Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 25/07/2017

TQ3082NE
635-1/67/544

ISLINGTON
KING'S CROSS ROAD (East side)
No.78 Former Clerkenwell Magistrates Court and attached railings

(Formerly listed as No.78 Clerkenwell Magistrates Court and attached railings)

GV
II
Former Police Court, later a Magistrates Court, with attached former Police Station. Dated 1906, with former Police Station dated 1842. By John Dixon Butler, Architect and Surveyor to the Metropolitan Police.

Fine orange brick to upper storeys, elaborate Portland stone dressings; banded stone rustication to ground-floor, Welsh-slate mansard roof with dormers, rendered and stone end stacks. Foyer entrance plan. Free-Classical/Arts and Crafts/Queen Anne Revival style. Three storeys with basement and attic; double-fronted with four-window range (1:2:1) to King's Cross Road, and eight-window range (2:1:1:1:1:1:1:1) to left return in Great Percy Street; windows of varied shapes.

Single storey former Police Station to front right elevation. Symmetrical main front elevation. Central two-storey continuous stone bow window (paired sashes flanked by pilasters each floor) set in recess and surmounted by attic sashes and striking giant semi-circular pediment supported by oversized brackets: all over centre entrance. Entrance distyle in antis with dentilled cornice, and balustrated parapet, and steps rising to recessed doorway flanked by small windows. Entrance flanked on outside wall by keystoned round-arched architraved casement windows with curved and radial glazing bars to fanlights. 6/6 stone pedimented sashes to first and second floor outer bays; moulded stone sill bands to each storey; dentilled cornice, stone balustraded parapet flanking the giant semi-circular pediment. Assymetrical and lively side elevation with oddly shaped recessed cut-away to upper storeys of blank brick wall at front corner. Banded stone rustication to ground floor for first two bays only. Irregular stone dressings and fenestration of 4/4, 6/6 and 9/9 sashes; windows decrease in height as they go upwards. Two ground-floor stone entrances with prominent hoods and oversized brackets with panelled doors and oeil-de-boeuf overlights; varied paired and bay windows except small single 4/4 sash to right of first entrance; far right bay paired sashes set beneath projecting bow. Dentilled stone cornice and balustraded parapet. Fine attached iron railings.

INTERIOR: fine details to entrance foyer and court rooms. Dixon Butler succeeded his father as Architect and Surveyor to the Metropolitan Police (1895-1920) and designed over 200 police stations and courts. He evolved his own style for the stations and courts, of which this is a good and representative example, owing much to Philip Webb and Norman Shaw, with whom he worked. Three of his police stations (two in Tower Hamlets and one in Enfield) and another Magistrates' Court (Westminster) are also listed. The building occupies a prominent corner site.

(Historians File, English Heritage, London Division: 1990).

Listing NGR: TQ3083482790

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26490222

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

• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)