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No.56 July 2003 | Contex HOME

LECTURE REPORT

UNDERSTANDING AND RECORDING STANDING BUILDINGS IN LONDON

Bill Bass

Andrew Westman of MoLSS started the Society’s May lecture by stressing th word understanding, to consider the use of buildings, who built them , why and how were they built? This would help put them in a wider historical and social context. There’s not much point in recording the bricks and morar without understanding them.  Also it helped to look beyond the structure and architecture as the uses and processes within a property are sometimes more interesting that the façade.

London’s population would of course have a major impact on the type and placing of buildings and the use of land.  Roman London’s population is estimated to have been around 20-30, 000 and remained fairly static to around 1500 AD when it is thought to be in the region of 50,000, still much smaller than many European cities (eg Paris at 200,000).  By 1700 the population was estimated to have expanded to 650,000, the largest city in Europe, and twenty times the sizes of the next biggest British town.  Further growth saw the million mark by 1800 and 4.5million by 1900 with 2 million occupying the outer suburbs.

Maps of London and Westminster gave examples of growth including the Cavendish Square comprehensive development, just west of Upper Regent Street (1810-1820) and Portland Place.  Land parcels were divided and sold-off according to field boundaries and lanes.  These developments came about by different means, for example.

1. An aristocratic lead (often but not necessarily the land-owner, whose town townhouse would be prominent).
2. A comprehensive news development – squares principal streets, secondary streets with services expected to set themselves up, a market and perhaps a church.
3. The speculative builder who puts up the buildings and assumes all the risk (therefore as cheaply as possible).

When a building is being investigated there are four main aspects of work, some often run concurrently:

Documentary and map research.  This can be carried out at any time and is useful to get a preliminary idea of what to expect and its probable significance.

Analysis. This can begin with initial work for the purposes of estimating if tendering for the job, or any time through t the last version of the report.

Reporting.  This is important as you must have a clear idea of what the end products is to be.  Is it to ‘preserve by record’ before demolition, and possibly during demolition?  Or is it to insure against disaster and enable reconstruction? Is it a building or a group of buildings, or only a part, because of refurbishment, or the installation of lifts or services? In any case the work is inevitably selective as it is impossible to preserve every nook, cranny and nuance of a structure.

Recording.  The above aspects of work will shape and indicate what to record and the type of recording necessary.  It’s a good idea to check if your building has already been the subject of recording elsewhere, as it may save a lot of work!  Generally plans are made of every floor, elevations are drawn and photographed.  All photos are black and white with increasing use of digital  cameras.

There are around 370, statutorily listed buildings in Britain (of which approximately 3000 are ‘at risk’/ and Local Planning Authorities can list their own locally.  Buildings don’t always have to be listed to be investigated   MoLAS usually tenders for work, which the owner or developer has to have carried out as part of Planning Policy Guidance 15.  As is the case with below ground archaeology, much of the work, strictly speaking, is to satisfy Local Planning Authorities who are advised by English Heritage on what needs to be surveyed.  The following four buildings were used by Andrew as illustrations.

Bromley Hall

This building stand on the busy A12 approach road to the Blackwall Tunnel and was once part of the Bromley Manor complex.  The importance of Bromley Hall, as a rare and comparatively complete survival of a brick structure from the early Tudor period, has been recognised by its II* grading. However, following a long period of vacancy whilst its future was being decided, it has suffered neglect and was placed on the Buildings at Risk Register. 

As the structure was to be refurbished a survey was undertaken.  The building is largely of late 15^th century construction, with dendro-analysis of the associated floor timbers giving a likely date of 1482-95.  Its square plan-form and internal arrangement suggest that the building may have originally been part of the gatehouse to the Manor estate, a position it appears to have at least partially retained until recent times, which it stood at the gated entrance to ‘Quag Lane’, the former road to Poplar.  The building retains moulded floor frames, door cases and partitions from its earliest phase, while the remains of an early octagonal staircase was found behind an 18^th century staircase.  During the early 18^th century Bromley Hall was heavily altered and remodelled as part of a printing works, when an upper storey and former (gabled) roof construction was replaced.  The present south wing was added in about 1925 when the building was converted for use as a small training hospital.  The east elevation was reconstructed

8 Shirehall Lane, Hendon

The building hers was part of the Hasmonean Primary School and being demolished for new classrooms.  It was also Grad II* listed and therefore needed surveying for planning permission.

The oldest structural remains, identified in the south-west of the building, probably of oak and the remnants of early timber framing, perhaps 17^th century in date.  Around the end of the 18^th century this building was extended sideways with one room above another.  The new rooms, built of timber studs with infilled brick, included a chimney stack to one side of a hipped rof.  Much of this earlier structure was extensively rebuilt in the late 1820’s with new internal arrangements – walls, staircases, fireplaces etc.  The external walls were rebuilt with a Regency Villa style frontage.

When surveying buildings a good rule is to study the back of them, which often reflects the true nature and date of the structure, while the building frontage are often changed according to fashion.

Often features looked at include the type of mortar or rendering. Details on the school were whited pebbledash, over mortar render scored to resemble ashlar masonry and probably painted grey-yellow (late 19^th century), over red brick (early `19^th century).

107 Jermyn Street SW1

This was a high status terraces town house in a fashionable part of London near to St James’s Street, Piccadilly.  The establishment, built in 1670, was not listed and has now been demolished.

It was always privately owned and this was not altered much over the years.  There was a typical terraced hose layout with each floor divide into front and back halves, 2 rooms (or one very big room) in front, with a small room behind and a staircase, and an even smaller room often projecting at one side to rear (closet wing).  A rather fancy staircase was fitted in 1710, This had thin turned balusters, fashionable in the early 18^th century, making this an early example.  Fortunately some of this staircase was salvaged for an architectural collection at the University of Greenwich.

One of the cellars, brick with simple barrel vault, extended under the front pavement and road.  The level of the street was actually raised to cut down on the amount of excavation necessary, which indicates the need for the development to be uniform and synchronised.  A basement at the rear opened out to a cellar level yard, with traces of the original ground level in the brick retaining wall at the back, the yard also led to a mews, stables and carriage house complex.

Later alterations included reinforcing the front basement with GPO red steel I beams or RSJs, for use in World War II as a Post Office or ARP shelter.

Hopton Street (formerly Bankside), Southwark

This was a factory and warehouse located between the Thames and Bankside power station (now Tate modern).  The original structure had been brick built in the mid Victorian period and comprised of the factory, warehouse, chimney and other building around a yard.

Features inside the factory showed changes of use over time. At some point a new timber roof was added, with a wall plate overlying irregular gaps in the side walls, also a new wall with steel girders, bolted or riveted was inserted to support a small travelling crane.  Traces of machinery included fixings for drive belts that transmitted a rotary motion, and a partial resurfacing may show the place of a backfilled former pit.  This may have been the site of a saw mill for mahogany with the timber being unloaded at a wharf opposite.  The yard was covered by a glazed roof by the time of a Goad Insurance plan of c.1914. The plan indicates this was partly a van factory, stables and smithy, then later a paper warehouse. The site was due to be demolished for possible offices and flats.