63 FAULKNER RESI DENCE

FAULKNER
RESIDENCE
In the summer of 1675 Sir Christopher Wren made a report to the
Privy Council on a complaint against Nicholas and Cooke from
Nathaniel and John Tilly, the owners of houses on the south side
of Whites Row. He reminded the Council that when permission to
build had been granted to Nicholas and Cooke in November 1672
for ye Builders better direction there was annexed a design to ye
said Grant whereby a 24 foot Street is directed to be laid out and
left open before the houses of Mr Tilly which formerly fronted ye
said felds on the South. Wren reported that Nicholas and Cooke,
instead of making a street open on its northern side and 24 feet
wide, had begun to build another row of houses fronting ye houses
of ye said Mr Tilly and had obliged the lessees to enclose 16 feet
of the proposed width of the street in front of the new houses and
to convert ye same to private yards, leaving open only a
passageway ten feet wide in front of Tillys houses. They had also
failed to provide sewers, as was required in their patent, and had
raised the ground in front of Tillys houses in such a way as to
obstruct their ground floor and make them damp. Ogilby and
Morgans maps of 1677 and 1681, show nine houses in isolated
groups on the northern side of the street, presumably those erected
in contravention of the patent. The whole of the southern side is
shown occupied by a row of small houses, those said to have been
built by Tilly in about 1650. In the Gascoigne map of 1703 the whole
northern side is built-up. (From the Survey of London, page 145).
Built in the former Tenter Ground Estate, this fine merchants
house was created between 1724 and 1743. At that time there
were houses on both sides of the street. The house is double-fronted,
containing a semi-basement, three storeys and a roof garret. The
plan is simple, with staircase compartment between two rooms
of equal size; each with a small closet projecting at the back.
The yellow brick front has fve windows in each upper storey, but
Sketch of Faulkner Residence
64 CHRI S DYSON ARCHI TECTS 65 FAULKNER RESI DENCE
The aim externally was to strip away the white paint to the brick
frontage, repair and restore the masonry and timber windows and
place pleached limes and yew to the front area bringing both green
to the street and increasing the domestic privacy of the house. The
poor drainage locations have been moved to a more symmetrical
framed design in keeping with the character of the front elevation.
The rear aspect was dismal, and it is planned to improve the aspect
through a green wall on the east facing rear party wall, disguising
a blank fashionable, 80s brick elevation and providing greenery on
all sides of the wall, thus giving improved views both into and out
of the house.
The former garret in the roof is now a master bedroom with
access to the roof top terrace formed in 1970. This, in turn, is served
by a dumbwaiter from the large family dining room and kitchen
in the semi-basement. Here light floods into the newly glazed
courtyard also bringing air into the lower levels of the house which
had previously been dark, dank and depressing. Above this level
the house now has fve bedrooms, two receptions rooms and a study.
Closets that had been inserted to each landing of the staircase
in the 1970s have now been removed thereby returning space,
light and air to the centre of the house.
There are times when man extends his hold over the
surrounding chaos, and rationality is at the root of his
activity. Reason is now the intellectual force.
Architect, Berthold Lubetkin
the frst storey has one wide window, on each side of the central
doorway, the semi-basement windows being similar. All windows
except those to the basement have segmental arches of fne red
brick, the wide arches of the frst storey being skillfully formed with
brick joints conforming to a much shorter radius than that of the
arch segment. The middle windows were originally made with
segmental heads and thus informed our treatment of the remaining
replacements. The front face of the mansard, containing three
casement windows, is slated, and the upper slope of the roof
is pantiled.
The wooden door case is based on a design by James Gibbs and
Batty Langley. The door, with four fielded panels above the lock
rail, is recessed in a rectangular opening framed by a classical
architrave, its outer mouldings eared and broken across the head
into incising scrolls, fanking a bearded male mask surmounted by
a scallop-shell. The cornice-hood is supported by upright consoles,
rather large in scale, their sides carved with scrolls and the fronts
with reeding and foliage. The front areas, and the side ascent of
stone steps to the door, are guarded by simple railings of wrought
iron, the standards having tall-necked urn fnials.
The interior is well fnished, the rooms generally being lined with
plain panelling. That in the staircase hall is set in ovolo-moulded
framing, with a moulded chair-rail and a dentilled box cornice. The
staircase has cut strings ornamented with carved brackets, turned
balusters with plain and twisted shafts alternately, column-newels
and moulded handrails, the sofft of each fight being panelled. The
doors, with six felded panels, are framed by wide classical architraves.
In 1743 and 1759 the occupant was Thomas Jervis, esquire,
succeeded by Mary Jervis who occupied the house in 1766 and
1783. Jervis was a silk thrower who in 1744 was a trustee for the
parish almshouses.
He was doubtless the Thomas Jervis who in 1745 undertook to
raise four of his workmen against the Young Pretender. In 1752 he
was asked to lend the Spitalfelds churchwardens 100, and was
in the same year a trustee under the Local Act for building a new
workhouse. In 1770 the frm was known as Jervis and Son. In the early
nineteenth century the house was occupied and owned successively
by John McNeale and George Gozzard, both carpenters.
The house has been blighted, by poor planning decisions that
have allowed development to encroach on its character and setting.
However, the new ownership of Tenter Ground Buildings by Tracey
Emin and the current renovation of the houses on Artillery Passage by
Alex Sainsbury presages good neighbours and hopefully this group of
buildings can create a catalyst for quality in the future for this quarter
of Spitalfeldsparticularly in the light of the proposed development
of Whites Row Car Park and the Fruit and Wool Exchange.
66 CHRI S DYSON ARCHI TECTS 67 SLUG
Front elevation