The Journeyman Weavers’ Houses

I am delighted to announce that after my report on the threat of demolition to 3 Club Row – a journeyman weavers’ house dating from 1764/6 – Historic England visited the property last week, and the Secretary of State is currently assessing whether to grant listed status to this building and 5 Club Row which is its mirror image.

Last Friday, Tower Hamlets Council issued a Building Preservation Notice on 3 Club Row which gives it legal protection during the listing process and makes it a criminal act for anyone to damage it.

If you would like to learn more about the journeyman weavers and discover why their surviving houses are significant, you can join a guided walk on Saturday 15th June hosted by Julian Woodford, author of The Boss of Bethnal Green. Click here for tickets.

The battle to save 3 Club Row is not yet over. If you have not yet submitted an objection to the demolition, please do so. We need to register as many objections as possible. You will find instructions at the foot of this article.

3 & 5 Club Row, two survivors of a terrace of six four-room houses built 1764-6

The terraces of silk merchants’ houses in Spitalfields declare their history readily, yet these more modest buildings of the same era survive as the last vestiges of the workshops and dwellings where the journeyman weavers pursued their trade. You might easily walk past without even noticing these undemonstrative structures, standing disregarded like silent old men in the crowd. I am indebted to Peter Guillery and his book The Small House in Eighteenth Century London for highlighting these buildings where the silk weavers worked, which are equally as significant historically as the larger homes of the merchants who profited from their labour.

190 & 192 Brick Lane, weavers’ houses of 1778-9 built by James Laverdure (alias Green), Carpenter

113 & 115 Bethnal Green Rd, two five room houses of c.1735 probably built by William Farmer, Carpenter

70-74 Sclater St, three houses built for weavers c.1719

70-74 Sclater St, No 70 was refronted in 1777

97 & 99 Sclater St, built c 1720

46 Cheshire St, built in the sixteen-seventies

4a – 6a Padbury Court, probably built c. 1760

125 Brick Lane, shop and workshop tenement probably built in 1778 for Daniel Dellacort, a distiller

Note the developer’s Porsche in this rendering of their proposed replacement for 3 Club Row

HOW TO OBJECT EFFECTIVELY

Use your own words and add your own personal reasons for opposing the development. Any letters which simply duplicate the same wording will count only as one objection.

1. Quote the application reference: PA/19/00932/A1

2. Give your full name and postal address. You do not need to be a resident of Tower Hamlets or of the United Kingdom to register a comment but unless you give your postal address your objection will be discounted.

3. Be sure to state clearly that you are OBJECTING to the demolition of 3 Club Row.

4. The building is exceptionally rare and significant and should be listed.

5. It is an historic building in a Conservation Area and part of the historic and architectural interest of the area.

6. The replacement scheme is not worthy a replacement.

WHERE TO SEND YOUR OBJECTION

You can register and object by clicking here if you have a UK postcode

or

you can write an email to

planningandbuilding@towerhamlets.gov.uk

or

you can send a letter to

Town Planning, Town Hall, Mulberry Place, 5 Clove Crescent, London, E14 2BG