Old Dairy, Stroud Green

Grade II listed:- Dairy and shop. No 1 the former premises of Friern Manor Dairy Farm Limited; no 3 a shop. c.1895. Brown glazed brick, red rubbed brick with stone dressings, sgraffito, roofs obscured by parapet. Single-storey. The dairy front has a base of brown glazed brick; elliptical-arched carriage entrance with foliage imposts of stone carrying a stone archivolt reverting to rubbed brick in the middle section; five bays to left of the entrance, two to the right: round-arched panels with stone foliage imposts and archivolts with roll-mouldings, flanked by Corinthian pilasters; the panels filled with scenes in sgraffito depicting dairy processes, from left to right: grazing, milking, cooling, country delivery, making butter, old-style delivery and present-day delivery; frieze of swags interspersed with heads in cartouches; scrolled parapet interrupted over the third bay from the left by a panel with incised lettering: 'ESTABLISHED A0 1836 DI', and by a panel over the entrance inscribed 'FRIERN MANOR DAIRY FARM LIMITED',this panel topped by a stone panel with consoles depicting a mythological-cum-dairy scene. Two octagonal cupolas with louvred lantern stage, lead-covered ogee roofs and iron sunflower finials behind the parapet. No 3 has a C20 shop front flanked by pilasters with possibly vestiges of original shop front behind the modern fascia; cornice with festooned brackets; parapet of composition stone with cartouche in central brick panel. The sgraffito panels are very unusual in being pictorial and in a street; there is not very much late nineteenth century sgraffito work, and what there is is almost always decorative in treatment or in churches.