British Listed Buildings

Listing Text

ISLINGTON

TQ3182NW ROSEBERY AVENUE
635-1/68/737 (North West side)
29/12/50 Nos.173-177 (Odd)
New River Head Headquarters
(Formerly Listed as:
ROSEBERY AVENUE
(North West side)
Nos.173-177 (Odd)
Oak room (room 105) & ceiling of
room 106 at New River Head)

GV II

Office building. 1915-20. By Austen Hall for the metropolitan
Water Board, incorporating fittings of c1693. Red brick with
ashlar rusticated ground floor and dressings and slate roof
with ridge stacks. Large irregular parrallelogram in french
classical style. Four storeys and attic. Finely modulated
entrance front, a 7-window range, has an ashlar 3-window
centrepiece with rusticated ground floor giant Doric pilasters
above and carved doorcase steps and lampstandards. Recessed
windows either side then projecting single window section with
a 1st floor window with balcony, architrave and pediment
linked to window above. Front to Roseberry Avenue is similar
but plainer and on right corner an ashlar lantern style tower.
Further similar ranges to right side and rear.
INTERIOR: Entrance corridor retains fine glazed partitions,
staircase has bronze scroll balustrade, coumting hall is
subdivided but retains carved roof, reception hall has reeded
columns and pilaters and moulded ceiling and fine doors. Other
rooms have fine fittings. Incorporated in the building is the
'Oak Room' formerly Board Room of the C17 water house. c.1693,
reinstalled c.1919-1920 with vestibules of this date; plaster
ceiling removed to safe storage in 1941 and again reinstalled
at the end of the War. In style of Grinling Gibbons for John
Grene, clerk to the New River Company, patron. Fine panelled
oak interior with elaborately carved frieze panels over
openings; sumptuously carved plaster ceiling with gilded
decoration and painted oval panel to centre depicting
allegorical scene with portrait of William III. Elaborate
chimneypiece to right wall: marble fireplace surround with
iron fireback; richly carved oak overmantel bearing the Royal
achievement of William III in centre. Chimneypiece flanked by
pair of grand Corinthian engaged columns.
There is also the partial interior ceiling from former room in
the water house, reinstated as Room 51. Moulded and carved
plaster ceiling with roundel of embattled city motif in
plaster relief to centre and the year 1693 distributed to the
shields in the 4 angles.
History: a water house was built on the edge of the pond and
was utilised as the chief residence of the New River Company's
principal officer, the clerk. The building is represented in
Hollar's drawings of the 1660s. c.1693 the water house was
enlarged and the 'Oak room' and the plaster ceiling found in
Room 51 were designed. During the C18 the house was the home
of the company's surveyor or engineer. In 1914 the
Metropolitan Water Board decided to erect a new headquarters
building; the C17 water house on the site was demolished but
the Board wished to preserve the 'Oak Room' and other historic
fabric such as the plaster ceiling from another room
reinstalled in Room 51; it is not clear whether the ceiling in
Room 101 is of C17 date or a copy. Various other C17
chimneypieces were also salvaged for reuse in the new building
but they have not been traced. The foundation was laid in 1915
but work ceased until 1919 and the building was opened in
1920.
(Historians File, English Heritage, London Division: 1990-).


Listing NGR: TQ3135382739

Source: English Heritage

Listed building text is © Crown Copyright. Reproduced under licence: PSI Click-use licence number C2008002006.