Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 22 August 2024 to update the name and address and reformat the text to current standards.

TQ3183SW
635-1/64/683

ISLINGTON
PENTONVILLE ROAD (north side)
No.44A, Crafts Council Gallery and attached forecourt walls, railings and gatepiers

(Formerly listed as No.44A, Claremont Hall and attached forecourt walls, railings and gatepiers, previously listed as: PENTONVILLE ROAD, Claremont Hall)

29/09/72

GV
II
Also known as: Nesor Showrooms PENTONVILLE ROAD (at time of listing). Former non-conformist chapel (Claremont Chapel), later non-conformist mission (Claremont Hall); commercial showrooms (at time of listing), later an exhibition hall.

Set back from Pentonville Road. 1819. Architect not certain; possibly Andrew or John Blyth, or John or William Wallen; for Thomas Wilson, patron. Front elevation is result of successive alterations: 1854: front terrace (largely destroyed) by Henry Owen; 1860: alterations by Mr. Tarry; c.1902 further alterations. Stock bricks with stucco front elevation (probably stuccoed mid C19), including vermiculated rusticated ground-floor dado, rusticated block dressings and quoins. Rectangular plan. Neo-classical style. Two storeys approached by full-width steps (widened C20) with stucco balustrade to ends, basement. three-window range with symmetrical facade and projecting central pedimented bay. Ground-floor prostyle Ionic portico with paired columns to central architraved doorway with double C20 doors and eleven-paned rectangular overlight; round-arched architraved and keystoned flanking side entrances (probably altered C20) with paterae, console-bracketed open pediments, multi-paned fanlights, wide panelled corniced-heads and panelled doors. Round-arched, architraved first-floor three/three sashes with curved, wavy and radial glazing bars, double margin lights, console-bracketed egg and dart cornice, and small brackets to sills. Entablature with foliated scrolled frieze panels in low relief to outer bays, centre bay frieze inscribed 'CLAREMONT', egg and dart and modillioned cornice and blocking course. Left return has three round-arched sashes on the upper level; rear extension. Attached stucco walls to sides of forecourt; Neo-classical style cast-iron railings and fine cast and wrought-iron gate piers to front.

INTERIOR: originally had an oval gallery running all round the chapel; this was truncated in 1860 when other alterations were carried out by Mr. Tarry; most of interior greatly altered including the insertion of a mezzanine floor to chapel space c.1970; original wooden handrail to front interior staircase survives.

History: the building of the chapel was financed by Thomas Wilson for the Congregationalists in 1819; he had also assisted in building Paddington Chapel and Craven Chapel. Claremont Chapel was closed in 1899 and disused until the present mission, London Congregational Union, was set up in 1902; in recent years the mission has let the chapel for use as showrooms. 1990 undergoing extensive exterior work and interior alterations. Probably the most ambitious and architecturally significant non-conformist chapel of the early C19 in the Borough of Islington inspite of altered interior. In the basement is a natural spring, said to have been used to provide drinking water for cattle kept on the site for market prior to the building of the chapel.

(Survey of Non-conformist Churches and Chapels in Greater London: Report by Philip Temple for English Heritage: Islington Chapels: London: 1989-1989: 1-2/PENTONVILLE RD.).

Listing NGR: TQ3129383173

External Links

• Wikidata Q26503344

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Recommended Books

• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
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  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
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  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)