
7 Tudor summerhouse stuccoed beside it
37 The New River
curves around thc garden, the trees and sky are big, you could be in the
country. Clipped box, holly and yew keep things in order, a line-up of pots
reclaim space and strong colours. Hidden formal garden; old-fashioned roses
along the river.
Alwyne
Square
A confined space enclosed by streets.
In 1857 there began the building of an irregular circle of villas in gardens
named Canonbury Park Square. In 1879, doubtless to end an irritating confusion
it was renamed Alwyne Square, using one of the Marquess's subsidiary family name.
There was an agreement to make three new roads in the still open space between
Canonbury Tavern and the New River. The layouts were to be completed within 21
years. In December 1857 be obtained permission to build under the same
agreement on the land abutting on Canonbury North, and the cul-de-sac square
was built in l859. By agreement with the Marquess' Hil1 sold his development
for £2,400, to Henry Witten, a stockbroker, of 5 Alwyne Road. Witten had
responsibility for building, and the new square. The proposed square was of
groups forming 21 large villas. However the houses and adjoining streets were
partly destroyed by bombing and like Canonbury Park South, the square was
rebuilt in 1954 in a style designed by Western Ground Rents' surveyor Nash. The
central area now, blocks of flats and regency style houses.
Balls Pond Road
Recorded thus in 1841, so called from a spot marked Balls
Pond on the Ordnance Survey map of 1822. The large pond here - surviving until
the early 19th century - was named from
John Ball who lived near Newington Green in the 17th century and
owned a pub. Shooting rights on the pond.
St.Paul’s Church is like St.John’s, Holloway Road - similar to the point of
confusion. Has a vaulted tower hall. Converted to a Steiner school 1999.
1826-8 by Barry. The
Commissioners rejected design by Basem, and told Barry to reproduce his design
for John. The arcade, clerestory and ceiling also largely
tall The only change which was deliberately made is that St Paul has a tower to
mark the comer of Essex Road, with a vaulted tower hall inside which appears
above the blind arcaded screen that forms the reredos at the back of the
shallow chancel recess
St.Paul like
St.John’s, Holloway Road, similar to the point of confusion. Vaulted tower hall – and tower sited for the
corner of Essex Road. Under conversion to a Steiner School.
St.Paul’s
Shrubberies area of Barr Nurseries
Turnpike at
St.Paul’s Road corner
146,
175-191 Prospect
Place
198 formerly
St.Paul’s Mansions. Beehive trademark of builders Studds and Sons of 1891,
212-5 Banning
blacksmiths
233-261 North Place
Canonbury
Means 'manor of the canons'—namely
those of St Bartholomew's, Smithfield, to whom the land was granted in 1253 by
Ralph de Berners The formation of
manorial names by the addition of -bury is frequently found in Middlesex.
‘Canonesbury’ 1373, ‘Canonbury al. Canbury’ 1570.
Canonbury Grove
Street-names
in the vicinity of Canonbury House recall the former manor 20 and its owners the
Spencer Compton family. Marquesses of Northampton. . Canonbury Grove, dating from 1823, was for a time
known as Willow Cottages and Willow Terrace;
New River from
here to Stoke Newington. There was a loop here in the original course, which
can still be seen. The houses overlook the river
with irregular terraces of two and three storeys, c. 1825, by Richard Laycock. Here almost half a mile of the New River
remained an open water-channel until 1946 when it was
terminated at Stoke Newington. Converted into a park,
this is now the only section in Islington with a continuous stretch of water. Used to be called Willow Cottages and Willow Terrace. In these open fields between
Fowler House and Canonbury House the
river
originally took its last loop, the "Horse Shoe", straightened in 1823
to facilitate laying out streets for the
development of Canonbury Fields. Within the
tiny curve, which is all that remains of the loop, the small circular brick building often referred to as "Jacobean" is
more likely late 18th century. It may have been used
by a linesman working on the New River.
13-20 towering flat bows at each end.
27-29 Asymmetrical
pair. . They date from 1850
Canonbury Park
Street-names
in the vicinity of Canonbury House recall the former manor 20 and its owners the
Compton family. Marquesses of Northampton. Beyond Canonbury Grove were fields
until in the 1850s Canonbury Park South was built
St.Stephen 1858
thin & papery. Yellow brick with crude early English motifs. Crazily
pierced bell opening bombed. By
Inwood & Clifton. A starved
octagonal tower of stone with spire and flying buttresses detail was lost in
damage. The nave was lengthed in 1850
and side windows altered by Gough, who added porches since removed. Reconstructed after war damage A. Llewellyn
Smith and A. W. Waters, 1957-8; the interior turned with new vestries and
chapel behind the altar jazzed up by a neo-Baroque wall painting Martyrdom of
Stephen by Brian Thomas. Opposite, a
stained glass window by Carl. Edwards,
above the late c19 reredos which is the trace of the original church left
inside.
Halls
Vicarage 1968-74 by Maurice Taylor, quite a bold group
behind the church
Canonbury Park North
Here
development was begun in 1837 by Charles
Hamor Hill and took the form of villas in a more spacious
setting. First impressions, though, are
an outer-suburbia, because of the large number of small post-war houses and
blocks of flats. Has large unspoilt paired
villas of the 1840s.
Canonbury Park South
Here
development was begun in 1837 by Charles Hamor Hill and took the
form of villas in a more spacious setting. First impressions, though, are an
outer-suburbia, because of the large number of small post-war houses and blocks of flats. smaller houses on the side;
50-52
has
stuccoed pilasters.
44 Myddleton Cottage of 1850-2, is rustic
Italian in yellow and red brick,
40-42
is given
a formal Italianate air by a
shared triple-arched loggia-cum-porch and heavy eaves cornice.
Canonbury Street
Runs along the line of part of Frog Lane, the old road
from London to Highbury.
On Essex Road corner was a piano factory
Canonbury Terrace
George Livesey born l834.
Clarendon Way?
Holy Trinity 1859.
Douglas Road
Beyond
Canonbury Grove were fields until in the 1850s Douglas Road was built. Most of
the former's villas survive, with post-war
infilling, but now incorporated into Darborne &
Darke's Marquess Road estate. older maps show
Douglas Road continuing to St. Paul's Road but recent building work has shortened
it
New River. Here almost half a
mile of the New River remained an open water-channel until 1946 when it was terminated at Stoke Newington.
Converted into a park, this is now the
only section in Islington with a continuous stretch of water. Built in the 1850s. Water
channel re-dug in the 1970s
40 slotted into a 20-ft gap between the Marquess pub and a plain terrace, a glass sliver of a house by
Future Systems, Jan Kaplicky,
Amanda Levete, 1993-4. Not a glass box on a spacious suburban site, like the Hopkins' in
Hampstead but a glass version of the
urban
three-storey houses that surround it.
The back is a slope of plate glass, frameless
like Foster's Faber building on which Kaplicky
worked. It forms a triangular envelope
with the front wall, which is
predominantly of glass bricks. Inside,
the envelope is interrupted only by metal
staircases to three living and bedroom decks and by 'the freestanding service core.
40 glass sliver of a house 1993
Downham Road
Downham Court
Southgate Court
The Ridge
96
98
Elmore Street
Was James
Street. Much of Thomas Scott's land
along the Lower Road towards Ball's Pond was dug up to become extensive
brick-fields – which were here. The 1819
rate books show only five houses here, three of them occupied two empty' 1821
Scott’s name rated for Cables and land - the latter
doubtless the brick-field site
Englefield Road
Perkins
Market In 1836 Mr John Perkins, a Surrey gentleman, established a 15-acre site on fields' in an attempt to divert the cattle trade
from Smithfield and thus end
the squalid invasion of herds of beasts through central London. The
City’s and landowners’ vested interests and when Smithfield was at last moved
20 years later defeated him, an initial attempt to revive Perkins's market (1855) was abandoned, and it moved
instead to Copenhagen Fields. Perkins's site was shortly laid out as
Northchurch, Englefield, and Ockendon Roads.
151 non-ferrous Coldbath Foundry Ltd.
Baths. 1932. A bit
art deco. Not in use
Essex Road
Essex Road was originally ‘Lower Road’.
Essex Road Station. 14th February 1904. Between Highbury and Islington and
Old Street on Great Northern Railway. Built by the Great Northern and City
Railway on its underground
route between Finsbury Park and is station at Moorgate. . It had 16’
diameter tunnels to take main line stock and Great Northern Line trains to the
City. In 1913 it was taken over by the Metropolitan Railway and then became
part of the underground as the Northern Line. In 1922 the name was changed to
‘Canonbury and Essex Road’ .
In 1939 work had been done as part of the Northern
Heights scheme, which was then abandoned. So remained as part of the Northern
Line. Underused and neglected. In 1975 the Northern Line closed it and the
station transferred to British Rail and in 1976 it reopened for main line
trains from Finsbury Park to Moorgate. By comparison with other underground stations the station's surface
building is nondescript and unremarkable. It was never modernised and access to
the platforms is by or a dimly lit
spiral staircase.
366 Elena Hotel. A shop with ‘Jays’ on the top and fancy
ironwork
384-400 Mercers’ House 1988 bold group for the Mercers’
Company Housing Association. Inspired by Edwardian Free Style Mansion Block.
161 Mecca bingo is an old cinema with Egyptian motifs
292 was a
‘Palladian floor cloth factory’. Owned by Samuel Ridley and then was a beer
bottling factory. Then Islington Planning Department. Ridleys had been built or Thomas Scott s land in 1812, originally for Mr W.
Weaver, and then passed to Charles
Pugsley,
and in 1819 was bought by Ridley, one of the trustees of St Mary's parish and opened as a floor-cloth manufactory. Ridley, described variously as
"upholsterer worksman and
floorcloth manufacturer", and subsequently his son, held it in successive
partnerships - with Ellington and Whitley - until 1893. It was then acquired by Mr A. Probyn, a beer bottler, whose own firm, founded
in 1791, continued here until 1958 when Foster & Sons became Foster Probyn
Ltd In 1962 the family
brewers Young & Co. took over, but shortly outgrew the premises and in 1972 removed to Wandsworth. Islington Council took over and restored the exterior and converted the building for the
Borough. The tall four-storey Palladian building, pedimented
and balustraded above an Ionic pilastered front, was
originally without openings above the circular-headed
windows on the ground floor, except for a single thermal window just below the
parapet. It was disfigured, however, by
a mass of written advertisement all over
its blank walls, with Ridley's name at the top in place of a frieze, and a string of the items which might issue
from its interior to customers order: "Virander Awnings and Portable
Rooms", to say nothing of orders for the Royal
Family. In this century, when it was a
bottling factory, the ugly lettering had given
way to two picturesque giant ale and beer bottles, one on either side. At its restoration,
many people saw these removed with some regret.
It has now been provided with
Georgian-style windows on the first and second floors, and the classical porch, which formerly adorned the entrance,
has long been removed. The balustrade adorned with stone balls has fortunately
survived.
Used to be called Lower Street
Cattle market was founded 1833 by John Bletchingly and
took place between Essex Road and Balls Pond to the east. There was a brick wall on all sides and large
sheds. It closed quite quickly
Corner of New North Road was a bomb site – later covered
in L.C.C. flats
St.Matthew’s church. Asymmetrically placed with a thin
spire.
294-300 Barrossa Crescent In 1822 these six
houses are name, Barossa Place of which
one is owned by Thomas Wontner of the new Tibberton Square and Samuel Ridley's linoleum manufactory
appears Ridley moved to a villa in Barossa Place, next door to his works and
just short of the brickfields. The misspelling may not have been Ridley's
but that of C. Barrow, a keen local water- colourist
who assiduously if pedestrianly recorded many Islington buildings in 1824 and Barossa Place consisted of half-a-dozen pretty
bow-fronted semi-detached with small gardens in front, named after a Thomas
Barossa.
294 Ridley's house Barossa
Lodge. A contributor to the Sydney
Morning Herald September 1961 (Edward
Robinson) recalled living there with his father, Mal; Joseph Robinson, an Irish doctor, from 1906-1911, when
the house had a lion’s-head knocker,
bell-pull, and large lamp above, with a brass speaking-tube which connected with his father's bedroom. This contraption was known as Medical Man's Midnight Friend. The house was full of ornaments brought by
his father from India, and in the back garden among other joys a century-old
mulberry tree. Returning to his boyhood
home in 1961 was a melancholy experience: the house abandoned, dirty, peeling
paint and wallpaper, the window veranda gone - fallen down in the blitz, said a
kindly old lady he met there. Of the mulberry only a stump remained. "No willow tree, either, no lawn, no gravel paths, no conservatory, no strawberry
beds. Nothing but an ugly factory
building which had taken over half the garden.”
In 1962 this dismal saga ended with demolition of the four houses, to be
replaced by considerably higher
Council flats sited without reference to the street-line.
246-90 Annett’s Crescent 1822-6. The
stylish little Annett's Crescent of 23 houses is unique in Islington, if not altogether. The
Lower Road, acquired by Thomas James Annett from the landowner Thomas Scott,
close to the New North Road, built it on a strip of land. The architect
was William Burnell Hue, of whom practically nothing is known save that from 1801—9 he was a pupil or assistant of William
Jupp, junior, who was architect to
four City
Companies and also district surveyor to several east London parishes. When Annett's Crescent
was begun Hue was living in Bloomsbury, and is recorded
as having designed the "grand quadrangle" in front of Carlton
House. His Islington
crescent certainly has touches of a rather Cubitt-like ingenuity. A Plan of 1805/6 shows
one large meadow of Scott's as extending south an old tea garden at the extreme
limit—of the field a tiny sliver of land is marked off, which was later to
accommodate Annett s Crescent. The stratum of red or
brickmaker's clay occurring below Islington proved lucrative in the great 1820s
building boom. The crescent is first
named' with three houses, all empty and evidently new by 1825/6 these are
occupied, and seven more are built. This far-flung Islington outpost, bordering on the
country, took on a curiously industrial aspect with
its brickfield and several factories.
All in all it is gratifying that Annett's Crescent has survived through
the chequered ' fortunes of this part
of Essex Road. In the 1970s the Council
rescued and restored the houses, and rehabilitated the strip of garden in
front. The latest London maps spell the name "Annette Crescent,” which, if not a
careless misreading, ranks with the
brewers'
irrelevant alterations of the traditional names of old pubs. The order of building
Annett's Crescent seems to have been centre first (three houses), then pavilion ends, then infilling the
rest. The crescent is in symmetrical terrace-form; the three centre houses slightly
advanced, with 'pavilion' blocks of
three at
each end, the outermost houses with side entrances. The houses are stuccoed throughout, ground
floors in simulated ashlar, with all ground-floor
features round-headed. Front door and
window positions are reversed at the house
near the centre, making a lopsided effect. Unusually for Islington the upper floors have
single windows, in shallow segmental recesses, with narrow cill bands between
and flat parapet above, originally
balustraded. First-floor windows are 4-light;
floor-length, with simple window- guards, and the top
floor — uniquely for the area — are small casements with margin panes. The
pavilion ends have balconies with unusual decorative wheel-like motifs. Fanlights are simple,
circle and flat teardrop; most ground-floor glazing is now plain. Altogether Annett's Crescent resembles no other
contemporary survivals in Islington, except some
of Cubitt's to a certain extent, like Manchester Terrace though some of the early surrounding streets have nice variants on the terrace form, such as Rotherfield
Street, Annett's is the only early crescent in the parish.
294's has a small extension.
Attractive stucco
Incongruous cheap metal cladding conversion of car parking
to industrial space by the Borough Architect
Sickert Court – careful refurbishment by the Borough
Grange Grove
Part of Frog Lane – the old road from London to
Highbury. By L. de Soissons Partnership, planned in
1946. This was pan of an ambitious
rebuilding programme by the Northampton Estate which was not continued, but
which attracted the middle classes back to the by then run-down neighbourhood
Greenman Street
Was Greenman
Lane, named after an old alehouse
Peabody Square. George Peabody,
merchant banker and philanthropist, who by his own efforts became rich and successful, was an American born in
Massachusetts in 1795 of poor parents. He lived in London from 1837 until his death
in 1869, and in 1862, by a gift of £150,000 to form
the Peabody Donation Fund towards the building of housing for the poor he initiated what was to become London's largest housing trust. Peabody Square, with
Peabody House, was the second such
tenement
to be erected after the original pattern by H. A. Darbishire, in 1866. It was the
earliest attempt in Islington to provide proper housing for the working class
in place of its worst
slums. The object was to create cheap,
clean and properly drained
apartments,
and although the building style was uncompromisingly dour, with grey brick walls, factory-like segmental windows, lowering
eaves and heavy chimney-stacks, the amenities provided made the accommodation greatly
sought-after as an escape from inhuman
slums and rookeries. After the Second World War new Peabody properties were
built, and older blocks by degrees converted
and modernised - Islington's in 1965.
After the 1974 Housing Act, which gave
official recognition to the voluntary sector in housing, the Donation Fund reverted to its original role as a general
charity, continuing to administer the existing
houses, while a housing association was formed to provide new buildings. In
1990 a
general Estate Renewal Programme was launched, with the object of spending some
$200 million on modernisation of the now ageing buildings over the coming decade. The old paternalist approach has given way to
one of more partnership with tenants, and a
Community Fund finances wider-based community projects. The site The Greenman Street 'square' was built on the site of
Ward's Place, popularly known as "King John's
Place", and by a "vulgar tradition" believed to be one of that King's palaces: a low, rambling building, part
timber-framed, with a gable at one end and a wide bay
at the other. Later Sir Robert Dude, a
Lord Mayor who died in 1634, probably occupied it and the initials HD over the
door might have referred to his
son. Sir Hugh. In the 18th century it was rented by Dr Robert Poole as an inoculation hospital, and later
became a branch of his Coldbath Fields Smallpox
Hospital. From the 1760s it was used as
a dissenters' chapel, then as the parish workhouse,
and later still as a soap manufactory.
It ended its days as a workmen's tenement,
and was demolished in 1800. The
immediate area became one of mean hovels and
decaying cottages, including one called "Sun Row,” and a maze of church schools and Ragged School buildings. Peabody Buildings
occupied a larger area than the site of this old mansion, and for its erection a number of other decaying tenements,
such as Mary Row and Albert Place, were
demolished. Many would have been the
run-down cottages of ancillary craftsmen to the watch
and clock trades, traditionally established in narrow streets off the Lower Road. The Buildings are four long, freestanding,
five-storey blocks ranged round an open square. In the centre was placed a large
clock-tower-style 'monument', since
removed. The design adopted here, as in the other
early Peabody estates might almost be termed college
staircase' - each stair giving access to sets of rooms, in this case two or
three flats. Each staircase had a cold-water sink and WC,
and each block a communal laundry - model facilities
for the time. All flats, ranging from
one to four rooms, had a range for heating and
cooking, a water-boiler, cupboards and a coal store. The 'square'
plan, allowing for a central play space, was an improvement on the more cramped proto-example at Spitalfields, completed a
year earlier. A great improvement on current housing for its
amenities, visually its massive slabs loomed
menacingly over the low, often decaying housing of its surroundings. Grim and drab though
the prison-like blocks appear, they have a certain dignity, and express vividly the philanthropy of their day.
Baths built on the site of hat manufacturer, Thomas
Wontner’s mansion
Halliford Street
Plain stucco terraces.
Returns
towards Essex Road, terraces of the 1840s, with Ionic and Tuscan porches
Marquess Estate
Takes up
almost the whole of the corner
of Canonbury. It is chiefly the work of
Darbourne Darke from 1966 to 1976,
for Islington Borough Council, but
bids some
older council flats. It was Islington's
first big estate owing the creation of
the larger boroughs under the GLC, and marked
the council's turn away from high-rise housing but not from large-scale and very high-density development, which
proved a nightmare to manage. Most of the housing
consists of terrace houses l their own small
gardens rather than flats, but these are piled up like irregular ziggurats over garaging, with a complicated system of spaces and steps which, though picturesque, retain many
of the disadvantages of
conventional deck-access schemes.
One-storeyed people's flats are
ingeniously sited above the houses, approached lifts. They have their own front doors opening on to
upper-level n-air streets. The materials are friendly brick and slate
hanging though here the brick
is a gloomy brown. Structuring of the over-complex plan was begun in 1979
by Shepheard Epstein Hunter,
with the aim of breaking the estate down
Marquess Road
New River Walk.
Opened by Herbert Morrison 1954. Hut half way along may have been MBW owned
- a circular brick building which
probably the linesman’s shelter. From Canonbury Road the course is dry but by
Astey's Row there is a children’s playground and paddling pool. Public Toilets
at Essex Road beside Thatched House pub. Old course still, River went
underground here. Another ribbon-thin strip of garden, this one flanking a
river - or, rather, the remains of a 38-mile long aqueduct built in the early
seventeenth century to bring fresh drinking water to London from Hertfordshire.
The Islington stretch around Canonbury Grove was restored in 1996-8 by local
residents, and is extremely pretty and peaceful. Specimen trees such as
Liquidambar styraciflua and ornamental viburnums mingle with weeping willows
and shrubby elders, while lysimachia and hostas spring up among the self-sown
valerian, teasels and flag iris. There's a charming little round tiled house
for the linesman who looked after the waterway and ensured that the water
remained clean - sad to say, he is much in need again today. Worn rocks like
those in the Astey's Row Rock Garden create an almost Japanese atmosphere in
places. The gardens get less horticultural in flavour the nearer you get to
Balls Pond Road. Check out the gardens of the large villas opposite, many of
which back on to the area. Largest open space near Marquess Estate
Flats by Monson 1950s
Marquess pub. 1848. With bold pilastered facades, part of
Wagstaffe's development. Stylish.
Willow Bridge
Housing - ok. Looks nice with the New River
Mildmay
He was a Judge of Charles I’s time who married the
daughter of Alderman Halliday.
Bombing
New River Walk. Opened by Herbert Morrison 1954. There is a hut half way along which may have
been owned by the Metropolitan Board of Works.
There is also a circular brick building which probably the linesman’s
shelter. From Canonbury Road the course
is dry but by Astey’s Row there is a children’s playground and paddling
pool. There were Public Toilets at Essex
Road beside the Thatched House Pub. This is the old course – the River went
underground here.
Mildmay Avenue
V2 at the
junction of Mildmay Avenue with Mildmay Street
Mildmay Park
Mildmay Library. 1954. Cheap and cheerful. Dazzling primary colours. Reclad. 1990
by Chris Purslow, Borough Architect, in white tiles Glazed lean-to reading room added along the
back, overlooking a play area
Mildmay Tavern 1884
Northampton Park
Terraces as part of the
Marquess Estate scheme. Street-names in the vicinity of Canonbury House recall
the former manor 20 and its owners the Spencer Compton family.
Marquesses of Northampton
5 L-shaped,
S-facing, walled garden. Different areas are constantly evolving, divided by
yew and lavender hedging and black bamboo. Planting leans toward foliage and
leaf shade with Mediterranean influence.
Northampton Street
Street-names
in the vicinity of Canonbury House recall the former manor 20 and its owners the
Spencer Compton family. Marquesses of Northampton
Horsfield House
Newbery House
2 Danneman, piano
manufacturers
Was Little Sutton Street
Little Sutton St, 2 Richard
& Miss Jane Hart, manufacturing chemist 1853
Northchurch
Perkins Market see Englefield Road
Ockendon Road
Perkins Market see Englefield Road
Red House Square
Remodelled 1995
Rotherfield Street
61-83 giant pilasters
11-28 Grander 1826 – ammonite capitals, an order used by
George Dance
Scott Estate
South Canonbury Place.
12a Home of George & Weedon Grossmith, also Evelyn
Waugh.
Southgate
Road
Some earlier
c19 terraces. This is essentially the southernmost renamed section of Green
Lanes.
St.Paul’s Place
Terraces 1837
St.Paul’s Road
Pathway opposite Wallace Road. Old course of New River
still with water in it. Continues on to Northampton land
102
Priory
Cottage on corner of Newington Green Road dates from 1842.
4 Tudor villa 1833
St.Paul’s church and St.Paul’s District schools. 280
children in 1833, a model establishment.
Cost £700. Home for the Head Teacher.
The children elected their own officers in the Branch Mission Society.
The site was given by the Marquis of Northampton.
62-82 terrace replicating early 19th neighbours
– but as part of the Marquess Estate 1969.
Tibberton Square
Tibberton
Square is doubly an oddity: architecturally, having never had a fourth side, and historically, as the creation of one man for
philanthropic reasons. The originator was Thomas Wontner (1747-1831), who in
1771 moved from his native Herefordshire
with his young wife and brother John to become an apprentice hatter in London, while John entered the watch and
clock trade. In the year before their move, Thomas had married Margaret Lowe, a girl
whom he first met at church in the village of
Tibberton, in Worcestershire. Both brothers later set up independently in the
Minories, prospered, and were eventually joined in business by their sons. Thomas became a Freeman of the City, a
Liveryman, and in 1793 Master of the Worshipful Company of Feltmakers, an
office he was to fill again the year before his death. Of strong religious persuasion, he was for
over 40 years (1782-1823) Manager and Controller of the Countess of Huntingdon's City chapel, in association with
the reformer William Wilberforce, and was a founder of both the London
Missionary Society and the British and Foreign Bible
Society. Wontner extended his hat-making works by opening a
large fur manufactory in rural Islington, where he employed nearly 60 men and
women for "separating and sorting the hair of beaver, seal and other
skins", ready for making into hats and other goods. The factory was near the foot of Greenman's Lane. Next, Wontner built himself a family house
with a large front garden near his new factory, and after living in the City
for 37 years, moved there in 1808. In
1812 the New North Road, connecting Canonbury and the City, cut south across
the Lower Road very near his factory and house, close to the eastern tip of St
Mary's parish. Towards Ball's Pond, a
little beyond the Lower Road intersection, in 1819 a few streets were built
including Annett's Crescent. The rest
was open country, and south, f the fur factory stretched a space named
Islington Common. Wontner's wife died in
1823. Not long afterwards he decided to
build houses on the garden in front of
his villa. The area was irregular,
rhomboid, rather than rectangular, with the villa on the western edge near its
top corner. The result was Tibberton Square,
as Wontner nostalgically named it in memory of his first meeting with his
beloved wife. It consisted of two
east-west terraces of unequal length with a garden, strip between, a couple of
larger houses at the north-west corner because of the extra length on that
side, and (apparently) four others linking with the villa to form the' short
west side The fourth side was never built on, but was
closed by ornamental railings and wrought-iron gates like the exclusive Highbury Place, leaving a vista to the
south-east. The family villa was attractively fanciful, its
central front door flanked by Venetian windows
with large shutters, another pair of Venetian windows on the first floor, and two 'thermal' windows or lunettes on the top floor
above a broad string-course.. By the
1870s the area was under pressure for building, with Peabody Square built in four blocks in 1866 and Greenman Street from
1873. Then pulled down for the baths.
Perhaps for this reason, in
1896 the rest of the square was sold as nos. 1-12 and 18-29, for £8,645. Later
members of the Wontner family tried, unsuccessfully, to re-acquire any of the property. The houses now went down in the world. Like much other local property they came into multiple occupation, and during the Second
World War the enclosing gates and screen were
pointlessly removed, as were most railings at the time, for illusory scrap metal collection. Although the square's
worth was recognised by its inclusion in 1968 in the St Peter's Ward conservation area, by 1970
only three of its houses were in single-family occupation, 46 households had no
baths, and 28 no water supply. In
January 1970 the square was
acquired by the Council as one of 19 streets designated for face-lift, and restoration was carried out by the
architects Andrews Sherlock & Partners, and the
building group D. J. Higgins & Sons Ltd, and completed in June 1979. The size of the houses made them inconvenient for
single families, yet too small for conversion
into individual flats. The 24 houses
were therefore converted , laterally, leaving the
elevations unaltered, to make 36 two-bedroom flats and 12 one-bedroom, accommodating 132 persons. The central sloping garden was newly landscaped, and levelled by several feet at the
western end to admit light to the dark basements. The railings were renewed. Parking was banned, and access to the two terraces limited to pedestrians. By the conversion, which cost £850,000,
alternate front doors gave access to the ground floor and to the stair. The completed conversion
was one of nine in the London area highly commended in a DOIT; competition (1980).
Merlyn Rees, one-time Home Secretary, opened it in July 1979. Among those present was Thomas Wontner's
great-great-great-grandson Sir Hugh Wontner, former Lord Mayor, chairman of
Claridge's and the Berkeley Hotels and a
past Master of both the Worshipful Company of Feltmakers and the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers. Sir Hugh's son Giles
Wontner is senior partner of the City firm of solicitors Wontner & Sons, of Broad Court, Bow Street, founded
by another Thomas Wontner who was grandson to
the Tibberton Square Thomas's brother John.
Thus the two branches of the family
unite in the head of that firm. Architecture is Starkish:
3 storeys and basements, in brick, no stucco, and no window-guards. Fronts are plain
except the broad course above the basement.
Ground-floor windows are round-headed,
fanlights are the wreath-like double circle studded with florets, framed by teardrop segments. Those on the south side are renewals, but
without florets. The blind east fronts
are finished with blank window recesses and entrances to the end houses are
placed on these fronts. he terraces are
raised on steps due to the fall in ground level from west to east. The backs,
with only tiny gardens or yards, are rather more barrack-like than the average Islington terrace.
11
In 1851/2
at II lived Richard Braine, great-grandfather to
Sir Bernard Braine, MP b. 1914 he died there aged 55 in 1852, and his wife and daughter continued to live there for
a time.
13
front
entrance different to the others
13-17 linking villas , not
quite at right angles.
13-24 north terrace was
re-numbered to run consecutively, 13-24.
28 From the square's
first occupation, in 1827, Wontner's sons and daughters lived at no until long after their father's death. The last daughter, Rebecca, died there, unmarried, in 1859.
Thomas junior, who succeeded his father in the business and died without issue in 1851, was followed by his brother
Joseph, whose son Algernon, a stockbroker, inherited
in 1867.
Terraces converted
to flats. Built 1823 for hat
manufacturer, Thomas Wontner, in the grounds of his house. Isolated survival:
converted by Andrews, Sherlock & Partners, 1979 face each other across a garden. Villa, demolished for the Greenman Street
Public Baths in 1894, replaced by housing in the 1970s.
Wontner
Close
Baths In 1894 ground was required for building
public swimming-baths under the Baths and Wash-Houses Act (1846-7), and unfortunately the whole west side of
Tibberton Square, including the Wontner villa, was
razed. The new baths on the site were
opened in 1895. Later the Greenman
Street Baths themselves were closed and demolished,
and in 1987 Wontner Close, a group of flats designed by the Council's Architects' Department, was built on part of the site,
merging agreeably with the end of the square. The heights are pleasantly varied, and an
interesting central staircase cleaves through a rift
in the main building. West of the flats,
the iron trusses from one of the swimming baths
have been left in situ, and, painted a bright blue, greatly enhance the small recreation ground created on the
rest of the space.
Wallace Road
In the 1870s the railway was widened and the New River was
put into pipes and covered over. A
pipeline was put down into the railway bridges.
The pre-1870 alignment of the New River can be seen in the
line of narrow gardens behind Wallace Walk.
Hope villas house used to be Frankfurt villa, 1881.
The New River rises again towards the end of the road
1
Hope Villa,
formerly Frankfort Villa, the New River's
pre-1870 alignment is seen in the long narrow garden
behind this house built 1881.
Willow Bridge Road
Part of Frog Lane – the old road from London to Highbury.
Laid out in the 19th. Crosses over an old line of the New River;
New River basin. New River Parka simulated stretch has been created here as a miniature
linear park opened in 1954. Circular
Watchhouse and railings of the 1820s, when the
New River was realigned
St.Mary’s church.
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