Description

ISLINGTON

TQ308300NW RANDELLS ROAD 635-1/56/691 (North side) Nos.18-26 Paget Memorial Mission Hall and ancillary buildings

II

Mission Hall and ancillary accommodation. Dated 1911 in the pediment over the main entrance, and possibly incorporating part of earlier terraced houses. By Arthur Beresford Pite. Yellow brick with bands of red brick set in Flemish bond, stucco, roof of slate. Three storeys, seven-window range. In Randells Road the buildings have a flat facade continuing the treatment of the rest of the terrace apart from the window-openings of the chapel; the Superintendent's rooms and the missionaries' flats are to the left of, and also above the chapel. Flat-arched entrance to the chapel with moulded stucco architrave and pediment, segmental-arched house entrance to the left; mosaic fascia above with inscription 'PAGET MEMORIAL MISSION HALL'. The chapel front has a stucco panel pierced by two pointed- and shoulder-arched windows, with a lunette window above; all other windows segmental-arched; parapet. INTERIOR: . The bulk of the decoration in the Hall appears to be of 19ll, but it incorporates features of earlier date, some or all of which come from Douglas Support, near Coatbridge, Lanarkshire. This house belonged to the Reverend Sholto Douglas, later Lord Blythswood, who built the Paget Memorial Hall in memory of his wife, Violet Paget, who had held a Bible class on this spot in 1887-9. The hall is panelled throughout up to window-height, and the panelling is for the most part arcaded; the spandrels are decorated with cartouches painted with the monogram VP, and the muntins with carved drops; the cartouches were probably designed by Martin Travers, a pupil of Pite; the cornices throughout are decorated with gilt stencilled violets. The panelling at the east end is surmounted by a broad pediment carrying the arms of Lord Blythswood; inscriptions over the arch of the east window, and on raised plaster panels above that. Broad balustraded pulpit with square newel posts and balusters, the rail decorated with hearts and rosettes; incorporated in the pulpit are two torcheres incorporating Venetian walnut figures representing Vice and Virtue, probably of late C17 or C18 date. In the south wall are two ornate chimney-pieces. That to the east has an overmantel decorated with hearts, interlaced ornament and scrolling foliage carved in wood, the whole being framed by columns of Baroque design, bulbous in their lower parts and carved with grotesque and foliage ornament, and of barley-sugar form in the upper parts, supporting a shallow segmental pediment whose tympanum is filled with oak branches and a lion rampant carved in low relief; the pediment surmounted by three statuary figures, the central one of Christ, by Thorwaldsen. The chimneypiece to the west is pedimented and incorporates a portrait of Violet Paget in the overmantel. A fireplace in the north wall is surmounted by a mantelshelf and overmantel, the overmantel flanked by two strips of Jacobean or neo-Jacobean carving, incorporating term figures and foliage. Organ gallery at the west end carried on columns of Baroque design, bulbous in the lower part and of barley-sugar form above; balustrade with square newel posts and balusters and rail decorated with hearts and rosettes. The organ was formerly at Douglas Support. Entrance at the north-west corner under pedimented canopy carried on slim columns whose upper parts are decorated with spiral fluting. The Leader's Room, at the west end of the ancillary accommodation, has a fireplace flanked by elaborate columns decorated with fluting and carrying a canopy. (Architect's drawings by A.B.Pite.; Information from Ruth Guilding).

Listing NGR: TQ3034783940

External Links

• Wikidata Q26490276

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