Survey Data
Reg No
50010710
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Previous Name
Chartbusters
Original Use
Shop/retail outlet
Historical Use
Shop/retail outlet
Date
1890 - 1910
Coordinates
315820, 235757
Date Recorded
06/09/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Corner-sited commercial building, built c.1900, having two-bay elevation to Dorset Street Lower and three-bay to North Circular Road, with decorative limestone shopfront spanning both elevations and having main entrance to corner and accessed from both elevations. Hipped slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles behind rendered parapet wall with deep moulded cornice and plain frieze. Single profiled red brick chimneystack with clay pots. Red brick walls laid in Flemish bond on deep moulded limestone ashlar cornice to shopfront fascia. Gauged brick segmental-headed window openings with roll-moulded reveals, limestone sills and replacement uPVC windows. Shopfront comprises series of fixed-pane polished timber display windows on limestone stall riser flanked by decorative partially fluted pilasters on raised plinths supporting continuous limestone fascia. Main entrance has freestanding partially fluted Doric column and pair of original wrought-iron gates and nosed limestone step. Three-sided canted glazed entrance screen of polished timber glazed doors, sidelights and overlights with panelled plaster ceiling. Square-headed door opening to south bay of Dorset Street elevation with original flat-panelled timber door and overlight, giving access to upper floors. Two-bay rear elevation with rendered boundary wall.
Appraisal
Located at the southeast corner of North Circular Road and Dorset Street Lower, this late Victorian building, which was built as a grocery shop, retains an impressive shopfront with a decorative recessed entrance. It successfully stitches both streetscapes together while respecting the scale and proportions of the earlier Dorset Street terraces. the corner entrance with its column, and the stone shopfront make this building distinctive in the streetscape.