This semi-detached villa was built in c.1837 on the site of nursery gardens. It was first home to a clerk at the Bank of England, and later a merchant trading with Japan and China. When it was first built the house looked out over fields towards the Royal Caledonian Asylum, for the orphans of soldiers and sailors, and the new 'model' Pentonville prison. Nearby was the extensive Laycock's Dairy which supplied London with milk until the 1860s. The covered cattle lairs were used for keeping animals overnight on their way to Smithfield market.
