Barnsbury Park is an outstanding, award winning, conversion of a former Edwardian school in Islington, creating a beautiful collection of refurbished apartments and private properties by niche London developer Mount Anvil.

The scheme is situated on the site of the former Barnsbury Park School for Boys and Girls, in Barnsbury’s Conservation area, a fashionable corner of Islington which offers a slice of village life in the heart of North London complete with local grocers, butchers and a sense of community.

As well as high-end private, residential houses, the scheme also incorporates affordable new build apartments which have the same first class finish as the private homes. The apartments look out over the focal water feature and landscaped square at the centre of the scheme, again creating a sense of community and space to promote wellbeing and engagement within the development.

Originally built in 1901 the buildings had fallen into disrepair and were in desperate need of attention and thoughtful refurbishment. Developer, Mount Anvil, had a clear vision for the development, to focus on individuality and quality craftsmanship, rather than volume and bland standardisation, and were looking for hard landscaping which would carry this vision to the outside areas around the scheme.

In order to give Mount Anvil the contemporary feel they were looking for, architect Liz Lake specified a combination of Marshalls Pallas combined concrete block and flag polished paving in Light and Grey Granite. Pallas combines vivid colour with a highly polished textured to create a modern, contemporary look with the very best in face mix technology.

This was used along with La Linia combined concrete block and flag textured paving used in both a herringbone and staggered laying pattern to provide a striking visual effect through its colour, form and design. Both paving solutions complemented the development perfectly and the finishing touches of Conservation kerb and edgings gave the areas around the development definition and form.

Natural Stanton Moor Buff Ashlar cladding and masonry was used sympathetically which provided a perfect mix of features and character alongside the London stock bricks on the development. Stanton Moor Ashlar cladding is fine to medium grained sandstone, extracted from Dale View Quarry in Derbyshire.

The striking colour of the Stanton Moor Buff Sandstone features a buff base with brown, gold and wild pink variation, adding depth and interest to both traditional and contemporary building designs.

James Owen, Land Executive at Mount Anvil said “We felt that Marshalls not only offered a product that complemented the aesthetics of the development, but delivered a service that enabled the project to come in on time and on budget.”

This outstanding development won the top accolade for the Best Conversion in the Evening Standard Homes & Property Awards 2011 and the hard landscaping solutions chosen have succeeded in creating a beautiful juxtaposition between the historic architecture of the development and the vision for a contemporary and modern development.