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Edgware: Day's Almshouses, Watling Street

These almshouses were built by Charles Day in 1828. There are eight of them on a 1 acre plot fronting onto Watling Street at Stone Grove which he bought from All Souls College. During his lifetime Day selected the almspeople. By his will, he conveyed the almshouses and land to trustees, leaving sufficient money to provide an endowment of £100 a year for the upkeep of the property and weekly payments to the almspeople. In selecting almspeople the trustees were to give preference to parishioners of Edgware and Little Stanmore, providing that they did not sell or drink intoxicants, swear, or break the Sabbath. The almshouses consist of a long single-storied range in an early-19th-century Gothic style with steep gables, pinnacled buttresses and a slate roof. The front is faced with stone ashlar and has Gothic arcading below the eaves and verges. In the central gable, which is flanked by two smaller ones, is a clock and the date 1828.