Mandeville Houses, fronting Mantell Street and Liverpool Road was the earliest housing scheme built by Finsbury Borough Council.
In mounting concern about the state of housing in the borough, Finsbury Council was induced to set up a Housing Committee and investigate available sites for building in the summer of 1924. The Mantell Street site, vacant following the failure of a pre-war scheme to build a bacon-smoking factory here, was drawn to the committee’s attention.
In February 1926, Finsbury formally agreed to buy the site and to build there as well as at a smaller site at Southampton (now Calshot) Street, where Grimaldi House was erected.
The main U-shaped block of Mandeville Houses was built to the designs of E.C.P. Monson & Partners in 1927-1928. An eastward extension towards Liverpool Road was added by Monson’s firm in 1934.
The name came from Geoffrey de Mandeville, recorded in Domesday Book as a landowner in the area. It consisted of a five-storey walk-up block round three sides of a landscaped square laid out with asphalt paths and drying grounds. Flats were arranged off a series of staircases. Besides two or three bedrooms, each contained a living-room, separate scullery, bathroom and toilet. The rents "although high for working class occupants "were not unreasonable’.
By the late 1970s the estate had deteriorated. Despite a report by the borough architect recommending refurbishment, the Parkfield Street shopping redevelopment was then in contemplation and the flats were doomed.
The whole area was demolished in 1980 in preparation for the Sainsbury’s development that engulfed the larger site.