Description

TQ3164SW
635-1/64/830

ISLINGTON
ST JOHN STREET (East side)
No. 396

18/04/91

II
Former single house with ground-floor shop, now offices with ground-floor shop. 1830-1831; mid-to-late C19 shopfront with C20 alterations. Originally probably by Ebenezer Simes, carpenter of White Lion Street.

Multi-coloured stock brick set in Flemish bond, C20 tiles below wooden shopfront; front roof slope obscured by parapet, rear Welsh-slate mansard roof with ridge tiles, end-wall brick stacks. Side-hall entrance plan with staircase to upper floors, ground-floor shop of two rooms in depth.

Four storeys, two-window range. Ground-floor shop with C19 entrance to left and house entrance on right, with C20 door. Shopfront of three bays; two glazed shop windows between shop and house doors. Bays articulated by pilasters; original console brackets to end pilasters. Wide C20 fascia obscures original fascia beneath. Gauged brick flat-arches to upper sashes; first floor (full-length and with wrought-iron window guards) and second floor 6/6 sashes. Third floor with 1/1 casement sashes. Coping stone to plain parapet.

INTERIOR: front room to ground-floor shop with C20 detailing; rear room with original marble mantlepiece to left party-wall, panelled hall door and rear architraved 6/6 sash. House side-entrance hall with beaded board dado and original plaster ceiling with unusual Neo-classical cornice. First floor front room with heavily moulded altered cornice, original architraved sashes with canted sides and panelled shutters, and wide skirting boards; rear room with original plaster cornice, marble mantlepiece to left party-wall and original six-panelled doors with architraved surrounds. Second floor front room with original moulded plaster cornice, marble mantlepiece with cast-iron insert to left party-wall, architraved sashes over recessed panels, and four-panelled door; rear room with original marble mantlepiece with cast-iron insert, deeply recessed 6/6 sash with canted sides and panel below. Third floor rooms with original mantlepieces and panelled doors. Original staircase partially intact but altered.

Ratebooks and Brewers' Company records indicate that the house was erected in 1830-1831 probably by Ebenezer Simes, a carpenter from White Lion Street. It was built as a single house and the adjacent terrace to the left (north) was not erected until 1840-1842 on the ground that had been occupied by the Brewers' Company school and almshouses. The existence of an 1831 ground-plan proves that, from the beginning, No. 396 St. John Street was a house with a ground-floor shop with separate entrances on the street front.

Listing NGR: TQ3148983033

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26490308

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
• 
  The Victorian House Manual (2nd Edition): How They Were Built, Improvements & Refurbishment, Solutions to All Common Defects - Includes Relevant ... ... Properties (Haynes Manual) (Haynes Manuals)