Spitalfields Life

During the lockdown, Dan Cruickshank has been using his daily exercise to make a detailed Survey of Spitalfields in collaboration with Alec Forshaw. Today Dan introduces his survey, aiming to draw attention to all the buildings and architectural features that define the nature of the place, yet which are often overlooked when it comes to listing, making them vulnerable to destruction by developers.

The Princess Alice, Commercial St

A battle is being waged to protect Spitalfields’ characterful, but mostly statutorily unprotected, late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century architecture. It is a strange experience walking the streets during the emptiness of the lockdown and in a light that is almost uncanny in its purity. Even the simplest buildings acquire a luminosity and a strangely monumental quality. The clarity of light has revealed these structures as heroic and often poetic architecture that contributes to the distinctive nature of the place.

Spitalfields Neighbourhood Planning Forum, which was made possible by the Localism Act of 2011, supports a community and conservation-led vision for the area. It has a vision that builds on, rather than obliterates, the qualities that make Spitafields unique, including its mixture of small-scale uses, its diversity and its residential character, as well as its historic architecture. So I am drawing up a list of what – in planners’ language – are called non-designated heritage assets. This means all unlisted but significant buildings, along with street furniture such as the array of nineteenth century bollards, signs, sewer vents, cobbles and granite kerbs – indeed everything that contributes to the character and appearance of Spitalfields.

My photograph of the superb Princess Alice public house – now renamed The Culpeper – which was built in 1883 in fine Gothic Revival style, illustrates the importance of this survey. Despite its panache, the pub is only locally listed – which means it has no statutory protection – whereas the adjoining eighteen-fifties commercial block is – quite rightly – nationally listed by Historic England, revealing that there is no consistency in the protection of Spitafields’ built heritage.

The Princess Alice public house was built by architect, Bruce J. Capell, an experienced pub designer who worked extensively for Truman’s Brewery. His design is erudite, delightful and on a key corner site does much to enliven this portion of Commercial St, confirming its status as one of London’s architecturally most significant Victorian thoroughfares.

While The Princess Alice is not protected, the adjoining eighteen-fifties commercial block is listed by Historic England.

There is a Spitalfields that is almost invisible, the late-Victorian commercial and industrial architecture is taken for granted and unappreciated by most. Few of these buildings are protected and all are at risk. Yet they form the fundamental historic fabric of the place and many are magnificent, heroic expressions of the utilitarian and functional tradition that distinguishes much of Britain’s nineteenth century industrial architecture. Others comprise fascinating essays in nineteenth century fashions for historic styles – Italianate, Flemish Renaissance Revival or Gothic. Commercial Street, cut through Spitalfields by the Metropolitan Board of Works from 1843 to 1857, is a treasure trove of such architecture. Little of it is listed and some of it is threatened with obliteration, as is the case of this splendid late eighteen-forties Italianate terrace, 2-4 Commercial St, at the south end.

This is a characterful group of late-nineteenth century buildings on Wentworth St, between Middlesex St and Bell Lane, opposite Goulston St. Their diverse architecture and eclectic mix of uses make this a fine example of the the type of unlisted buildings that are threatened by the advancing towers of the City of London.

These pale buildings in Wentworth St, with their almost ethereal upper storeys perched over a shuttered underworld of abandonment and imminent decay, appear as emblems of transience and death. They are a reminder of the sudden contrast and strange juxtaposition that distinguishes Spitalfields and defines its character. Perhaps nowhere is this sense of contrast more stark than in Wentworth St. By tradition, a lively market and commercial street, it was once the heartland of the late-nineteenth century Jewish community.

In 1892, Israel Zangwill, observed in Children of the Ghetto, that ‘..Wentworth St and Goulston St were  … in festival times … a pandemonium of caged poultry, clucking and quacking and screaming.’ In 1896, Henry Walker wrote his first impression of Wentworth St thus, ‘an almost impossible scene is before us. We seem to be in a world of dissolving views. We suddenly find ourselves in a foreign land … we might be in Warsaw or Cracow … Wentworth St is the market of the poorer immigrant Jews. It is the East London counterpart of the Continental Ghetto.’

These buildings are part of the architectural theatre of the area’s long-dispersed community of Jewish refugees escaping Tsarist persecution. Now they stand, unprotected and evidently vulnerable. Intensely melancholic, they are a memorial to a lost world.

The Ten Bells, at 84 Commercial St on the corner with Fournier St, is one of the area’s most-popular and best-known pubs. It dates from 1755 but was revamped and stuccoed in the mid-nineteenth century, and the bar was decorated with stylish tiles in the eighteen-nineties. While the pub is listed, the splendid mid-nineteenth century group to the left are not. Number 88, in the centre, is particularly fine with tall pilaster strips that evolve into giant arcading. This stripped-down classicism is typical of the often sublime mid-to-late-nineteenth century commercial and industrial buildings of Spitalfields and Shoreditch.

The centre of Commercial St was laid out between 1849 and 1857 on the site of ancient Red Lion St. This simple and civilised row of shops with living accommodation above was probably constructed in the late-eighteen fifties. They are generally well preserved, although some have lost their cornices, and are good examples of their date and type, but none are listed. In the foreground on the left is the remarkable Stapleton’s stable at 106 Commercial St which includes an interior court with a wide and shallow ramp serving several storeys of stabling. The ornate terracotta plaque states the that the stables were established in 1842, but the façade dates from the eighteen-nineties.

A recent proposal to convert the building into a series of bars and restaurants has been rejected by Tower Hamlets Council following strong local opposition. To many, there seem to be quite enough bars in Spitalfields already and this building stands at the edge of a residential area. Yet the scheme, which includes significant alterations to the interior, has been re–submitted. Meanwhile the Spitalfields Trust and others are pushing for Stapleton’s to be recommended for listing by Historic England. Will HE do the right thing? 

Number 148-150 Commercial St, probably dating from the eighteen-sixties, is an even more visually striking example of stripped-back commercial classicism. Its stucco cladding – which makes the composition even more  abstract – is perhaps later.  The strange austerity of the design is emphasised by its neighbours which are contemporary but more typically ornate and florid examples. To the right is a mid-eighteen sixties group that includes the splendid Commercial Tavern which is already listed. To the left is the former rectory of St. Stephen’s church, built in 1861 in fine Gothic style to the design of Ewan Christian. The church itself, which formerly stood next door is just one of Spitalfields many lost Victorian churches. It was replaced in the mid-thirties by a cinema, now converted into a hulking block of flats.

The contrast between the buildings in this group could not be more dramatic or telling. They offer a compressed history of the architecture and life of ninetieth and early-twentieth century Spitalfields – work, prayer, and entertainment all combined. These buildings are tremendously important, yet since only the Commercial Tavern is listed the rest have uncertain futures.

Many of the buildings in Commercial Street possess a sublime, almost abstract, power. Number 66-68, dating from the eighteen-fifties, is bold and functional in conception. The building is designed like a machine, with large windows illuminating work areas and a loading bay and crane. The only aesthetic concessions are a rugged cornice and serrations on the undersides of the window arches. This was just enough perhaps to raise the building to the poetic realm of architecture. This block demonstrates that austere and gaunt structures can possess an almost romantic beauty. It is a wonderful example of a visually-haunting architecture that so brilliantly captures the spirit of its age, even if the story of this architecture in Spitalfields has yet to be written and certainly yet to be fully appreciated or protected.

Detail from The Bell, a late-Victorian public house in Middlesex Street. The image of the bell doubles as a friendly, smiling, mustachioed and crowned head. Can this be a portrait or a punning rebus? Was the landlord of the pub named Bellamy or King? Such small details delight me and, although this pub is not statutorily protected, it will surely be on my list of non-designated heritage assets.

Photographs copyright © Dan Cruickshank

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